The Illusion of Cultural Identity 0226039625, 9780226039626, 2005006370

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THE ILLUSION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

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JEAN-FRANCOrS BAYART

The Illusion of Cultural Identity TRANSLATED BY STEVEN RENDALL, JANET ROITMAN, CYNTHIA SCHOCH, AND JO N ATHAN D ERRICK

The University o f Chicago Press

T h e U n iv ersity o f C h ica g o Press, C h ic a g o 60637 C . H u rst & C o. (Publishers) L td, L o n d o n W C 1 B 3P L R e v ise d and u p d a te d e d itio n © C . H u rs t & C o. (Publishers) L td, 2 0 0 5 All rights reserved. P ub lish ed 2005 P rin te d in India 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05

1 2 3 4 5

IS B N : 0 -2 2 6 -0 3 9 6 1 -7 (cloth) IS B N : 0 -2 2 6 -0 3 9 6 2 -5 (paper) First p u b lish ed in 1996 b y L ibrairie A rth e m e Fayard, Paris, as L ’Illusion Identitaire, © L ibrairie A rth e m e Fayard, 1996. L ibrary o f C ongress C a ta lo g in g -in -P u b lic a tio n D ata B ay art.Jean -F ran ^ o is. [Illusion identitaire. English] T h e illusion o f cultural id e n tity / Je an -F ran ^ o is B ayart ; tran slated by Steven R e n d all, ... [et al.]. p. cm . Includes biblio g rap h ical references an d in d ex . IS B N 0 -2 2 6 -0 3 9 6 1 -7 (cloth : alk. paper) — IS B N 0 - 2 2 6 -0 3 9 6 2 -5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. G ro u p identity. 2. M u lticu ltu ra lism . 3. D e v e lo p in g c o u n trie s— C iv iliza­ tio n — W e ste rn influences. I. T itle. H M 7 5 3 .B 3 8 5 1 3 2005 3 0 5 .8 '0 0 9 — dc22 2005006370 @ T h e p a p e r used in this p u b lic a tio n m eets th e m in im u m re q u ire m e n ts o f th e A m e ric a n N a tio n a l S tandard fo r In fo rm a tio n S ciences— P e rm a n e n c e o f P ap er fo r P rin te d L ibrary M aterials, A N S I Z 3 9 .4 8 -1 9 9 2 .

ACKNOW LEDGEM ENTS M y thanks first to the C entre d ’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI) o f the Fondation Nationale des Scien­ ces Politiques for having encouraged and financed the w riting o f the present work. It required the patience o f the two suc­ cessive directors o f the latter, Serge H urtig andJean-Luc D om enach, to can y this ‘special project’ through to completion, w ith a deplorable delay that did not, however, ham per their indul­ gence. I hope they will now accept my gratitude. M y colleagues at C E R I have helped me formulate my ideas in a comparative perspective. T he works o f Christophe Jaffrelot, Alain Dieckhoff, Pierre Hassner and Guy H erm et have been especially im portant in encouraging me to take an inter­ est in the issue o f nationalism, w hich I managed to elude throughout the 400 pages o f my book The Politics o f the State in Africa. To my particularly close colleagues in political science, history and anthropology who specialise in sub-Saharan Africa— especially Peter Geschiere, Achille M bem be, Janet R oitm an, C om i Toulabor, and Jean-Pierre Warmer, w ho have continued to stimulate me w ith their curiosity and habitual good hum our— I offer the customary salutations. Fariba Adelkhah deserves special m ention for having convinced the Turcophile that I am o f the charms o f Iranian society, and for having unceasingly re­ m inded m e that things are never as simple as political scientists w ould like them to be. To all these people my debt is great, and I am conscious that I have not been able to make the most o f so m uch intellectual generosity. I hope I have at least not betrayed the lessons I have been taught! H elene A rnaud devoted several sum mer days to a last re­ reading o f this book, which Sylvie Haas has once again, emulating v

VI

Acknowledgements

Champollion, extracted from the formless mass o f my writing. Last but not least, while the excellent Agnes Fontaine became more and more threatening on the telephone, Linda Amrani, Judith Arnaud, Richard Banegas, Rachel Bouyssou, Gregory Cales, Jean-Pierre Joyeux and Patrick T ruel threw themselves into the breach, battling a virus-—possibly identity-related but certainly computer-related— that sought to derail the publi­ cation o f this work, tracking dow n the Abbe Gregoire in the Bibliotheque Nationale, and seeking out the very elusive pro­ phet who, one evening, had visited Saddam Hussein, and w ho had escaped from my files o f newspaper clippings. To all o f you, thank you, and let’s get together next year for the arrival o f the Beaujolais Nouveau, under the rheum y gaze o f the owl! Paris, spring 2 0 0 5

J.-F.B.

CONTENTS Acknowledgements Foreword

page v ix

P a r t I. T H E B E A U J O L A IS N O U V E A U IS H E R E !

1

1. T h e In te r w e a v in g o f T ra d itio n s: G lo b a lis a tio n a n d C u ltu ra l C lo s u re

7

Three dreams o f identity The invention o f tradition as the invention o f modernity Cnltnralism as an ideology o f globalisation Christianity and globalisation in Africa 2. S h o u ld w e sto p u s in g th e w o r d ‘C u l t u r e ’?

Heritage or production? Cnltnral extraversion and the transfer o f meaning The fabrication o f authenticity The formation o f primordial identities Tableaux o f thought or tables o f the law? Political utterance

10 33 40 48 59 65

71 77 85 96 109

P a r t II. O W L S W I T H R H E U M Y E Y E S

122

3. T h e I m a g in a r y Polis

133

The irreducibility o f political im a g in a ire s The im a g in a ire , a principle o f ambivalence

137 163

4. T h e M a te r ia lis a tio n o f th e P o litic a l Imaginaire

181

The political symbolism o f hair In the political oven: the culinary p o lis The political symbolism o f clothing 77?e im a g in a ire , a principle o f incompleteness

185 188 195 226

C o n c lu s io n : th e P a ra d o x ic a l I n v e n tio n o f M o d e r n ity

233

Notes Index

253 297

vii

‘Traditionally, Asia is used to being governed with an iron hand: a Peter the Great or a Stalin does not surprise a country that was conquered by the Mongolians.’ (Andre Siegfried, Voyage aux hides, Paris: Armand Colin, 1951, pp. 81-2)

FOREW ORD This book is the fruit o f over thirty years’ research that I have carried out at C E R I since the late 1970s, since w hen my chief concerns have been the complex relationships betw een cul­ tural representations and political practices, popular modes of political action, and the political imaginaire— in short, what I call ‘politics from below ’ and ‘political utterance’.1* I have sought to explore these relationships by reference mainly to the societies o f sub-Saharan Africa, Turkey and Iran, on w hich I have w orked directly, but w ith the help o f numerous col­ leagues I have also made comparisons w ith South and East Asia, N o rth Africa and Europe. T he book was w ritten after conflicts in the form er Yugo­ slavia, the Caucasus, Algeria and the Great Lakes region o f Africa endow ed the concepts involved in my research, w hich had hitherto seemed rather abstract, w ith an immediate and tragic significance. These wars and insurgencies turned on the notion o f identity, drawing their lethal power from the assump­ tion that a so-called ‘cultural identity’ necessarily corresponds to a ‘political identity’. But each o f these ‘identities’ is at best a cultural construct, a political or ideological construct; that is, ultimately, a historical construct. There is no natural identity capable o f im posing itself on m an by the very nature o f things. T he old French expression designating the autochthonous people o f a country as les naturels is misleading. And the term ‘prim ordial identity’ currently used by anthropologists and political scientists is no better. T here are only strategies based on * T h e n o te s th a t ap p e ar at th e en d o f this v o lu m e in c lu d e o n ly b ib lio g rap h ical ref­ erences. T h e y can be ig n o red by a reader w h o does n o t w ish to ch eck m y sources.

IX

X

Foreword

identity, rationally conducted by identifiable actors— the Serb­ ian Com m unist apparatchiks converted into ultra-nationalists,

the Hutu extremists in Rwanda, and their respective militias— and dreams or nightmares o f identity to w hich we adhere be­ cause they enchant or terrify us. But we are not doom ed to re­ main under the pow er o f such spells, which demonstrated their inanity long before their ultimate cruelty was revealed: after the First W orld W ar, a Europe based on nationalities and ‘na­ tional economies’ immediately proved impracticable, and A dolf H itler has been called ‘a logical W ilsonian nationalist’.2 T he goal o f intellectual inquiry is precisely to help us ‘free ourselves from ourselves’: ‘W hat w ould be the value o f the search for knowledge if it sought only to acquire knowledge, and not also, in a certain fashion, to lead astray, as m uch as possible, the person w ho knows?’3 N othing seems more urgent, at the beginning o f the twenty-first century, than intellectually ‘leading astray’ the thinking citizen, insofar as it can spare him or her from making far more dangerous errors. There are few contem porary matters that do not involve the problem o f the illusion o f identity. The general opening up o f societies— ‘globalisation’— is accompanied by the exacerbation o f par­ ticular identities, w hether religious, national, or ethnic. This was illustrated some time ago by the paradox o f H eidegger having himself photographed in traditional Swabian garb.4 T he dialectical relationship betw een the tendency to universalisation and the assertion o f specificities underlies most of the phenom ena that are the major topics o f discussion: the ex­ tension o f the market economy and the concom itant audience for the democratic idea outside the W estern world, the intensi­ fication o f commercial exchange and the unprecedented ac­ celeration o f global inform ation flows, the rapid increase in migration, the revival o f overt racism in Europe, the deploy­ m ent o f ‘ethnic cleansing’ in recent conflicts, the demands of rebels in Chiapas, the vogue for ‘political correctness’ and multiculturalism in the U nited States, the rise o f H indu nationalism in India, and the p o st-9 /11 fate o f political Islam. In their

Foreword

XI

heterogeneity these manifestations, which are both rational and phantasmal, implore us to better understand the sources o f glo­ balisation and its obverse, withdrawal into the shell o f identity. This implies a political critique o f the concept o f culture, w hich is usually taken at face value. Is Confucianism the force behind the rise o f China, Japan and the newly industrialised countries in East Asia? Isn’t the West imposing on the rest o f the world its own definition o f hum an rights and dem o­ cracy? Is African culture compatible w ith a m ulti-party dem o­ cracy? Is Islam an insurm ountable obstacle to integrating N o rth Africans and Turks into W estern Europe? These are uncertainties, or rather overly entrenched certainties that we constantly encounter. Identity-related withdrawal in the political domain impedes intellectual and even moral inquiry. ‘They are Blacks, we are W hites. T h at’s w hy we must not intervene [in R w anda]’, a form er Gaullist minister declared in the National Assembly. A French military judge found that soldiers o f the French Foreign Legion guilty o f having summarily executed a poacher were operating under ‘extenuating circumstances’ because the crim e was com m itted in the Central African Republic, or, as he described it, ‘another planet’. A French M inister o f Culture maintained that the film Jurassic Park ‘imperilled French iden­ tity’. A form er prim e minister and future president o f the French R epublic argued that democracy is doom ed to fail in Africa because o f tribalism, and Samuel H untington gravely predicted that the twenty-first century w ould be dominated by the ‘clash o f civilisations’. W hat is amazing here is not that such absurdities are uttered w ith a straight face, but that they play an increasingly im ­ portant role in public debate, to the point that they end up organising it: ‘T he relativism o f cultural or historical values has becom e a comm onplace o f our society; it is often accom­ panied by the assertion, if not that we belong to different species or sub-species, at least that com m unication between

Xll

Foreword

cultures is impossible in principle’.5 T he debate is an ancient but urgent one. W hen it takes a form that collides not only with the researcher’s convictions but also w ith the conclusions drawn from tw enty years o f observing various societies, one must take part in it, less as a polemicist, a com m itted intel­ lectual, or a philosopher, than as an analyst o f political reality. T he goal pursued in the pages that follow is Nietzschean, but it remains modest: to underm ine identity-related nonsense by outlining an anti-culturalist examination o f the relationships between culture and politics. Political action is automatically cultural action; that at least is not in dispute. B ut culturalism cannot account for this quasi-synonymy because it defines cultures in a substantialist manner and assumes between cultures and political action a relationship o f exteriority in the form of an unequivocal causality. I am aware that a w hole intellectual tradition has posited culture as a principle o f openness and universality. T he first critics o f the Enlightenm ent did not completely reject the Kantian heritage; they rem ained pre­ nationalists and pre-culturalists, following the example o f Herder, w ho had not yet referred explicitly to ‘the spirit o f the people’ (Volksgeist),6 In fact, it was not till the advent o f G er­ man Romanticism that culture became a principle o f exclusion by being a badge o f uniqueness and belongingness, fuelling nationalism and, ultimately, far worse things. Even if we set aside the political consequences precipitated by the transfor­ mation o f the idea o f culture, today we find it very hard to grasp its relation w ith practices o f power or econom ic accumulation. However, this book is not limited to a critique o f ideologi­ cal, political, or academic culturalism, no m atter how engaging this task might be. By posing the problem o f the relationships between political and cultural action in a new way, it also seeks to contribute to a better understanding o f the birth o f the state. In their im portant book, Bruce Berm an and John Lonsdale suggested a distinction between ‘state-building’, as a conscious effort at creating an apparatus o f control, and ‘state formation, as an historical process whose outcom e is a largely unconscious

Foreword

X lll

and contradictory process o f conflicts, negotiations, and com ­ promises betw een diverse groups’.7 A reader familiar w ith my earlier works will see that I am chiefly interested in this second process, w hich I also address in the following pages. Analysing the cultural dimension inherent in political action should help us to refine our analyses o f ‘state form ation’ and to reflect on the often paradoxical invention of w hat w e conventionally call ‘m odernity’. In order to do so I have found it useful to return to the fre­ quently neglected achievements of Tocquevillian and Weberian historical sociology, and to acknowledge that this approach remains highly productive, particularly w hen employed by his­ torians and anthropologists. Thus a third and final way of reading my critical precis o f identity-related absurdities is to see in it an invitation to return to some o f the key texts of political science, whose heuristic pow er has not diminished over time. It is not a m atter o f retreating into pedantic acade­ micism, but rather o f drawing from a new reading o f these works an augmented interpretative imagination, for, as [Tocfque^ ville said in the introduction to the first edition o f his D em o ­ cracy in America, ‘we need a new political science for a new w orld’. W hen we return to these fundamental works, we are struck by the way their inquiries converge. Intellectuals have w orked indefatigably to erect walls separating approaches that are m ore com plem entary than opposed, and to reduce living thought to schools. O ne way o f reading this book is to follow the thread that connects Foucault w ith Spinoza, Tocqueville, Weber, Troeltsch and Elias.

Part I THE BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU IS HERE! In its D ecem ber 1988 issue La G azette, a newspaper published in Douala, reported on a ‘fine party’ that took place in Bayangam, on the high plateau o f western Cameroon. M onsieur Andre Sohaing, a w ell-know n businessman, was celebrating his nom ination to the office o f fowagap, that is, great chief coun­ sellor o f his native village. T he ceremony also included three other elements: M . Sohaing was simultaneously celebrating his tw enty-third w edding anniversary, the inauguration o f a pri­ vate chapel he had had built on his own land, and his initiation as a m em ber o f the Com pagnons du Beaujolais. ‘All in all’, the journalist concluded, ‘an unforgettable party and a rewarding discovery for all the guests, w ho left Bayangam w ith the m em ory o f a charming village in a beautiful setting w ith a mild climate. And each guest had only one thing to say: Thank you, Sohaing A ndre!’ According to our intellectual categories, this event is easy to explain. We are in Africa, in a T hird World country. A hack w orking for the local paper reports, in his native language, a custom: a local notable is ennobled by the traditional chief o f his village, w ho rewards him in this way for his ‘actions’, his ‘achievements’, his ‘remarkable acts’. M oreover this big man is also a capitalist boss, a Christian to boot, and apparently a good, m onogam ous husband. B ut in him the heart o f deepest Africa still beats. R oll the drums! B ut this report tells the attentive reader about something other than the resurgence o f traditional culture. First, w hat 1

2

Tlic Beaujolais Nouveau is Here!

culture are we talking about? T he Bamileke o f C am eroon are a composite group from the point o f view o f their modes o f political organisation and language.1They have diverse origins and offer a now classic example o f ethnogenesis: Bamileke society is a ‘frontier’ society in the American sense o f the term; it was constructed by emigrants, or pioneers w ho came from various places. The economic ethos o f this group, whose en­ ergy is praised or feared in Cam eroon, is in reality differentia­ ted, and the munificence shown by M onsieur Sohaing should not deceive us; it corresponds, at least partially, to an ethics o f retention among entrepreneurs to w hich the practices o f dis— accumulation on the part o f other Bamileke actors are opposed. In its ‘traditional’ form the Bamileke chiefdom— w hich, in contrast to many such institutions in Africa, was not the creation o f colonialism— has nonetheless undergone signifi­ cant transformations since the eighteenth century. As a result o f the integration o f the Bamileke region into the global market, and then o f colonial occupation, the chiefs were on the w hole able to evade surveillance by the councils o f notables and com ­ moners that surrounded them , expand their powers and enrich themselves considerably. D uring the 1950s and ‘60s, they were almost bankrupted by the nationalist movem ent and the rebellion o f their ‘social juniors’.* M ost o f their palaces were burned down. Nonetheless, the institution o f chiefdom was reconstructed, often in the literal sense o f the term , and taken over by new elites versed in W estern knowledge. In the Bam i­ leke region, as in many African societies, a traditional chief is often also a political dignatory, akin to a mayor, or even more often, a CEO. As the G azette’s reporter put it, ‘everything is done to ensure that the opening to m odernity is in accord w ith fidelity to tradition’. Tradition, in other words, is neither static nor unanimous. It adapts more or less to change and gives rise to contradictory interpretations on the part o f autochthonous actors themselves. Since the establishment o f a * See m y The State in Africa (L o n d o n : L o n g m a n , 1993), pp. 112 fF.

H ie Beaujolais Nouveau is Here!

3

m ulti-party system in 1990, the Bamileke region has been one o f the strongholds o f the opposition to the president o f the R epublic, but many chiefs and businessmen w ere subjected to strong political, banking, fiscal, and police pressure by the regime, and ultimately w ere coerced to support the president’s candidacy in the 1992 election. A nd so the roots o f tradition grow deeper and deeper. R uddy-cheeked, and wearing their blue aprons, the w ine­ makers o f the Beaujolais region can ‘officiate according to the secular rites o f their order ... in the bucolic setting ofB ayangam ’. T hey bear the fragrance o f ‘the French soil’ and are every bit as traditional as the local feathered dancers. T he party thrown by A ndre Sohaing gives concrete form to ‘the conjunction o f giving and receiving, so dear to Leopold Sedar Senghor’, our lyrical journalist observes. ‘O n the one hand, the represen­ tatives o f the Beaujolais region give new life, in the tropics, to certain customs o f the French heartland, and on the other, their Cam eroonian hosts exhibit some aspects o f the rich and living heritage o f the Bamileke region’. However, m odernity also grows apace. T he presence in C am eroon o f the Com pagnons du Beaujolais attests to sound business sense, a praiseworthy devotion to the new cult o f the 1980s that consisted in exporting w ine and conquering the international market. Two days before, the Compagnons had ‘officiated’ in the same way, ‘in accord w ith the secular rites o f their order’, in the gardens o f the Akwa palace— whose owner is none other than M onsieur Sohaing— in order to offer ‘hun­ dreds o f guests’ an opportunity to taste Beaujolais Nouveau. In any event, one should not assume that one has to choose betw een tradition and modernity. T he traditions o f French w inegrow ing are a recent invention. T he first Bacchic broth­ erhood, the Chevaliers du Tastevin, was created only in 1934, in N uits-Saint-G eorges. Its Burgundian prom oters were con­ cerned above all w ith arresting the drop in sales that followed Prohibition in the U nited States, the econom ic crisis o f 1929

4

The Beaujolais Nouveau is Here!

onwards and the rise o f protectionism in Europe. And the ‘ro­ tating St Vincent’, w hich takes place in January, the first Sunday after the feast-day o f the patron saint o f winemakers— it is held each year in a different village, sometimes in the C ote de Nuits, sometimes in the C ote de Beaune— was established by the Chevaliers du Tastevin only in 1938, w ith a scarcely veiled commercial aim. T he founding o f the brotherhoods in the Bordeaux w ine-producing region is even m ore recent: the Academie des vins de Bordeaux and the Com m anderie du Bontemps de M edoc et des Graves were both founded in 1950.2Monsieur Sohaing, w ho was, the G azette tells us, already a Comm ander o f the Grand Conseil de Bordeaux and a Knight o f the Coteau de Champagne, is thus buying into m odern mercantile folklore. The history o f wine in France is, moreover, one o f perm anent innovation. W ine consum ption itself is not a stable marker o f French identity: it spread throughout the country and supplanted beer and cider after the First W orld War, thanks to mobilisation and rationing, and has continued to evolve since the middle o f the century, diminishing in quantity but moving toward better-quality wines. In the Cameroonian context o f the 1980s, the ritual invol­ ved in tasting Beaujolais nouveau amounts to w hat historians o f colonisation have called ‘a working misunderstanding’. French winegrowers came to sell and were dum bfounded by local customs: ‘A m em ber o f the Beaujolais delegation, M o n ­ sieur Chevrier, carried away by the atmosphere, did not hesitate to join the dancers o f the Bayangam chiefdom w ho enlivened the gathering from beginning to end.’ Andre Sohaing, whose successive initiations seem not to have refined his palate— from Bordeaux to Beaujolais, what a fall!— resorts to W estern cul­ tural symbols in order to gain a certain legitimacy, not only in his own country or w ith regard to his foreign partners, but also in the eyes o f his native place. In its kitsch character, the scene is almost wilfully ‘post-m odern’, and no doubt allows us to see in the flesh the ‘reinvention o f difference’ discussed by James Clifford:3 globalisation is not synonymous w ith increasing

The Beaujolais Nouveau is Here!

5

cultural uniformity. H ow ever, these ‘Blacks’ and ‘W hites’ drink the same wine, share the same religious faith and try out the same dance steps. N o t long ago, one group was the master, the other the slave, and perhaps some day they will once again com e into conflict based on the colour o f their skin. A few years after Sohaing’s initiation, the Social Democratic Front, w hich was well established in western Cam eroon, called for a boycott o f French products— including Beaujolais!— in order to protest Francois M itterrand’s support for President Biya. B ut in Bayangam, on that fine day in N ovem ber 1988, friendship and ambivalence prevailed. From this point o f view one could say, parodying Gramsci, that Beaujolais N ouveau is the ‘organic’ beverage o f the Franco-African historical bloc (and for an opponent o f the colonial pact like me, nothing is m ore hum iliating than to have to swallow this in a N ovotel [a French hotel chain] in a tropical capital.*) T he traditional concept o f culture is not o f m uch help in understanding the party in Bayangam, in either its French or its Cam eroon aspects. Nonetheless, M onsieur Sohaing’s strategy o f pow er or social ascent and the econom ic activity o f the Beau­ jolais producers clearly have a cultural dimension: the w ine­ growers wear folkloric costumes; the chiefdom ’s notables wear clothes that could be described as neo-M uslim; the wom en wear a sort o f neo-British, w ide-brim m ed hat that is probably ridiculed outside Bayangam and Sohaing wears a suit and tie. H ow should we understand such cultural practices, w hich are often exuberant and constantly changing, w ithout reifying them in a series o f cliches regarding the economic and political mentalities o f a people? H ow can we stop seeing the en­ counter o f ‘civilisations’ as an inevitable ‘clash’? H ow can we * T o b e fair, w e sh o u ld ac k n o w led g e th a t ch a m p a g n e is the o rg an ic beverage o f F ra n c o -A fric a n relations. In 1989 A frica im p o rte d U S $ 1 5 to U S $ 2 0 m illio n w o rth o f c h a m p a g n e, an d C a m e ro o n was th e largest A frican purchaser. B y calling it iro n ­ ically ‘h o m e w a te r’, th e B am ileke, w h o d rin k a g reat deal o f ch am p ag n e, reveal th e ir in tim a te u n d e rsta n d in g o f th e w o rk o f th e Italian M arx ist p h ilo s o p h e r th a t does th e m h o n o u r. O n th e n o tio n o f th e h isto rical p o stc o lo n ia l bloc, see m y The State in Africa, ch. V II.

6

The Beatijolais Nouveau is Here!

avoid thinking o f acculturation and globalisation as a simple zero-sum game in w hich adherence to foreign representations and customs inevitably leads to a loss o f substance and authen­ ticity? Such are the initial questions we shall try to answer in order to underm ine identity-related absurdities. W e can sum them up thus: how can we formulate the relationship betw een culture and politics w ithout being culturalists?

1

THE INTERWEAVING OF TRADITIONS G LO B A LISA TIO N A N D C U L T U R A L C L O SU R E T he m odern w orld is haunted by the spectre o f difference van­ ishing. It fears that everything will becom e uniform and, as a result, there is a ‘general anxiety w ith regard to identity’. Thus Pierre Hassner writes: I am afraid that the celebrated cultural identities are being erased by m o d ­ ernisation, by A m ericanisation, by television, by a w hole process o f m aking m odes o f life uniform . Yet at the same tim e, w ith in this universality, the n eed to distinguish oneself is becom ing stronger. People used to say that the Fifth R ep u b lic becam e A m ericanised w hile rem aining anti-A m erican; today we are A m ericanising ourselves w hile at the same tim e inventing an exaggerated cultural identity in order to distinguish ourselves from others.1

This ‘com bination o f interconnection and heterogeneity’ sets in m otion com plex cultural mechanisms that ought to be evaluated w ith equal complexity. Before postm odern anthropologists emphasised the ‘reinven­ tion o f difference’ inherent in globalisation, the French his­ torian Fernand Braudel noted that the ‘industrial civilisation’ exported by the West is ‘only one o f the characteristics o f Western civilisation’, and that ‘by accepting it the world does not neces­ sarily accept at the same time the whole o f that civilisation. O n the contrary.’2 This can be seen even at the heart o f the capi­ talist m ode o f production, for example in the methods and spirit o f industrial m anagem ent and in the consum ption o f its m ost emblematic products. T he ‘cultural biography’ o f a M ercedes is n ot the same in G erm any as it is in Africa; and 7 f

8

The Interweaving o f Traditions

O shin, the Japanese soap opera, or parades o f drum -m ajorettes

involve specific values and social roles that differ from one country to another.3 O ne o f the ‘creative team leaders’ for CocaCola International at the advertising agency M cCann-Erickson thus rightly protests against reproaches o f ‘Coca-Colonisation’: [They are] w rong because all the thing wants to do is to refresh you, and it is willing to understand your culture, to be m eaningful to you and to be relevant to you. W hy is that called C oca-colonisation? Because values are being im posed from som ew here ex tern al... I d o n ’t think they are. I d o n ’t think that’s true. I think that friendship was there, is there, and will be there forever. It was there before C oke. If C oke disappears, friendship will always be there. W hat C oke does is it treats friendship accordingly. In Japan, that m eans one kind o f thing, and in Brazil another. A nd C oke acknowledges these differences, but C oke stands for friendship. So, w h a t’s w rong w ith that? I m ean, I d o n ’t think that th a t’s an im position o f a value. I d o n ’t think that C oca-C ola projects. I think that C oca-C ola reflects.4

In fact, one cannot imagine a cultural appropriation that is not subject to this kind o f creative diversion. In eighteenth-century Russia, Peter the Great’s reforms gave rise to social institutions that were entirely foreign to the intellectual and moral univ­ erse o f Western Europe, to w hich they nonetheless appealed. For example, the proponents o f the Enlightenm ent established harems composed o f educated young w om en w ho were dressed in the European rather than in the Russian m anner (and were, significantly, deprived o f their grand clothes and sent hom e if they went astray). In everyday life, the subjective feeling o f ‘Europeanisation’ did not coincide w ith a genuine convergence w ith W estern social practices. Conversely, there m ight be a genuine Europeanisation o f some customs that were not perceived as such,5 like the ‘W esternisation’ and ‘Americanisation’ stigmatised by those w ho now attack ‘glo­ balisation’ and other forms o f ‘cultural aggression’. Anthropologists and international relations specialists argue that the reinvention o f difference inherent in globalisation takes place first w ithin the level o f local societies, and manifests itself in the exacerbation o f identity-related particularisms.6

The Interweaving o f Traditions

9

Kemalism, a ‘globalising’ m ovem ent if there ever was one, saw civilisation only in the W est and drew the most extreme conclusions in order to free Turkey from ‘general ridicule’, to use A tatiirk’s ow n words. B ut it also ensured the political victory o f Anatolia over the cosmopolitan R oum elia, and the westernisation o f the country w ent hand in hand w ith the rehabilitation or reconstruction o f a ‘T urkish’ culture that was supposed to act as ‘custodian o f the spirit o f “the ‘people’” , in contrast to O ttom an civilisation.7 In our ow n time, conflicts * in the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Indian sub­ continent and Africa, in w hich identity plays a major role, belong to the same historical stage as the internationalisation o f the econom y under the leadership o f neo-liberal ideolo­ gues, although there is no obvious connection betw een the tw o phenom ena. It is a com m on error to attribute this irreducibility o f dif­ ference to the influence o f ‘culture’, or m ore precisely to the exclusive relationship each individual is supposed to have w ith ‘his’ culture. Certainly we know from having read M ax W eber that m an is an animal caught in webs o f meaning he has him ­ self woven. There is no activity, even o f an economic nature, that does not immediately produce meanings and symbols. U nderstanding a social, econom ic or political phenom enon amounts to deciphering its ‘cultural reason’, as we have been taught by a w hole anti-utilitarian school o f anthropology: ulti­ mately ‘it is culture that constitutes utility’.8 B ut it is not certain that the ‘cultural reason’ that we all think we depend upon actually determines our actions, or even that it exists as a totality or a tangible system.9 For ex­ ample Tocqueville is w rong in maintaining that ‘alongside each religion there is a political opinion that is joined to it by affinity’. H e tacitly admits as m uch a few lines later w hen he tries to account for the Irish paradox: ‘These Catholics show great faithfulness in their practices o f worship, and are full o f ardour and zeal for their beliefs; but they nonetheless con­ stitute the most republican and most democratic group in the

10

The Interweaving o f Traditions

U nited States.’ T o explain this, de Tocqueville is forced to leave the terrain o f the sociology o f mentalities and enter that o f the sociology o f religious organisation: the political inac­ tivity o f priests is the condition sine qua non o f Catholics’ adherence to democracy and their emancipation from the duty o f obedience.10 W e could m ention other factors, such as the political conditions o f England’s occupation o f Ireland and the conformist tendencies o f immigrants eager to be inte­ grated, and emphasise that in Argentina, by contrast, Italian Catholics tended to support authoritarian nationalism. Three dreams o f id en tity

The culturalist argument is always a substitute for a dem on­ stration. However, it has perhaps never been so m uch in fashion as it is today. W hen the rise o f East Asia’s industrial economies is analysed, the Confucian legacy is com m only invoked, often in a rather contradictory manner, and the Japanese example is cited to prove that capitalism can turn tra­ dition to its own advantage. T he art o f the ‘developer’ is said to consist in making the most o f this cultural capital and adapting business management to it.11 Various cases of ‘ethno-developm ent’ are supposed to support this point o f view, namely those o f the Indian and Chinese diasporas, and o f the Bamileke in Cam eroon or the Sfaxians in Tunisia. U nfortunately the limits to this kind of act o f faith are fairly clear. It implies that ‘developm ent’ involves no more than looking ‘one’s own cul­ ture’ straight in the eye. Apart from the fact that things are not so simple on the macro-econom ic level, it is difficult to locate this ‘culture’ and assess its effects. Long praised by all and sundry, the cultural dimension o f the Japanese economic miracle is now being questioned. T he cele­ brated concept o f the firm as a large family, supposedly one o f the keys to Japan’s success, does not testify to an eternal Japan­ ese character. It is one facet o f the construction, in the 1930s, o f an authoritarian and nationalist family-state, o f w hich the

Three dreams o f identity

11

E m peror was supposed to be the father. Its ideology evolved at a time w hen industry was no longer led, as it had been in the M eiji period, by individual and patrimonial bosses, but by bureaucratic managers trained at the University o f T okyo.12 M ore generally, ‘exchanges and the influence o f foreign cul­ tures transformed Japanese culture m ore than any other’.13 Thus Paul Veyne compares the Japanese o f The Tale o f G enji and o f the postwar period to the ancient Rom ans, ‘a people w ho took their culture from that o f another people, the Greeks’.14 In fact the culturalist m yth o f the Japanese miracle goes back only to the beginning o f the 1970s. It emerged during a conference on the modernisation o f the Japanese archipelago held in H akone, but for some time it has been giving way to a m ore political approach to the state and the nation: the uniqueness o f Japan is seen as consisting less in its insularity and as ow ing m ore to historical and East-Asian dim ensions.15 It is now acknowledged that this economic trajectory was extremely antagonistic. Historians have exhum ed memories o f dissension that are as eloquent as the invented tradition o f con­ sensus, and the num ber o f mentally ill people hospitalised— nearly three times as many as in the U nited States w ith a popu­ lation only half as large— does not suggest celestial harm ony am ong the Japanese in either their economic condition or their culture.16T he ‘ants’, to paraphrase a form er French prime minister, make demands and protest as m uch as they obey and produce. T he neo-C onfucian m odel is unable to explain such behaviour, w hich it w ould describe at best as ‘deviant’,just as it is doom ed to remain silent about the indiscipline, the cor­ ruption, the decline o f institutions and the rampant criminality in China. Ultimately the social struggle and disorder that constitute any historical configuration become, for a culturalist, synony­ mous w ith anomie and alienation. But, one wonders, are rep­ resentatives o f the Buddhist Komeito, the Christian churches and left-w ing parties w ho refused to attend the ceremony

12

The Interweaving o f Traditions

celebrating the enthronem ent o f the Em peror Akihito in 1990 on the pretext that it contravened the separation o f religion and state stipulated by the constitution less ‘J apanese’ than other Japanese?17 And the Koreans and Taiwanese w ho de­ manded and obtained the democratisation o f their countries— aren’t they still Koreans and Taiwanese? O f course, the problem is not posed in this way. O n the one hand, political or economic action in East Asia, as in any part o f the world, is coloured by a strong cultural connotation. In China, M ao’s personality cult used and abused the ideogram shong (loyalty) and badges in the form o f a heart, whose C o n fucian meaning was clear.18As for Taiwanese businessmen, they do nothing w ithout consulting an astrologer. N one o f these cultural practices suffices to explain political or econom ic ac­ tion. The latter involves far more complex orders o f causality, and it is the great m erit o f French Sinology to have dem on­ strated this.19 Thus the cunning shown by the ‘cat’ D eng Xiaoping in capturing the ‘m ouse’ o f economic growth is fairly foreign to the Confucian legacy. R ather, it belongs to the dynamic continuity o f a particular form o f governm ent, that o f the ‘distended em pire’, whose trajectory is in no way syn­ onymous w ith the country’s history, even though it has been a major tendency for centuries. In addition, the ‘cat’s’ talent is particularly effective in the ‘blue’ China that was already the epicentre o f a luxurious w orld-econom y in the thirteenth and fourteen centuries, and w hich sheltered the ‘golden age’ o f the Chinese bourgeoisie before the C om m unist R evolution. At least for the m om ent, the ‘Asian renaissance’ is above all a re­ naissance o f this maritime space w hich will perhaps be en­ dowed w ith political institutions as the result o f the Taiwanese experience, in contrast to the ‘m odernisation w ithout institu­ tionalisation’ that characterised D eng’s econom ic reforms.20 It is much more than a simple revival o f Confucianism— such as the relatively belated ritualisation o f social life, particularly in Taiwan— and at the same time rather less than such a revival, to the extent that reform has yet to have full impact on Vietnam

Three dreams o f identity

13

or N o rth Korea, w hich some in Beijing regard as part o f ‘Greater C hina’. O nly recourse to a history that is both general and none­ theless differentiated provides a better understanding o f the trajectories followed by Asian countries. Evidently such a history must pay heed to cultural representations, insofar as it must attend to their transformation over time and the speci­ ficities o f the actors and circumstances. But, in the end, the analysis cannot be lim ited to this level o f knowledge. At best, culturalism produces absurdities: ‘O ne can regard M ao as an “anal” leader trying to transform an “oral” society’, R .H . Solo­ m on sententiously declares.21 At worst— and the worst is often inevitable in this area— it leads to a phantasmal perception o f the w orld that quickly turns into the rise o f identity-related malaise. T he Islamophobia that has gripped France and other W estern nations is part o f this pathology. O ne o f its first symp­ toms was a hallucinatory discourse on the Shia threat, gen­ erated by the repercussions o f the Iranian revolution. In order to make sense o f this mad idea, one has to realise that the overthrow o f the Pahlavi monarchy was not a Shia revolution, or even a religious revolution in the true sense. R ather, it was ‘a political revolution that operated in the manner, and had to some extent the appearance, o f a religious revolution’, as de Tocqueville said o f the French R evolution. It is incontestable that popular Shia religious feeling provided the basic voca­ bulary and the pathos o f the great mobilisations o f 1978, and the factions that rook up the reins o f pow er under the new regim e had forged their radical ideology w ithin the religious field during the 1960s and 70s. B ut it w ould be hard to locate a causal relationship betw een the Shia faith (or identity) and the uprising o f the Iranian people. After all, many Sunni Iranians, in particular the Kurds, participated in it. M any Shia Iranians identified w ith the quietism stigmatised by the revolu­ tionary philosopher Ali Shariati, and most o f the clergy did not endorse K hom eini’s views. T he Islamic R epublic is not a

14

The Interweaving o f Traditions

republic o f the mullahs, as is automatically assumed, and still less that o f the ayatollahs, some o f the most em inent o f w hom have expressed reservations or even gone over to the oppo­ sition. At most, the revolution involved certain m iddle-rank­ ing clergy, allied w ith laymen. It was begun only at the price o f ferocious repression directed against m en and w om en w ho were just as ‘Shia’ as its founding fathers: monarchists, liberals, but also religious dignitaries w ho protested at its innovations in the domain o f political theology or its economic planning, as well as militant revolutionaries w ho w anted to blend Islam w ith Marxism.22 Again we see that the culturalist interpre­ tation overlooks contradiction and political conflict as factors. M oreover it is hard to explain w hy the ‘Shia’ revolution did not spread beyond Iran’s borders and sweep along w ith it Ali’s adepts living in Lebanon, the G ulf and Pakistan.23 Since the same causes are supposed to have the same effects, we have to concede that the ‘Shia’ variable in the fall o f the Shah was less decisive than other social factors. However, despite this incontrovertible evidence, French journalists and politicians nonetheless designated Shiism as the ‘Enem y’, even before the conflagration in Algeria and the thesis o f a ‘clash o f civilisations’ allowed them to extend their siege-mentality psychosis to political Islam as a whole. W hen the car workers at Talbot and C itroen w ent on strike in 1982, Gaston Deferre, the then French minister o f the interior, pro­ claimed that they were ‘fundamentalists, Shias’.24 W hen Saddam Hussein launched his war against Iran,Jacques Chirac, the then prime minister, immediately w ent to his aid: ‘Iran poses an extraordinary danger to us ... and our com m on objective should be ... to prevent the spread o f fundamentalism in the region. France plays its part in this context by helping Iraq to contain it’.25 If M uslim girls cover their heads w ith veils, this can only be at the behest o f the malevolent authorities in Teheran. If Algerian Islamist fighters kidnap, sexually enslave and then kill young w omen, this has to be a case o f tem porary marriage, the famous siqeh o f the Shias, w hich is still practised

Three dreams o f identity

15

in Iran despite the disapproval o f the authorities o f the Islamic R epublic, and w hose features are nonetheless rather dif­ ferent.26 T hank God, ‘the vast majority o f the Muslim com ­ m unity in France is Sunni-M alekite, a m oderate com m unity that wants to be assimilated and has nothing to do w ith ter­ rorism or protest’, the President o f the R epublic informs us.27 This selective perception o f the facts is induced by the cul­ turalist interpretation. Consider the report o f a W estern intel­ ligence agency, w ritten in 1992. Its author appends a line of Persian poetry as an epigraph: ‘It takes only one spark to set this universe on fire.’ T he tone is set! T he report goes on to explain: T h e im perial destiny o f the Persian people is deeply anchored in the col­ lective unconscious o f the Iranians; [...] It is this that gives every Iranian a national p rid e that som etim es borders on pretension. This im perial destiny still underlies the current developm ent o f Iran. Even the religious speci­ ficity o f Persia, N estorian in the C hristian era and Shia in the M uslim era, shares in the consciousness o f the nation s im perial destiny. Today S h iis m and Iranian nationalism are so identical that it is difficult to say if the export o f the Islamic revolution urged by the Im am K hom eini has as its goal the victory o f Islam o r the re-establishm ent o f the Persian Em pire. T h e ultim ate goal o f K hom eini and his successors, K ham enei and Rafsanjani, m ight well be the same as that o f the Shah, even if the strategies differ: the restoration o f the E m p ire’.

B ut these different strategies are based on a fundamental cul­ tural characteristic: W h e n speaking o f Iran, one m ust keep constantly in m ind the n o tio n o f ketman or taqiyah. T hese term s could be translated as ‘dissim ulation’, ‘tric k ery ’, or ‘duplicity’, b u t they m ust be given a religious con n o tatio n that relieves th e m o f everything the W est m ight see as evil in this m ode o f behaviour. F or the Iranian, this behaviour is good, and the Shia clergy teaches it (m ore than do the Sunnis). N o th in g the Iranians say or do can be taken at face value. This ‘dissim ulation’ is clearly justified w h e n the interests o f religion or the E m pire are at stake. [...] In accord w ith the same principle that asserts the prim acy o f the religious over the political and the econom ic, the people, the elite and the leaders seek in concert the victory o f Islam, w h ich is seen as ‘oppressed’, over W estern im perialism , a source o f

16

The Interweaving o f Traditions

oppression. T w o weapons have been privileged since 1979: hatred o f the W est and the practice o f ‘lying’ as a means o f achieving the victory o f the Islamic revolution over Christianity and Judaism . T h e procedures devised for attracting capital and technology from the W est are part o f this tactic.

O nce this culturalist principle is outlined, the inane m echan­ ism is set in motion: T h e w eakening o f Iraq has n o t only elim inated for a tim e the threats posed along the border, but m ight also create a tem ptation to reconquer, through the Iraqi Shia interm ediaries, the holy city o f Karbala, so dear to the hearts o f thousands o f Iranian Shias. If Iran is currently opposed to a dism em ­ bering o f Iraq, it is perhaps because it wants to swallow it up as a w hole, in order to reconstitute the Persian Em pire.

But the most tangible threat has to do w ith nuclear prolif­ eration: T h e im perial idea, for either the Shah o r the Ayatollah, m eans possessing nuclear weapons. In the eyes o f all T hird-W orld countries, this is the sym bol o f independence and power.* [...] Proliferation has a religious dim ension. N uclear weapons are an im portant argum ent for the Iranian mullahs sent as missionaries to the M id-E ast and to Africa. It is a victorious surah added to the Iranian Koran [sic].

Evidence o f the Iranian desire to acquire nuclear weapons is ‘weak’, as the author o f the report him self acknowledges, but there is one piece o f evidence he describes as ‘rather strong’, namely the visit o f inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency: ‘If one wants to hide something, a good way to do so is to show, through inspections that risk nothing, that one has nothing to hide. T hat is truly the way a good Iranian, an adept o f taqiyah or dissimulation, thinks.’ Here, o f course, we are concerned wholly w ith intentions; lacking any ‘absolute proof o f Iranian activities in the area o f nuclear arm am ents’, the indictm ent is based on cultural presuppositions. ‘In order for this to be convincing, one has to take into consideration the statements made by the leaders and Iran’s political and * A p h an tasm ag o ria w h ic h France, an in d u strial an d C artesian n a tio n , has escaped, as every o n e know s!

Three dreams o f identity

17

religious interest in possessing nuclear w eapons’. O rphaned by the end o f the C old W ar, the author constructs the Iranian threat on the m odel o f the Com m unist threat. A statement by President Rafsanjani, w ith his determination to combine W estern technology w ith fidelity to revolutionary principles, is immediately connected w ith Lenin’s famous comment: ‘Capitalists will sell us everything, even the rope to hang them w ith .’ Iran is supposed to embody a ‘revolutionary Islam’ that has becom e ‘the fundamental w eapon o f its imperial will’: This w eapon is training a w hole group o f students com ing from all parts o f the Islamic w orld to the Islamic universities in Q om . It is the financial support given to Islamic m ovem ents o f oppressed m inorities in various M uslim states. It is the hope, given to all the disinherited, o f a better world, th ro u g h a retu rn to the ancient K oranic law. Iran wants to be the bearer o f Islamic messianism. In this it has superseded the Soviet U n io n , once the hope o f proletarians, w ith its L um um ba U niversity in M oscow and its support for local revolutionary m ovem ents. It has the same advantages as the U S S R , the land o f proletarians. Since the defeat at Karbala in 680, Iran has been the land o f suffering, o f the disinherited and martyrs. It is the herald o f their hopes.

We should not underestimate the change represented by such ‘revolutionary Islam’, compared to w hich Palestinian terrorism seems respectable. T h e terrorism o f the past ten years involved Arabs fighting for the Arab cause, for Arab land in Palestine. Psychologically, the terrorist o f the 1980s is a soldier and uses a soldier’s weapons: explosives, firearms, even naked blades. [...]. T h e terrorist o f A bu N idal o r the Palestine Liberation O rgani­ sation sees him self as the perpetuation o f the Arab horsem en w ho created the E m pire o f the Um ayyads and the Fatimids; a knight o f Allah, using the sabre, the rifle and, if necessary, explosives [.sic]. H e is fighting against an enem y w h o is also a soldier. O u r crusades are the p ro o f o f this. For revolu­ tionary Islam, things are com pletely different. T h e enem y has becom e an ‘infidel m isbeliever’. H e is totally hateful; he is the Great Satan w ho, using his technology, has hum iliated the Islam o f the Fathers. H e m ust n o t only be defeated b ut also punished and destroyed by annihilating his technology, the foundation o f his pow er and the driving force behind his social devel­ opm ent. If Iranian agencies get involved in terrorism , the m ethods used will be very different from those w e have know n up till now.

18

The Interweaving o f Traditions

Confronted by this threat o f ‘revolutionary Islam’, we have to admit that ‘theology is a science’, and that we must try to ‘follow the development o f Islamic conferences which, in Teheran and elsewhere, try to erase the differences betw een Shias and Sunnis, gauge the real impact o f Iranian lawyers in the development o f various forms o f fundamentalism, follow the controversies that oppose the various schools o f jurispru­ dence’ etc. For ‘Islam is at our door’. Thus the author o f the report recommends that a ‘well-inform ed theological adviser’ be recruited! However in his conclusion he cannot conceal a certain perplexity: ‘Iran attacked, Iran encircled, revolutionary Iran. Imperial Iran or fragile Iran? Iran does not allow itself to be easily understood.’ Moreover, he gravely wonders w hether ‘there is a single Iran, or only Irans w ith many different faces’. Better to be safe: ‘Therefore I think that it is prudent, as far as we are concerned, to take into account the maxim um threat, namely imperial, revolutionary Iran, bearing Allah’s Vengeance and destined to reign over the w hole world. We may be sur­ prised to find that the real threat is less great. But then it will be a pleasant surprise.’ O n reading such an anthology o f culturalism, we m ight well wonder whether the author does not share M onsieur Sohaing’s im moderate taste for Beaujolais Nouveau. O n the one hand, the Islamic Republic is based on balances o f pow er far more complex than those o f ‘revolutionary Islam’.28 O n the other, its desire to acquire atomic weapons, w hich is in fact confirm ed by reliable (and non-American) sources, is faced w ith prob­ lems o f financing that delay the threat. This desire can be explained rationally by the requirements o f national defence in its strategic environment: Israel, Pakistan and India already have nuclear arms. In addition, American sources, w hich are not inclined to be indulgent w ith regard towards Iran, indic­ ated at the same time that Iran’s military budget was relatively modest. For 1989—90 and 1990—1 it was estimated at $1.9 billion a year which, according to the Pentagon, represented only one-sixth o f Saudi Arabia’s military budget and less than

Three dreams o f identity

19

half o f Israel’s. M oreover, it had decreased since the 1960s in relation to the GDP, and ranked only sixty-eighth in a group o f 144 countries, after Iraq (no. 1), Saudi Arabia (no. 6), Israel (no. 9), T urkey (no. 51) and France (no. 57).29 T he deterio­ ration o f the financial situation and the slowness o f economic reform in the Islamic R epublic since 1982 probably hindered re-arm am ent. In any case military observers o f the Islamic R e ­ public’s army manoeuvres were unimpressed by the state o f the weapons deployed. Unless w e assume that we were taken in by ‘that fundam ental duplicity that characterises everything Iranian’, and that the crisis itself was a stratagem invented by mullahs w ho wished to acquire nuclear weapons, we have to admit that the culturalist construct o f the facts is clearly a source o f the political imaginaire whose effects on reality con­ tinue to be a matter o f concern: thus in 1994 Charles Pasqua, the French M inister o f the Interior, introduced an exit visa, ‘the better to control the coming and going o f foreigners o f thirteen sensitive nationalities’, by drawing up a ‘first list ... consisting o f countries that are obvious candidates, o f nations that are potentially dangerous because they practise terrorism or are involved in ideological w ar’. T he reader will not be sur­ prised to learn that Iran was one o f the ‘countries that are ob­ vious candidates’ and ‘potentially dangerous’.30 Such culturalist reasoning and semantic slippages led France into a third dream o f identity: the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda. Francois M itterrand’s support for the regime o f President Habyarimana from O ctober 1990 to April 1994 and even later no doubt had its origin in a trivial defence o f all-too-material interests: the ties betw een the two presidential families were notorious, and it is also possible that France got around the embargoes affecting certain countries in the region w ith the help o f the R w andan governm ent. B ut the arguments advan­ ced in defence o f this policy revealed an elem ent o f irratio­ nality that may have been crucial to the outcom e o f the events that followed. W hile the Kagera river was carrying two corpses a m inute downstream, 10,000 corpses were arriving in Lake

20

The Intenveaving o f Traditions

Victoria. T he frightening figure o f 500,000 victims— respon­ sibility for which lay w ith H utu extremists— was being m en­ tioned, yet high-ranking French military officials w ere still justifying the struggle against the R w andan Patriotic Front by arguing that it was necessary to defend the French language.31 O ne cannot help thinking that not even the Renaissance poet Joachim du Bellay w ould have gone that far. An unfortunate lie to fit the particular circumstances? T he naivete o f inexperienced officers? We cannot say for sure, since French diplomacy south o f the Sahara sometimes seems haun­ ted by the m em ory o f the humiliation suffered at Fashoda, a town on the U pper Nile w hich the M archand expedition ceded in 1898 under pressure from the British, and w hich the French Foreign Minister, Theophile Delcasse, chose to aban­ don in order to strengthen France’s alliances in the O ld World and establish the Anglo-French E ntente Cordiale o f 1904. ‘Perfidious Albion’ is no longer the chief villain. Instead it is the U nited States, whose interests Britain was supposed to be zealously serving, and whose attachment since the Second World War to free trade, support for decolonisation move­ ments, and attacks on the last vestiges o f the Colonial Pact through the Bretton Woods institutions the French proponents o f colonialism have never forgiven. T he Fashoda complex, w hich bedevilled many o f those involved in shaping France’s Africa policies, expressed above all this siege mentality and the protectionist impulse that is still alive and well in certain busi­ ness circles, among diplomats and in expatriate communities. The role o f the French army in Chad, the Central African R e ­ public, the Democratic Republic o f the Congo and Rwanda, and the machinations o f the French secret services in the Sudan were perceived as forms o f discreet revenge for the dis­ grace o f 1898. To give another example, among the many rea­ sons that led France to condone the authoritarian restoration o f General Eyadema in Togo, in 1991, were the contacts, real or imagined, between Gilchrist Olympio, his main opponent, and the ‘Anglo-Saxons’. W ith the approach o f the legislative

TJtree dreams o f identity

21

elections that w ere to bring Jacques Chirac back to power, his party, the Rassem blem ent pour la R epublique, criticised the socialist governm ent for its ‘scorched earth policy’ (sic), w hich ignored the ‘bonds o f friendship’ betw een T ogo and France and risked ‘allowing other countries to occupy the place that up to now has been ours’.32 Similarly, in C am eroon the A m er­ icans and British w ere suspected o f providing clandestine support for the English-speaking leader o f the Social D em o­ cratic Front, and thus giving Paris an additional motive for indulging President Biya’s aberrations. Finally France defended Zaire tooth and nail in meetings o f the IMF, even though Zaire was no longer paying its debts, so that the body’s Francophone membership w ould not be diminished. It was also because he spoke French, albeit w ith a W alloon accent, that President M obutu had sympathisers on the banks o f the Seine, and was restored to his dignity as a guarantor o f regional stability dur­ ing the R w andan crisis in 1994. Being subtle psychologists, France’s African clients know how to feed its fears in order to negotiate deals in their ow n best interests; and they did not hesitate to go through the m otions o f courting W ashington in order to get m ore from Paris.33 Nonetheless, the dream o f a Francophone cultural com ­ m unity appears on the w hole fairly benign, and even universalist, compared w ith the array o f identity-related absurdities that have determ ined France’s African policy for so many years, w ith intellectual support from parts o f the press.34 M ilit­ ary assistance to President Habyarimana was thus seen as an ethno-dem ocratic option. ‘Since the population o f R w anda is 80 per cent H utu, and since in Africa free voting is always ethnic, pow er has to devolve entirely to the H utus’, an official o f the military co-operative mission told anyone willing to listen, basing him self on the spirit o f the Franco-African con­ ference held at La Baule, during w hich Francois M itterrand exhorted his peers to open their doors to the great wave o f democratisation.35 Jean-Frangois Deniau, a deputy from the French departement o f Cher, com m ented in the same vein on

22

The Interweaving o f Traditions

the genocide that occurred in April and May, 1994: ‘This is a case o f abuse o f the majority. The President o f the R epublic [Francois Mitterrand] supported the Hutus because they were the majority ... whereas the Tutsis were a minority, but a w inning minority. So where is democracy w hen it is a w in­ ning minority? All our schemas are overturned.’36 This argument reduces the political dimension to ethnic membership: ‘Hutuness’ determines an exclusive political ori­ entation, and President Habyarimana was by definition the repository o f democratic legitimacy since, as a H utu, he was the natural representative o f the majority. T he analysis is ob­ viously specious, assuming, as it does, that ethnicity is an objective reality, whereas it is merely a state o f consciousness.37 It maintains that the feeling o f belonging to an ethnic group is atavistic, whereas it changes in time and space: in 2000 one is not a H utu or a Tutsi in the same way as in the 1950s or in the nineteenth century (nor, o f course, will one be a H utu or Tutsi in the same way after the 1994 genocide); nor is one a H utu or Tutsi in the same way in the northern and southern parts o f Rwanda, inside the country and in the refugee camps, or in Rw anda and Burundi or in Kivu.38 For this reason the nature— social or ethnic— o f the distinction betw een H utu and Tutsi and the origin o f their antagonism— pre-colonial or colonial— is the object o f lively debate among both specialists and political actors. N othing in this tragic story is obvious, as French authorities would sometimes have us believe. And their strictly identitydriven reading o f the conflict ignores other reasons that were just as crucial. They take for granted that the Interhamwe H utu militias killed Tutsis because they were Tutsis; the genocidal intention is considered as proved, if only because children were deliberately killed and foetuses torn from the wombs o f their mothers. But behind this blinding clarity, is it also not im portant that these militiamen were at the same time young people struggling to survive or to rise socially in a war economy, ravaged by econom ic crisis and floods o f refugees?

Three dreams o f identity

23

T hat they were paid for doing their dirty work? T hat half o f them were H IV-positive and themselves condem ned to die? T hat they belonged to a kind o f paramilitary organisation, a militia, which, in R w anda as elsewhere, took in social rejects, marginal people, thieves, and suddenly allowed them a legiti­ mate outlet for their bitterness and desires? This war was social and political as m uch as it was ‘ethnic’. In addition, the ethnosubstantialist argum ent overlooks the fact that, just because one is H utu or Tutsi, one does not cease to be hum an— a prey to fears, but also to preferences, to self-interested calculations or acts o f generosity that are not entirely determined by iden­ tity-related mem bership in a group. In R w anda, in 1994, H utus sometimes saved Tutsis in the hope o f financial gain, out o f political conviction, or even through simple humanity or Christian charity, just as in 1972, Burundian Tutsis pro­ tected H utus w ho w ere being hunted dow n by Colonel M icom bero’s troops. C onfronted w ith dissonances o f this kind, proponents o f the ethnic interpretation have an identity-related response ready: most o f the H utu opponents that destabilised General Habyarim ana’s governm ent in the first half o f 1990, before the R w andan Patriotic Front (RPF) launched its O ctober offen­ sive, came from the southern part o f the country and, as such, constituted a sort o f sub-species. But this deduction has to do w ith the most com m onplace sociology o f political fiefs or his­ torical homelands. A lthough French socialists have often con­ trolled the mayor’s office in Lille for years, and although the Federation o f the N o rth plays a crucial role in the life o f their party, no one w ould dream o f saying that the people o f Lille are socialists or that the socialist party is a Lille party. And even during the darkest hours o f the genocide, autonom ous polit­ ical action w ith regard to ethnic dynamics continued, the fine thread by w hich a very hypothetical reconstruction o f the R w andan state hung: the R P F claimed that installing a H utu president was its first priority and maintained dialogue w ith the opposition, whose representatives tried to escape death in

24

The Interweaving o f Traditions

the overcrowded rooms o f the H otel des Mille Collines in Kigali, under the pathetic protection o f a detachm ent of U nited Nations troops. A few leading figures in President Habyarimana’s party joined dissidents abroad and condem ned the massacres. Although from 1990 to 1993 French soldiers checked iden­ tity cards that stated the ethnic membership o f those bearing them and thus designated as de facto accomplices o f the R P F ‘cockroaches’, it would naturally be injurious to the fair name o f France to suggest that its army and governm ent were pre­ pared to draw the most extreme consequences o f their fight for the French language and the H utu democratic majority. However, the H u tu Power extremists drew those consequences for the French, after having convinced them that their own identity-related argument was valid. T he hallucinatory power o f the French imaginaire led in this case to military cover being provided for the preparation o f a real genocide, and even— if we believe certain sources— for carrying out this genocide, in order to prevent the massacres that the R w andan Patriotic Front would supposedly perpetrate, were it to win. This erratic policy was only the last o f a long series o f misunderstandings regarding African ‘cultures’. Grasping their extent involves allowing oneself to understand how one could present as the ultimate symbol o f Zaire’s unity a president w ho declared in 1988, in a speech on radio and television: ‘W h en I was still in Gbadolite, I heard that a dozen w om en ... had d e m o n ­ strated. [...]. W hat do you do, y o u ,J M P R [Youth o f the Popular M ove­ m ent o f the Revolution]? W h at do you do, you, C A D E R [C orps o f Activists for the D efence o f the R evolution]? You are n o t going to wait for the gendarm es, you are n o t going to wait for the soldiers o r the J M P R . You know the m eaning o f o u r dearly acquired peace. You have shoes, kick them . I’m n o t saying disorder, b u t kick them . I’ll say it again, kick them . You have hands, hit them . You have a head: K am o Z1- You rem ove them from the road in the nam e o f peace.’ * A n irony o f history: this is h o w these representatives o f th e F re n c h language, w h o m F rancois M itte rra n d strove to d efend, d escrib ed them selves, t A n o n o m a to p o e ia d esignating a v io le n t b lo w w ith th e head.

Three dreams o f identity

25

O n that day it was the forces o f order that saved the peace in Zaire that had been ‘so dearly acquired’. T he twelve w om en were arrested and repeatedly raped by HIV-positive agents o f the secret police.39 It is true that President M obutu, scared by the fate o f his friend Ceausescu in R om ania, later converted to the democratic faith and established a m ulti-party system in 1990. B ut he quickly reasserted the singular nature o f his rule. As early as May 1990 com m ando units o f his Special Presi­ dential Division used bayonets to clean up the dissident campus in Lubumbashi, taking care to spare students w ho came from M o b u tu ’s own hom e province o f Equateur.40 Thus they regained control o f the situation, thanks to the spineless indifference o f the W estern powers, most o f whose leaders probably believed that M obutu was incorrigible in matters o f administration as well as respect for hum an rights. Everyone also saw that he dithered as a way o f re-establishing his own supremacy. Nonetheless, he was given the benefit o f these cer­ tainties, while leaders o f the opposition were not given the benefit o f the doubt. It scarcely matters that the political class in Zaire had destroyed its chances by its incom petence and internal divisions, or that Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II had helped to re-establish M o b u tu ’s international respect­ ability. W hat is so interesting is that a culturalist imaginaire was in operation, and that we can see the process o f and selective perception through w hich it operated. Three myths convinced W estern powers— and especially France— to resign themselves to a continuation o f the status quo in Zaire: the spectre o f a resurgence o f the rebellions o f the 1960s and o f the fragmen­ tation o f the country, whose position in the heart o f central Africa was considered strategic; the idea that this giant state is only a mosaic o f ‘ethnic groups’ ready to shatter into its com ­ ponent pieces; and the conviction that ‘African culture’ is incom patible w ith political pluralism because it is based on prim acy o f the chief. ‘Two male crocodiles cannot live in the same swamp’ is what ideologists o f single-party regimes have repeatedly told us for

26

The Interweaving o f Traditions

the past forty years. W e have been disposed to believe them because they gave an air o f ex post facto respectability to the idea (intended to be damning) o f colonial authority, and because preventing the spread o f com m unism seemed to call for strong powers. A nd then the convulsions o f m ulti-partyism and the fissiparous divisions o f opposition parties seemed to provide fresh confirmation o f the theory concerning male crocodiles. Basing themselves on these ethnographic ‘facts’, French officials responsible for African policy hardly bothered to conceal their lack o f faith in the viability o f the democratic experiment south o f the Sahara. ‘T he m yth o f the “c h ie f’— the chief o f the tribe, the warlord, the head o f state— remains deeply entrenched, as is amply shown by the deplorable examples o f Somalia and Angola’, Le M onde pointed out, call­ ing for ‘prudent’ analysis.41 Far beyond enlightened political and journalistic circles, forty years after decolonisation the m yth o f the chief remains the jew el in the crow n o f Africanist absurdities: O n e sometim es has the feeling that Black Africans do n o t understand w hat they are being asked to do, not only because their know ledge o f French is n ot always adequate, but because we do n o t com m unicate w ith them in the right way. I learned that Africans function to a large extent as clans, and that it is very im portant to take the tribal c h ie f’s view into account w h e n one w anted to establish som ething.

This was the explanation given by a manager o f the firm w hich won the contract to clean the Paris Metro, on emerging from a workshop on ‘becom ing sensitive to African cultures and civilisations’.42 However, this ‘myth o f the leader’ exists only in the m ind— it has not prevented hundreds o f thousands o f Africans from demonstrating since 1989, and showing a marked lack o f re­ spect for leaders in elections held in several countries. The failure o f democracy in sub-Saharan Africa has little to do w ith ‘culture’ and a great deal to do w ith contests for political power, the economic crises and globalisation. In addition, the

Three dreams o f identity

27

latter-day presidential authoritarianism being reconstructed draws m uch o f its ideological and practical inspiration from the colonial era, and not from the pre-colonial era. T he way in w hich the late President M obutu in Zaire and President Biya in C am eroon created ‘opposition’ parties in order to divide their opponents recalls, for example, a w ell-honed technique o f French administration during its struggles against the nationalist parties. If dictators like Sekou T oure in Guinea and political strongm en like C hief Buthelezi in South Africa claimed to m odel themselves on prestigious figures in Africa’s past (Samori T oure and Shaka respectively), this required a m odem ideological reinterpretation, in the respective context o f decolonisation or apartheid.43 As for Jean-Bedel Bokassa, Gnassingbe Eyadema and Idi Amin, they w ere pure cultural products o f the colonial army, even if their cunning brutality drew on different exemplars peculiar to each.44 T heir past con­ nection w ith the W hite M an’s coercive apparatus served them well, since historically many Africans have seen the Europ­ ean military bureaucracy as a vector o f m odernity and social advancement, and taken it as a m odel for their ow n actions, e.g. in connection w ith religion.45 Setting aside examples o f warlike states whose destinies were shaped by despotic and predatory heroes— there was a rela­ tively large num ber o f these in the nineteenth century-—the political formations o f ancient Africa were characterised by com plex balances o f power am ong various institutions or social hierarchies. In this context it would probably be incor­ rect to talk about democracy, but these statist or lineage config­ urations, w hich often came close to constituting constitutional orders, as in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Asante, limi­ ted the autonom y o f those in authority.46 Thus the Bantu myths o f the foundation o f sacred kingships ‘conveyed a genuine political ideology’— unlike Am erican Indian mythology— and ‘developed a bicephalous conception o f pow er’ that may rem ind us o f the first o f the three Indo-European functions studied by Georges D um ezil.47 T he ‘black chiefs’ cherished by

28

The Interweaving o f Traditions

G overnor R obert Delavignette had usually been created by the colonising powers, w ho took care to co-opt native digni­ taries to administer the societies they had conquered. This is particularly true in acephalous societies that were w ithout centralised political institutions, and the establishment o f chiefdoms in these situations contradicted cultural represen­ tations of power, resulting in conflicts or serious misunderstand­ ings.48 But even in kingdoms or chiefdoms o f pre-colonial origin, both the monarchical concept and the perception o f authority were deeply modified by the actions o f the colo­ nising powers. T he Germans and British in particular invoked the imposing figures o f Kaiser W ilhelm II and Q ueen Victoria, respectively, to gain prestige by organising numerous rituals celebrating the ‘imperial monarchy’, rituals that were probably just as kitsch as the Beaujolais N ouveau party in Bayangam. In 1890, for instance, a German officer presented the chief o f the Chagga in Tanganyika w ith L ohengrin’s mantle and helmet, which he had obtained from the Berlin Opera. For their part the indigenous chiefs, in their concern to augm ent their sym­ bolic resources, begged to be given the title o f ‘king’, sought invitations to the coronations o f British sovereigns, provided themselves w ith thrones, crowns and sceptres, and even began to celebrate their jubilees. M oreover this fascination w ith European political symbols was not limited to notables alone; the anonymous mass o f citizens also became addicted to them , especially w ithin the framework o f dance associations that adopted the dramaturgy o f Germ an military drill or the pom p surrounding the British Q u een ’s representative.49 It would take a clever observer to tease out o f this tangle the roles played by ‘Africanness’ and by colonial ideology. M obutu wore a leopardskin hat, the leopard being an im m em orial sign o f power among the Bantu people o f the forest.50 However, the native chiefs w ho collaborated w ith Belgian colonisers had earlier made use o f this insignia, and gave it a connotation dif­ ferent from that w hich it may have had in a sovereign lineage society in the nineteenth or the twelfth century. In Zaire,

Three dreams o f identity

29

m oreover, M o b u tu ’s authority was associated w ith the ter­ rifying image of Bula Matari, ‘the rock-breaker’, evoked by colonial dom ination.51 Similarly, historians know that pow er in the Bantu w orld had long been expressed in terms o f family relationships.52 In 1925 the Prince o f Wales w rote to the Par­ am ount C hief o f the Sotho that he was ‘very happy that you still cherish the m em ory o f my great-grandm other, Q ueen Victoria. [...] She is no longer w ith us, but the King continues to watch over you w ith fatherly care.’ In 1910 the Prince’s father King George V had already addressed his subjects in Basutoland in the same terms: W h e n a child is in trouble he will go to his father, and his father after hearing all about the m atter will decide w hat m ust be done. T h e n the child m ust trust and obey his father, for he is b u t one o f a large family and his father has had great experience in settling the troubles o f his older children and is able to ju d g e w hat is best n o t only for the young child b ut for the peace and advantage o f the w hole family. [...] T h e Basuto nation is as a very young child am ong the m any people o f the British E m pire.53

A nd so tradition grows even m ore potent, as we observed in the case o f Bayangam. We can now add that those w ho are the most traditional are not always those w ho think themselves to be so. In ancient Africa traditions were processes that provided ‘a m oving continuity’,54 whereas the ideological and juridical endeavours o f colonisation cast them into customs and folk­ lore.55 Simultaneously, European administrators sought to limit the movements o f the peoples they had conquered, or at least to channel their migrations in ways that suited their own interests. T he end-result o f these public policies and the strategies by w hich Africans responded to them is none other than ethnicity. A great many anthropological and historical studies have shown that pre-colonial societies were almost always m ulti-ethnic, and included a great diversity o f cultural repertoires; that the principal forms o f social or religious mobilisation were trans-ethnic; and that ancient Africa most definitely did not consist o f a mosaic o f ethnic groups.56 This does not m ean that ethnicity is a pure construct (a ‘building’ in

30

The Interweaving o f Traditions

Berman and Lonsdale’s sense) produced by colonising powers that sought to divide the better to rule, as African nation­ alists— and, paradoxically, some ethno-nationalists— still like to believe. Colonised peoples took part in its ‘form ation’ by appropriating the new political, cultural and econom ic re­ sources of the bureaucratic state. In one o f many w orking mis­ understandings, ‘Europeans believed Africans belonged to tribes; [whereas] Africans built tribes to belong to ’ as John Iliffe b r i l l i a n t l y expressed it.57 T he political im portance o f eth­ nicity proceeds precisely from the fact that it is an eminently m odern phenom enon connected to the ‘im ported state’, and not a residue or resurgence o f ‘traditional culture’. T he latter, ultimately, does not exist— at least not in the sense assumed by culturalists. We can discern the persistence through time, and in a given space, o f a certain num ber o f ‘tra­ ditions’, in particular cognitive traditions, as Jan Vansina has done for the Bantus o f the equatorial forest. B ut each o f these representations is constantly being negotiated by a great variety o f actors, including w ithin ‘ethnic’ subgroups. Can we advance, for example, the idea o f an econom ic ethos o f the Bamileke on the basis o f their legendary ‘energy’ and the fear it arouses? To do so would be to take at face value an explosive political discourse that flirts w ith ethnic cleansing. It would also mean abandoning any attem pt to grasp the differentiation o f means o f accumulation (or disaccumulation) according to the social category and generation o f entrepreneurs.58 Should we console ourselves w ith the notion o f an African political culture that is assumed to be incompatible w ith the structures o f a ‘Western-style state whose borders, drawn by the Congress o f Berlin, are artificial’? T he profound crises in R w anda, Burundi and Somalia suggest instead that territorial and cul­ tural continuity betw een pre-colonial societies and contem ­ porary states is no guarantor o f stability. O ne m ight even wonder, because o f the conflicts in the Great Lakes region, w hether the ideological and military m odernisation o f states w ith precolonial origins has not radicalised internal social rela­

Three dreams o f identity

31

tionships, whereas their incorporation into enlarged political spaces, as a result o f the change o f scale generally accompany­ ing colonisation, made compromises am ong the elites inev­ itable, and tended to dilute social contradictions, or at least to m ute them .59 H ow ever that m ight be, the political crisis o f Africa has little to do w ith the allegedly factitious character o f its random borders, w hich are sometimes older than those o f certain E uropean countries. T he border constituted by the R h in e (so natural!) and the border (so historical!) that sep­ arated the countries descended from the W estern R om an empire from those descended from the Eastern R om an em­ pire: have these really been factors for peace? T he ways in w hich Africans have adopted the territorial frameworks handed dow n by the colonising powers is one o f the salient characteristics o f the continent’s recent history. T he im ported state was immediately taken over by autochthonous peoples. T he ‘form ation’ o f ethnicity, in response to new insti­ tutions and new rules for allocating resources, has proved to be one o f their favourite strategies, but it is not the only one: con­ version to Christianity or to Islam; the form ation o f cults, pro­ phetic sects, or independent churches; the organisation o f trade unions or political parties; and the developm ent o f agriculture and the informal sector have all simultaneously borne witness to this resum ption o f ‘African initiative’60 in osmosis w ith the colonial system. By signing the charter o f the Organisation o f African Unity, the regimes that emerged from decolonisation have solemnly assumed this continuity. Today the civil wars that afflict Africa, whatever their regionalist or ethnic content, do not put national unity in question. Even the federal solution has sometimes been vio­ lently rejected by the protagonists in these conflicts, w ho are ferocious partisans o f a unitary state, as in Chad, Angola and Sudan. T he only genuine attem pt at secession was that by Biafra, in 1967, and it was crushed. T he secessionist project in Katanga, in 1960, was largely controlled from afar by foreign interests, and misfired, even though it remains present in the

32

The Intenveaving o f Traditions

historical m em ory o f the people o f the Congo, and was even revived at regular intervals by the wily President M obutu, w ho wanted to appear to be the last bastion against the break­ up o f his country. But the great lesson o f the history o f the Congo is precisely the persistence o f the idea o f the nation. Here we have an immense country, w ith the majority o f its population concentrated on its borders, whose system o f com ­ m unication is a shambles and whose rural areas are landlocked, whose institutions have collapsed, whose cities are prey to interm ittent pillaging, and whose econom y is completely free o f regulations and taxation, even if it is not free o f extortion. Nevertheless, it remains politically united, and the debate concerning regionalism that took place during the National Conference at the beginning o f the 1990s was formulated in terms o f a necessary administrative decentralisation, not o f a territorial dismemberment. A province like Kivu, for many years left to itself by the regime, trades w ith the outside w orld via the N ande diaspora; but it has not considered breaking its ties to the centre, and it played a major political role in the National Conference. Paradoxically the case o f the sick giant o f Africa attests to the solidity o f the states laid out at the Congress o f Berlin.* Still more eloquent are the armed conflicts in the western Sahara, Eritrea and Somaliland, where the chief goal has been a return to colonial borders, or to maintain them. N o matter how difficult and conflictual it m ight be, the grafting o f institutions and ideologies im ported into Africa as a result o f European imperialism does not encounter an insur­ mountable obstacle when confronted by a ‘traditional African culture’, albeit one that is hard to define. O n the other hand, we see how this myth, which is inherent in the culturalist argu* T h e o c c u p atio n o f th e eastern p a rt o f th e D e m o c ra tic R e p u b lic o f th e C o n g o by R w a n d a an d U ganda, w h ic h beg an in 1996, an d th e possible a n n e x a tio n o f K ivu th a t m ig h t result from it d o n o t invalidate this analysis: n o n e o f th e a rm e d m o v em en ts a n d /o r rebellions in th e C o n g o is secessionist, an d th e w a r has even stren g th en e d th e C o n g o lese n atio n al consciousness by g iv in g it an u n fo rtu n a te racist anti-T utsi c o n te n t.

Three dreams o f identity

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ment, inspired a political relativism that tends to deny Africans access to the universal. Since ‘the race o f Negroes is a species o f hum an different from our own, just as spaniels are different from hares’, since ‘Negroes and Negresses, transported to the coldest countries, still produce animals o f their ow n species’,61 it is pointless to try to impose on them our democratic model, our conception o f developm ent, our idea o f the res puhlica — in short, our culture. O n the banks o f Lake Kivu this fantasy turned into a nightmare.

T h e in v en tio n o f tradition as the in ven tio n o f m o d ern ity

In one sense culturalism is like Beaujolais Nouveau: the ine­ briation it produces is often malign and leaves behind a hangover. However, the adage In vino veritas cannot be applied to culturalism, as analysis o f the facts quickly invalidates it. The reason for this is simple: culturalism maintains that a ‘culture’is composed o f a stable, closed corpus o f representations, beliefs, or symbols that is supposed to have an ‘affinity’— the word is used by de Tocqueville as well as by M ax W eber— w ith spe­ cific opinions, attitudes, or modes o f behaviour. However, M ax W eber was not a culturalist, and he never adhered to the interpretation o f ‘the spirit o f capitalism’ that is still too often attributed to him by invoking selective and ten­ dentious quotations from his famous book on the Protestant ethic.62 H e refused to abstract economic factors from factors o f the religious ethic in order to explain the genesis o f capitalism: It is o u t o f the question to m aintain such an unreasonable and doctrinaire thesis, w h ich w ould claim that ‘the spirit o f capitalism’ [...] could only be the result o f certain influences o f the R efo rm atio n , and even that capitalism as an economic system is a creation o f the R eform ation.

W eber spoke o f ‘the enorm ous overlapping o f mutual influ­ ences betw een econom ic bases, forms o f social and political organisation, and the spiritual content o f the periods o f the R eform ation’. A nd he concluded his book w ith this summary,

34

The Interweaving o f Traditions

which should have put a definitive end to an unfortunate debate: ‘Is it necessary to protest that our goal is in no way to substitute for an exclusively “materialist” causal explanation a spiritualist interpretation o f civilisation and history that w ould be no less unilateral? Both o f them belong to the dom ain o f the possible; it nonetheless remains that to the extent that they are not limited to the role o f preparatory w ork, but claim to provide conclusions, both are inadequate to historical truth.’ O f course W eber does refer here and there to the ‘intrinsic and perm anent character o f religious beliefs’, gives priority to the study o f ‘dogmatic foundations’, and does not limit himself to the analysis o f ‘moral practice’. However, his project o f ‘dis­ covering w hether certain “elective affinities” are perceptible between forms o f religious belief and professional ethics’ was only one stage in his demonstration, w hich consisted in com ­ posing an ‘ideal type’, ‘such as is only rarely encountered in historical reality’. As for the rest, W eber argues in terms of his­ torical experience, or better yet, o f a historical matrix: ‘The conceptualisation o f historical phenom ena ... does not, for whatever purpose, place reality in abstract categories, but rather seeks to articulate it in concrete, genetic relationships that inevitably take on their own individual character’. In his view, the genesis o f capitalism is a m atter o f contingency; it has to do w ith a ‘sequence o f circumstances’. T he peculiarity o f capitalism lies in its being a ‘cultural phenom enon’ because it consists o f a ‘spirit’: ‘T he main problem in the expansion of m odern capitalism is not the origin o f capital, it is the devel­ opm ent o f the spirit o f capitalism’, w hich made its ‘appearance in Western civilisation, and only there’. But if capitalism is defined by its ‘spirit’, it does not proceed from ‘culture’ alone. In this regard proponents o f the ‘neo-C onfucian’ explanation o f the ‘miracle economies’ o f East Asia prove not very W eber­ ian, in contrast to the historians o f the French school of sinology who like to criticise the Heidelberg sociologist’s hypotheses concerning China, even though they pursue the same quest for a ‘global history’.

The invention o f tradition as the invention o f modernity

35

W eber also distances him self from culturalist assumptions through the im portance he accords to the exogenous dim en­ sion o f change. In his w ork societies do not respond solely to the injunctions o f their own logic, and in particular to those o f their culture. They are constantly interacting w ith their envi­ ronm ent, even if the latter tends to be unduly reduced to the category o f military and diplomatic phenom ena.53 From an ideological point o f view, and due to his family connections, the very Anglophile Weber was moreover alien to the R om an­ tic nationalist and imperialist Zeitgeist that was, in Germany, the main centre o f culturalist thought.64 In particular he rejected any substantialist definition o f ethnic groups and nations, w hich he regarded as ‘political artefacts’, w riting that ‘the notion o f “ethnically” determ ined social action subsumes phe­ nom ena that a rigorous sociological analysis ... would have to distinguish carefully.’65 This remark is not purely anecdotal. In its m odern forms political culturalism is an avatar o f these ‘great ways o f misun­ derstanding other peoples’ constituted by scientific racism, nationalism, and egocentric exoticism.55 From the point o f view o f political analysis it should be connected more precisely w ith the m ovem ent o f the ‘invention o f tradition’ that has marked W estern history since the end o f the eighteenth century.67 This ‘process o f formalisation and ritualisation’ was reflected in the inculcation, by repetition, o f certain values and norm s o f behaviour that referred explicitly to the past, the latter possibly being reconstructed or fabricated. T he ‘in­ vention o f tradition’ was a fundamental constituent o f the ‘building’ and the ‘form ation’ o f the m odern state in the West. It conveyed the more or less conflictual integration o f regional peripheries into the centre; the ‘awakening o f nationalities’and the genesis o f nationalism; Italian and G erm an unification; the establishment o f mass industrial societies; the creation o f nation-states on the ruins o f old m ulti-ethnic empires; or, in the N ew World and Australia, the melding o f heterogeneous im m igrant populations.

36

The Intenveaving o f Traditions

Beyond this diversity o f situations, the main characteristic o f the ‘invention o f tradition’ is the recycling— w hether instru­ mental or unconscious— o f fragments o f a m ore or less phan­ tasmal past in the service o f social, cultural or political innovation. Thus in Britain the public pom p and circumstance o f monarchical ritual were established only belatedly, at the end o f the nineteenth century— and against the inclinations o f Q ueen Victoria, w ho was psychologically reticent— in an industrial society that was racked by the uncertainties o f com ­ petition from the other imperial powers and the rise o f the working class. T he development o f the great newspapers, starting in the 1880s, helped to popularise this glorification o f royalty, before the BBC took over the task.68 Similarly, the vogue o f the neo-G othic, the neo-Baroque, or the neo­ classical architectural styles in Western capitals was con­ comitant w ith centralisation, bureaucratisation, the extension o f a civic role to an increasing num ber o f citizens and, m ore generally, social innovation.69 In Vienna, for instance, the neo­ Gothic style o f the Rathaus was supposed to recall, as liberals saw it, that the city had been a free com m une in the M iddle Ages, and was reconnecting w ith this past after a long period o f absolutism; the neo-Baroque Burgtheater com m em orated the epoch in w hich scholars, courtiers and com m oners had shared a passion for the theatre; the neo-Renaissance style o f the uni­ versity called attention to rationalism’s break w ith superstition; and the classicism o f the Parliament building evoked the Hellenic democratic ideal.70 In the colonised countries o f Africa and Asia, the ossifi­ cation o f ‘traditional culture’ at the m om ent o f European occupation corresponds to the same schema: the ‘process o f ritualisation and formalisation’ o f custom w ent hand in hand w ith an intensification o f social change. Thus in India the establishment o f the imperial monarchy after the ‘M utiny’ o f 1857 and the abolition o f M ughal rule in 1858 were dressed in the finery o f political and cultural traditionalism. T he Indian princes w ho agreed to support the British crow n’s action saw

The invention o f tradition as the invention o f modernity

37

their etiquette and prerogatives institutionalised; they grad­ ually constituted themselves as a dom inant category that was ‘traditional’ as that o f the ‘chiefs’ in Africa.71 ‘T he peoples and cultures o f India’ w ere described, listed and photographed. Collections in libraries and museums recorded a civilisation said to be doom ed to disappear. Archaeological excavations w ere begun, and the sub-continent’s ‘great m onum ents’ were inventoried. In short, the English defined, w ith increasing authority, w hat was Indian, and the Indians were expected to look like true Indians; whereas before 1860 native soldiers w ore uniforms cut in the European style, they later w ore neoM ughal military dress including a turban, sash and tunic.72 India’s entry into the era o f colonial imperialism took place through the exaltation o f tradition, or at least o f exoticism. But its entry into the period o f nationalist mobilisation and soon after that o f com m unal conflict assumed a similar colouring. W hile British colonial administrators fabricated ‘Indianness’, H indu intellectuals were formulating Hinduness by resorting to ‘strategic syncretism’. According to Christophe Jaffrelot, this involved ‘structuring one’s identity in opposition to the O ther by assimilating the latter’s prestigious and efficacious cultural characteristics’: ‘T he appearance o f an exogenous threat awake­ ned in the H indu m ajority a feeling o f vulnerability, and even an inferiority complex, that justified a reform o f Hinduism borrow ing from the aggressor its strong points, under the cover o f a return to the sources o f a prestigious Vedic Golden Age that was largely reinvented but whose “xenology” remained active.’73 A recurrent feature o f Indian resistance to foreign invasions, ‘strategic syncretism’ had two high points: at the end o f the nineteenth century and in the 1920s, before institution­ alising itself as a key tenet o f militant political practice among H indu nationalists. T he latter were organised on the auto­ chthonous m odel o f the sect, and m ore precisely on that o f the akhara, w hich was both a disciplined political cadre and a place o f physical and martial exercise w ith pronounced ritualised characteristics. Terrorists were quick to appreciate the utility

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o f the akhara, especially in com bining sources o f inspiration: members o f one akhara swore allegiance before the goddess Kali, the Bhagavad Gita in one hand, a revolver in the other.74 D uring the 1920s the H indu Mahasabha also encouraged the creation o f akharas in order to defend itself against the Khilafat (Muslim Caliphate) movem ent. But it abandoned physical exercise and hand-to-hand combat in favour o f the team sports so prized by the British. T he traditional form o f the akhara was clearly subordinated to political and educational innovation.75 In short, the reinterpretation o f India’s ‘H indu’ past by the nationalists and their instrumentalisation o f ‘tradition’ for militant political purposes have for nearly a century sustained a political identity unprecedented in the cultural landscape o f the sub-continent, by incorporating foreign representations into Hinduism— e.g. egalitarian individualism, proselytisation, ecclesiastical structures— and by seeking to ‘homogenise in order to create a nation, a society that is characterised by extreme differentiation’.76 O n the Indian political chessboard, the celebration o f a golden Vedic age is a mere fig-leaf con­ cealing modernity, like the versions o f African ‘authenticity’ that developed in the wake o f the colonial invention o f tra­ dition, in particular in M obutu’s Zaire, Tombalbaye’s Chad, Eyadema’s Togo, Macias N guem a’s Equatorial Guinea or Buthelezi’s Natal. Such regressive definitions o f m odernity make identityrelated strategies potentially totalitarian.77 First, because the cul­ ture imagined to be authentic is defined in opposition to neighbouring ones that are seen as radically different, and because this alleged alterity entails a principle o f exclusion whose logical conclusion is ethnic cleansing: intercultural ex­ change is then deemed to involve alienation, a loss o f sub­ stance, even pollution. And second, because the imagined culture assigns to those individuals w ho are supposed to be­ long to it a simplified identity— one is tem pted to call it an identity kit— that they are expected to endorse, if necessary via coercion. This is the logic o f the Islamists, or o f Israel’s ‘m en in

77le invention o f tradition as the invention o f modernity

39

black’, w ho impose on their co-religionists an entirely arbit­ rary reconstruction o f their history and faith. This is also the terrible rationality o f the massacres in Bosnia and in Africa’s Great Lakes: they are intended not only to drive the O ther out, but also to prevent their O w n from dealing w ith him, if necessary by forcing them into exodus, w hen the fortunes o f w ar so dictate, as in R w anda in 1994 or in Sarajevo in 1996. Nonetheless, politico-religious radicalisms and extreme forms o f ethno-nationalism draw on the same com m on source as European and Am erican nationalisms,78 w hich are also based on political lies and illusions. ‘Forgetfulness and, I would say, even historical error are essential factors in the creation o f a nation,’ Ernest R enan w rote.79 From this point o f view the ‘great ways o f misreading others’ are always also ways o f mis­ reading oneself. B ut this does not mean that the ‘imagined com m unities’ resulting from the invention o f tradition are nec­ essarily totalitarian. N o t all regimes possess the means to realise their ends: Zairean ‘authenticity’ was a totalitarian project, but its realisation hardly got beyond the stage o f authoritarian control.80 Above all, the process o f ‘building’ identity-related regimes has to compromise w ith the process o f ‘form ing’ states. T he complex interaction o f forces and social institutions, the influence o f demography, the limits o f the economy, and the practices o f the actors involved all make the efficacy o f public policies relative. Ultimately the invention o f political m odernity by invent­ ing tradition can be com bined w ith any num ber o f strategies and political regimes, neither necessarily being identity-rela­ ted. Political m odernity has been one o f the cultural matrices o f parliamentary democracy, and o f a universalist conception o f citizenship and o f the welfare-state in England and France, but it also inspired a descent into totalitarianism in Italy and Germany. In addition, in each o f these countries, the elabora­ tion o f a national tradition was contradictory. R enan, w ho be­ lieved that various races descended from different original ancestors, was convinced o f the ‘eternal infancy o f non-

40

The Interweaving o f Traditions

perfectible races’. And since he could not require ‘o f the child o f Sem the beautiful characteristics o f the Indo-European race’, Barres would have preferred, ‘instead ofjudging Dreyfus according to French morality and our justice, as if he were a peer’, that he be recognised ‘as a living testimony, as a lesson in the nature o f things, ... next to a chair o f comparative ethno­ logy’.81 The controversial works o f the historian Zeev Sternhell have at least the merit o f rem inding us that France has not escaped the cultural and organicist nationalism, or even the biological and racial nationalism, that is usually associated w ith German history.82 Conversely, in Italy and Germany national­ ism has also had as its spokesmen democrats w ho ended up prevailing after the Second W orld W ar. This ambivalence o f political culturalism is also found in the ethno-linguistic nationalisms o f Eastern and Central Europe: the belated codi­ fication o f Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Bulgarian, Greek, R o ­ manian, Ukrainian, and Turkish cultures that accompanied the building and formation o f the state in the nineteenth and tw entieth centuries did not exclude any o f the liberal, fascist or Com m unist expressions o f political culturalism. T he same can be said o f ethnicity in Africa, w hich is simultaneously a prin­ ciple o f exclusion and even death, and the vehicle o f a new moral econom y o f the p o lis h C u ltu ra lism as an ideology o f globalisation

In its political ambivalence the formation o f imagined cultural communities has been one o f the most im portant ideological manifestations o f globalisation since the nineteenth century. By asserting the irreducible difference o f ethnic or national identities and civilisations, culturalism contributes in a strange way to the dialectical unity o f the world. For example, it has been the filter that has sifted diffusion o f industrial technology, the Western educational model, governmental and bureau­ cratic organisation, Christian ecclesiastical schemas, and the principles o f capitalist economics. To the great dismay o f

Culturalism as ait ideology o f globalisation

41

m alcontents and backw ard-looking people, it has generally legitimised these borrowings by claiming that they w ould serve the destiny o f the nation or religion w ithout altering ‘culture’, a w ell-founded view, but one that is in curious con­ tradiction w ith its ow n philosophical premises.84 Seen from this angle, political culturalism goes beyond clas­ sical theses, according to w hich nationalist mobilisation is sup­ posed to have given Africans and Asians an opportunity to turn the colonisers’ ow n weapons against them, as is said in school textbooks. Nationalism, w hether ethnic or religious, is a complex phenom enon that involves dynamics other than those o f ‘state-building’ carried out by the demiurges o f ‘na­ tional integration’: the Sukarnos, the N ehrus, the Atatiirks and all the African ‘chiefs’ admired or scorned depending on w hether they are nam ed Felix H ouphouet-B oigny or JeanBedel Bokassa. In the second edition o f his justly famous Imagined C o m m u ­ nities Benedict Anderson takes the opportunity to revise his initial point o f view, and admits that colonial nationalism in Asia and Africa cannot be reduced to the ‘official nationalism’ that the European dynastic states o f the nineteenth century had sought to instrumentalise, w ith varying success.85 Thanks to this reformulation, we can better understand why and how the im ported state erected itself into an ‘imagined com m unity’ and w hy it was not challenged by the autochthonous peoples at the time o f decolonisation. W hat was said about India can be generalised. T hrough cartography, museology, archaeology, history, ethnology and Orientalism, European occupants inserted themselves into the continuity o f the political and civilisational configurations that preceded their arrival, even though they conferred on them a unity they did not previously have, and provided access to ‘progress’ for them. T he autochthonous nationalists subsequently adopted this ‘process o f formalisation .and ritualisation’ o f ‘traditional culture’, as well as the ‘logoisation’* o f a new state to w hich it had given rise.86 * T h is te rm is used by B e n e d ic t A n d e rso n , w h o also refers to ‘m u se u m isin g ’.

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The Interweaving o f Traditions

The imagination o f the national com m unity— sometimes experienced as a religious community, for example among Islamists, Sinhalese populists in Sri Lanka or the H indu mil­ itants o f India’s BJP— has not always consisted solely in vali­ dating a territorial framework, the development o f new political and administrative institutions, and the allocation o f econom ic resources or social status. It has also led to the emergence o f new moral, economic, and political values that have been bit­ terly disputed, but generally ended up providing the colonial state w ith its status as a genuine polis.87 T hat is what makes it so difficult to analyse not only nationalism but also the com ­ promise between the colonised peoples and the colonisers. Natives w ho collaborated w ith the colonisers served not only their own economic interests, along w ith those o f their sup­ posed masters, but also incarnated ideals, norms, lifestyles, bodies o f knowledge that might inspire respect, sympathy, or fascination, and that some who once scorned them would soon espouse. In this respect, a colonial situation or, more broadly, a situation o f dependency, is always an ‘ambiguous adventure’: ‘I am not a country in the Diallobe district, confronting a distinct Western world, and assessing w ith sang-froid what I can take from it and what I have to give it in return. I have becom e both o f them. There is not one lucid head betw een the two horns o f a dilemma. There is a strange nature, in distress at not being tw o’, confides the hero o f the Senegalese novelist C heikh H am idou Kane.88 In this task o f inventing tradition and imagining the com ­ munity, colonised and colonisers often acted together, some­ times within the same institutions, the same intellectual currents, and the same beliefs, but most often w ith differing objectives, and almost always in the m ode o f a w orking m isunder­ standing.89 Thus the Europeans were the first to attend to the reification o f custom south o f the Sahara. It allowed them to consolidate their racial identity and their social status in a context whose precariousness we tend, retrospectively, to minimise. In this way the British administrators o f Indirect

Cultumlism as an ideology o f globalisation

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R ule forged a quasi-aristocratic lifestyle in order to overcome the isolation in w hich they found themselves and to preserve their dignity as ‘civilised’ people, whereas w hite miners in South Africa and R hodesia developed a corporatist w orkingclass culture that asserted their distinctiveness w ith regard to black workers. At the same time, the culturalist interpretation o f colonised society superseded a discourse on the hom e country. At the beginning o f the nineteenth century British missionaries and travellers compared the barbarism o f Africans to the savagery o f the poor in L ondon’s underprivileged neighbourhoods: the two struggles to civilise (or the two experiences o f fear in the face o f primitive manners) w ent hand in hand.90 T he coloni­ sers were not abstract agents o f social change, but rather flesh and blood actors w ho came from concrete historical societies, w ith their relationships o f inequality, their political debates, and their mental representations, societies in w hich they had themselves occupied precise positions and from w hich they had drawn ambitions, frustrations, convictions, and dreams.91 T hat is, they had never form ed a hom ogeneous category: their origins and values were disparate, their colonial projects diver­ gent, and their culturalism was not o f the same kind. T he vio­ lent conflicts betw een B oer colonists and the pastors of the London Missionary Society in nineteenth-century South Africa had already raised the whole problem o f cultural relativism. T he form er believed in different geneses and based their pre­ datory practise o f slavery on their Biblical conviction that Kaffirs were ‘the children of H am ’ and were therefore doom ed to servitude. T he latter thought Africans were perfectible and thus wanted to raise them to the dignity o f bourgeois individ­ ualism and the nuclear family, even at the cost o f completely recasting their society.92 B ut the contradictions that characterised the microcosm of the colonisers were echoed w ithin native society, especially through the m ediation o f the school and the mission. The fable o f the ‘village com m unity’ provides a good illustration o f

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The Interweaving o f Traditions

this symbiosis. E urope’s imperial expansion was coterm inous w ith the Industrial R evolution, w hich inspired many changes in nature, supposedly threatening the innocence o f the coun­ tryside, and corrupting the cities. T he concom itant invention o f tradition participated in this sensibility, especially in the countries o f Eastern and Central Europe. Historiographical and anthropological criticism has shown how m any o f the concepts o f popular culture, popular religion, and folklore are inseparable from this Zeitgeist, w hich contributed to the con­ struction o f social inequalities.93 Christian missions and their allies put great stress on this idealised representation o f rural life. In Liberia, for instance, the American Colonisation Society, being im bued w ith Jeffer­ sonian ideas, wanted Blacks repatriated to their original con­ tinent to limit themselves to bucolic rural life, even though their proteges associated agricultural activity w ith the despised system o f slavery and often came from cities in the n o rth ­ eastern U nited States.94 Similarly, the Basel Mission Society brought to southern and eastern Africa the ideal o f the ‘Christian village’ that it had established in W iirttem berg in order to protect rural areas from the miasmas o f urbanisation. Its chief goal was to find allegedly virgin land on w hich it could establish German peasant communities. Styling itself as ‘a mission from the village to the village’, it dreamed o f a Gemeinschaft that did not, o f course, exist in G erm any any more than it did in M ozambique. In practice the Society’s African outposts succeeded less in preserving the native peo­ ples’ ‘traditional culture’ than in making it easier to control them and introduce economic innovations.95 The missionaries’ attitude was very confused and constantly oscillated between two positions: on one hand, they rejected backward and often indecent customs, o f w hich nocturnal, las­ civious dancing was the intolerable symbol, and hence sought to reform the villagers’ morals in order to lead them to the threshold o f civilisation, for example by encouraging trade. O n the other, they had a naive respect for African authenticity,

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w hich could only be rural, and w hich had to be defended against the cupidity o f traders, the brutality o f administrators, the corrosive effects o f money, the foolish attraction to the trin­ kets o f m odern W estern civilisation, the expansion o f Islam, the aims o f Bolshevism, and, last but not least, the pernicious evangelism o f com peting missions and denom inations.96 T hrough their creative transformation o f European cultural forms, Africans rejected both o f these pastoral approaches, w hich were both doom ed to fail. W hile remaining faithful to Christianity, they developed ecclesiastical institutions and unprecedented rituals, they tried to wear shorts and even, horror o f horrors, trousers, going off to becom e vulgar citydwellers. For all that, the Christian myth o f the village com ­ m unity did not die. It resurfaced in the writings o f theologians and religious associations that militated in favour o f ‘Christian comm unities at the base’, w hich claims social and even political mobilisation. Terence Ranger, however, rightly notes that it has reconnected w ith the popular Christianity o f the heroic era o f missionary endeavour.97 We must also add that the colonial administration, especially its British variety, w hich laid great emphasis on its ethos o f the bureaucratic ‘gentry’and was convinced o f the benefits o f Indirect R ule, took pleasure in this vision o f African societies, going so far as to guarantee the organic harm ony o f rural Kenya by moving the people into strategic hamlets in order to protect them from the Mau M au revolt.98 It should be noted that the proponents o f ani­ mation rurale and ‘African socialism’ adopted the same views after Independence.99 In Asia as well, the jo in t invention o f tradition by the coloniser and the colonised is inseparable from the key concept o f the village community, to w hich M arx’s writings on India and C hina lent an immense intellectual respectability. In the D utch East Indies, for instance, the administration relied on the pam ong desa, the village chiefs, at the same time that it refused to assimilate the natives and prom oted a form o f

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The Interweaving o f Traditions

colonial nationalism. There ensued, especially in Java, a tw o­ fold process o f ‘agricultural involution’ and the ‘invention o f tradition’ that has been described, respectively, by Clifford Geertz and Benedict Anderson.100 Nonetheless, ‘the idea that there was a stereotyped Javanese village is a pure illusion’ that is based on historical ignorance, and w hich has been sustained by the ideological debate concerning the agrarian question, first betw een the nationalists and the colonisers, and then betw een the Communists and the right-w ing.101 Likewise the first British administrators o f the Indian sub-continent were convinced that the villages practised a kind o f primitive com ­ munism, were ignorant o f the caste system and lived in autarky— a romantic U topia that the nationalists later en­ dorsed. Gandhi made a great deal o f the notion o f panchayat,1' to the point o f dreaming about a Village Republic; his follower Vinoba Bhave revived the idea in the 1950s, and the H indu militant party, the Jan Sangh, maintained that ‘villages were the autarkic units o f Indian life, ... [that] they w ere self­ sufficient and self-governing, [and that] the village panchayat dated from the Vedic period’.102 Anthropologists w ho have worked on the ‘moral econom y’ o f the Asian peasantry have never entirely abandoned this organicist view o f the rural community, even though their leading light, James Scott, immediately objected to its rom an­ ticism and refused to see in the ‘ethic o f subsistence’— a calculated aversion to risk in an economically precarious situ­ ation— an ideal o f social justice. According to Scott’s analysis, the emphasis placed on reciprocity, the defence o f traditional rights and obligations, and the demand for the restoration o f the status quo, in short, the peasants’ ‘moral econom y’, ex­ pressed less resistance on the part o f backward-looking com ­ munitarian representations w hen confronted w ith progress— ‘resilience’, or hctahauan, as the ideologists o f the N ew O rder * A fiv e-m e m b er co u n cil, traditionally e n tru ste d w ith settlin g d isputes w ith in a caste. In c o n te m p o ra ry India, th e te rm designates th e elective village in stitu tio n s.

Culturalism as an ideology o f globalisation

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in Indonesia call it— than the developm ent o f conflict in a m odem context as the countryside underw ent a capitalist transform ation.103 T he most prom inent critic o f this anthropological approach, Samuel Popkin, had an easy time attacking the cornerstone o f this argument: the notion, formulated by Eric Wolf, o f a ‘clos­ ed, corporate com m unity’, w hich obliterates simultaneously the place o f outsiders on the margins o f the village, and in­ equality am ong insiders w ithin it.104 M oreover the strengthen­ ing o f the village structure is largely attributable to the colonial bureaucracy, w hich co-opted its notables as intermediaries, and expanded their para-administrative functions.105 Twenty years earlier, Louis D u m ont had pointed out that Indian villages were handing over at least one-sixth o f their harvests to the panchayats and that their apparent unity concealed different castes, or jatis, that transcended the space o f each o f them .106 T he ‘village com m unity’ is a myth. But through this alleg­ ory colonial administrators, nationalists, religious men, ‘devel­ opers’, intellectuals, businessmen and tourists discussed, in a circum locutory way, the genesis o f modernity, a process in w hich they were directly involved, and to w hich they were— in the name o f the interests o f the village, o f course!— strongly opposed. T he European administrators o f late colonialism were concerned to defend the peasants, w hom they saw as the trustees o f the eternal soul o f African or Asian culture, against the activities o f predatory traders, lazy bureaucrats, and C om ­ munist intellectuals. Nationalist leaders, w ho were also in search o f genuine developm ent from below, tried to retain agricultural surpluses by launching collectivisation programs centred on the ‘village’. M en o f religion, not to be outdone, dreamed up a mythical village in the form o f a robust parish or a dynamic grassroots community. Industrialists, foresters, and planters negotiated w ith the appropriate ‘chief’ in order to w in over the village whose land they coveted for investment. In their turn, anthropologists w ent straight to the chief and,

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The Interweaving o f Traditions

thanks to his mediation, w rote village monographs. In the spirit o f cooperation the Peace Corps and non-governm ental organisations celebrated the merits o f ‘small projects’: sinall is beautifidl Tourists photographed the villagers. As for members o f the brotherhood o f Beaujolais N ouveau, after having offi­ ciated ‘according to the rites o f their order’ they took away with them ‘the m em ory o f a charming village in a beautiful setting with a mild climate’. T he dialogue among the various speakers o f the fable o f the village com m unity quickly became surreal and absurd.107 That is not, however, the essential point. In its multiple versions, more or less racist, relativist, or substantialist, culturalism pro­ vides precisely one o f the idioms through the intervention o f which more and more actors in the international system interact w ith each other, w hether in the m ode o f m isunder­ standing or conflict. C h ristia n ity a n d globalisation in A frica

Christianity’s current tendencies in Black Africa provide a good illustration o f the subtle relationship betw een the asser­ tion o f local uniqueness and globalisation, two developments that are apparently contradictory but which the culturalist illusion succeeds in synthesising. At the beginning o f this chapter we drew attention to the way in w hich missionary evangelism, from the early nineteenth century to the Second World War, made it possible both to diffuse Christian universalism south o f the Sahara and cul­ turally to codify particularisms conceived in terms o f ethnicity, notably by means o f translating the Scriptures into autochtho­ nous languages that missionaries had helped to standardise in order to make them better vehicles for their teaching. For example, Yoruba identity in Nigeria results from this process. W ithin this im ported religion, which was incontestably dom ­ inated by Europeans— whatever efforts the Protestants made to co-opt an indigenous leadership— local entrepreneurs soon

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‘reinvented difference’ by establishing many so-called ‘Inde­ pendent’ Christian churches, structured ecclesiastically but inspired by African ‘ritual’. Those w ho analyse this differentiation o f the religious field have long insisted on the latter point, seeing in such move­ ments the revenge taken by ‘African cultures’ on ‘accultur­ ation’. B ut one can just as well see in them the continuity that links the Independent Churches to the missions and to nine­ teenth-century popular Christianity. Several o f their charac­ teristics, w hich are supposed to express their ‘Africanness’— for example, the prophetic spirit, the practice o f possession and exorcism— were borrow ed from nineteenth-century Western religious sensibility.108 Ultimately, the Independent Churches may have succeeded less in conveying a radical ‘inculturation’ o f the Testament than in establishing religious bureaucratic organisation on the continent. In any event, for the past fifteen years it has been clear that they are not the matrix o f a spe­ cifically African Christianity, since they have been heavily influenced by global political, economic, and religious trans­ formations. In particular, they have been inserted into a context o f the H oly See’s extreme mistrust o f any kind o f theology or politicisation o f the clergy that might resemble Latin A m er­ ican ‘liberation theology’, the West’s growing suspicion o f Islam, the rise o f the ‘religious right’ in the U nited States, and the involvement o f fundamentalist Protestantism in R onald R eagan’s crusade against the ‘Evil Em pire’ and in various ‘low level’ conflicts. T he influence o f American fundamentalism south o f the Sahara is particularly interesting. Going back to the 1920s, this trend is a m odern reaction to the religious innovations introduced by the m ajor churches. O n the pretext o f returning to a G olden Age it proposes to its followers innovations, o f w hich the vogue for tele-evangelists is the most spectacular manifestation. Far from being a form o f archaism or conser­ vatism, it is in its own way a factor o f social change, or at least

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The Intenueaving o f Traditions

o f adaptation to change. In this sense, it can be com pared to H indu nationalism, Islam, or the ‘return to Judaism ’ in Israel. But it is also similar to political-religious movements in w hich it conveys an identity-related strategy o f a culturalist and particularist type: that o f the Deep South in the U nited States, deeply w ounded by the Civil War, humiliated by the trium ph o f liberal capitalism, stricken by the Great Depression, m ourn­ ing for its way o f life, driven by W ashington’s arrogance to dismantle the barriers o f racial segregation. Biblical fundam en­ talism has never ceased to refer to this idealised past: ‘T he past as a dream o f purity, the past as a cause o f pain, the past as religion,’ V.S. Naipaul w rites.109 But it is also active in the present, for example w hen its ‘dispensationalist’ preachers infer from their millenarian reading o f the Bible the necessity o f supporting the Contras in Nicaragua, R enam o in M ozam ­ bique or U N IT A in Angola.110 In a country like Liberia, most preachers w ho adhere to evangelical churches or to the ‘Biblical’ faith m ovem ent par­ ticipate in this sensibility, and convey the teaching o f the Scofield Reference Bible. T heir economic, theological and ideological dependency on the churches o f the D eep South grew during the 1980s, and this did not in any way limit their local influence. Such religious organisations seem, on first inspection, to constitute a form o f ‘Americanisation’ rather than o f ‘Africanisation’. For example, the church that con­ verted the most faithful in Monrovia in 1989, the Transconti­ nental Evangelistic Association, had banned the use o f drums and dances in its celebrations, on the pretext that these practices were ‘African’, and replaced the drums w ith flutes and trumpets, instruments it deemed ‘Biblical’. Generally the preachers influenced by Protestant fundamentalism tend to see in traditional African religions only the darkness o f pagan­ ism.111 We must also emphasise the fact that the religious repre­ sentations im ported south o f the Sahara in this way com e from a very specific part o f the U nited States, the Deep South, and that their relation to globalisation and the ‘N ew W orld O rder’

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is very complex. If the Biblical ‘fundamentalists’ did not hesitate to jo in w ith ‘freedom fighters’ in several ‘low -level’ conflicts during the 1980s, and proved to be inveterate Zionists, they are also very critical o f multilateral organisations they see as preparing the advent o f ‘world governm ent’, such as the IMF, the W orld Bank, U N E S C O and G A TT, and they think that ‘true believers will have nothing to do ’ w ith the latter, w hich show that the end o f the world is nigh.112 These kind o f discourses naturally take on a very particular meaning in a sub-continent whose crippled economies are being sub­ jected by the B retton W oods institutions to ‘structural adjust­ m en t’. In reality the proliferation o f ‘Biblical’ movements indebted to American fundamentalism in Africa has purely local causes. In a context o f depression, these churches enable entrepreneurs to extract resources from the international envi­ ronm ent, and even from the com m unity o f the faithful. At the same time, in the best cases, the latter are provided w ith a few tangible benefits— for example, in terms o f education or sani­ tation— thanks to the foreign aid they receive or, m ore fre­ quently, a simple moral and spiritual support that nonetheless becomes precious in such fragile societies.113 The Biblical movements thus present themselves as ‘alter­ native com m unities’ that deaden the shock o f the crisis by pro­ viding the disadvantaged w ith a social status, and, above all, they contribute to the reconstruction o f the polis conjointly w ith the failed m odel o f the post-colonial state. From this point o f view, they are one avatar among others o f the im ­ posing prophetic m ovem ent that seems clearly to constitute the chief m atrix o f m odernity in Africa.114 U nderstood in this way, they are not simple vehicles o f ‘Americanisation’, since they maintain a relationship w ith the ‘religious right’ that is not one o f subordination, but o f creative divergence, in accord w ith a schema we have already encountered on several other occasions in discussing relations between Africa and the West. Thus the political character o f religious mobilisations goes far beyond the problem o f the apolitical stance affected by most

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religious organisations. It is likely that in the short term, these forms o f authoritarianism benefit from this reserve, since they have often co-opted prophets by showering various benefits on them .115 Nonetheless, the Greek tragedy that was the fall o f Liberia’s Samuel D oe in 1990 shows the limits o f this exercise: the Biblical preachers’ lack o f interest in the res pubJica and their complicity w ith the regime prevented neither the latter’s overthrow nor the ‘banalisation’ o f war as the means by w hich young m en and w om en gain access to ‘global’ m odernity, and as a way of sharing pow er.116 The connection between the religious sphere and the political sphere is neither explicit nor strictly functional. It consists in more tenuous exchanges. For example, Pentecostal groups in Nigeria are engaged in combating the Devil, to w hom they attribute an organisation o f a bureaucratic type. They describe the Satanic hierarchy as a ‘governm ent’, w ith its ‘ministers’, and even its ‘federals’, together w ith its great ‘army o f soldiers’, and acknowledge that ‘the Devil is an excellent administrator’ and ‘the champion o f the division o f labour.’117 T he fact that Satan is depicted in this way and that his chief intermediaries are supposed to be Muslims does not, o f course, please the form er military officers w ho dominate the national political scene, and whose contacts w ith the Islamic ruling class in the N o rth are notorious. Despite their specious and studied lack of interest in politics, N igerian Pentecostal movements conceal a strong potential to criticise those in power, and they may one day politicise their religious resistance to the advance o f Islam.118 However, we must also ask ourselves w hether they are not at the same time participating in the diffusion o f a bureaucratic imaginaire and in the appropriation o f a W esterntype state, to w hich their emphasis on morality and their sense o f the collectivity might ultimately produce a new form o f legitimacy. In any case it is clear that the definition o f new political subjectivities south o f the Sahara is taking place more than ever through the mediation o f religious mobilisations, and that

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through this play o f mirrors betw een ‘African culture’ and ‘W estern culture’ the relation betw een local societies and the process o f ‘globalisation’ is constantly being negotiated.119 A final example, that o f Emanuel Milingo, the healing arch­ bishop o f Lusaka w ho was forced by the Vatican to resign his office in 1983, confirms that culturalism’s contribution to ‘globalisation’ is played out in an in-betw een space that is not unequivocal.120 O n the one hand, Milingo makes no bones about his Africanness. H e is convinced that there is a world o f spirits located betw een the spheres o f G od and man. Contrary to the Independent Churches, he does not associate this belief w ith paganism, and thinks that Africa has its own spiritual identity. O nly respect for the latter can enable its peoples to share in the experience o f Revelation. O n the political level he condemns the oppression to w hich his continent is subjected, and he is close to the ‘contextual’ theology o f southern Africa. H ence his conflict w ith R om e. In addition to the usual dis­ sensions betw een expatriate missionaries and autochthonous clergy, especially over the management o f the diocese, there was also the Vatican’s suspicions regarding the risk o f the poli­ ticisation o f Catholicism in Zambia. Milingo s growing popu­ larity and his ability to capture the world o f spirits made him an implicit rival to the president o f the republic, Kenneth Kaunda, at a tim e w hen the latter’s credibility was declining in the eyes o f the public.* However, on the other hand, the form er archbishop o f Lusaka has always based his convictions on an attentive reading o f the Bible. H e remains faithful to his Catholic faith, from w hich he takes the absolute dichotom y betw een G ood and Evil, and has been strengthened in his views by the enthusiastic support o f the American Charismatic Renewal movement, * T h e H o ly See s c o n c e rn s w ere p artly w ell g ro u n d e d : th e trad e u n io n is t F red erick C h ilu b a, w h o w o n th e 1991 presidential elections, is an ad ep t o f th e C h arism atic R e n e w a l th a t le d to fo u r priests— tw o o f th e m W h ite — fro m th e K an ik i B ible S o ciety in N d o la c o n d u c tin g a rite o f exorcism in his ap a rtm en ts at th e S tate H ouse, in o rd e r to c o n ju re his p red e cesso rs presence (Africa Analysis, 10 Jan. 1992).

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which confirmed his belief in the universal dimension o f his therapeutic gift. Pope John Paul II, while he approved M ilingo’s removal from office in 1983, nonetheless encour­ aged him to devote himself to his healing ministry and caused him to be named to head the Pontifical Commission for Migration and Tourism in R om e. H e thereafter devoted all his afternoons to caring for the sick and once a m onth held a service attended by a considerable num ber o f believers o f all origins and all classes. In addition, he travelled a great deal, but avoided moving about Africa too frequently or surrounded by too m uch publicity. H e also healed by correspondence and by telephone. His reputation in the W est grew, thanks to the Charismatic R enew al m ovem ent. The phenom enon is ambi­ guous and not necessarily proof o f universality. Some o f his sympathisers no doubt see in him an exotic figure, and further proof that ‘Africa believes differently’, as a D utch newspaper put it.121 Nevertheless, as the charismatics see it, he is only one disciple o f Jesus among others, but one whose intense spiri­ tuality responds to their religious needs as m odem people, living in industrial societies. Thus we can understand how M ilingo’s emphasis on his African cultural heritage has to do w ith globalisation, but also in what way his culturalism differs from that o f other trends in Christianity. T he form er archbishop o f Lusaka defines C atho­ lic ‘inculturation’ as a process o f ‘incarnation’ that ‘preserves the identity o f one while at the same time borrow ing from the other, w ithout either o f the two parties losing anything’,122 and distances himself from the word ‘Africanisation’, w hich tends to imprison Africans in their Africanness and to keep them from drawing sustenance from universality. T he argum ent is diametrically opposed to that o f the Liberian preachers, w ho see universality only in the Biblical particularism o f the Deep South. Milingo achieved his goals because his ‘African’ belief in a spirit world allowed him to heal not only the anonymous ills o f the industrial world, but also cases o f possession as cul­ turally loaded as those o f the south o f Italy.

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Moreover, the universality o f his message is not validated solely by his success in the West. In Zambia itself the implicit politicisation o f M ilingo’s charisma certainly had to do w ith a unique history— that o f the great healers w ho were sometimes also political leaders. In addition, the profile o f the form er arch­ bishop o f Lusaka rem inded people o f a hero o f the nationalist struggle, Sim on Kapwepwe, w ho opposed Kenneth Kaunda after independence and died under suspicious circumstances. However, in the Zambian capital the hypothesis most often proposed to explain the replacement o f the ancient healers, the nganga , by a figure like Milingo is that a Catholic prelate is better prepared to combat a universal spirit in the posses­ sed.123 Similarly, in Senegal ufann — the pre-Islamic spirit o f the Badyaranke, w ho loves palm wine and cannot bear the odour o f petrol em itted by trucks— w ithdrew into the forest w hen exported cultures arrived in the region, leaving the field open for A llah__124 Basing itself on its ambiguities, the culturalist representation o f the international system has becom e a major position in public debate, both domestically in various states and in the relationships they entertain among themselves or in the trans­ national dimension o f the m odern world. In their complexity, these exchanges cannot be reduced to a ‘clash o f civilisations’. W hen the prim e minister o f Malaysia, M oham m ad Mahathir, the then Sudanese Islamic leader Hassan al-Tourabi, African vice-presidents, and the neo-C onfucian dignitaries w ho over­ see the econom ic performance o f their ‘East Asian tiger econ­ omies’ question the pertinence o f the liberal conception o f democracy and see in the latter a specifically Western cultural characteristic, they are not distinguishing themselves from the West as m uch as they claim. A considerable fraction o f Europ­ ean opinion approves o f their relativism, the very fraction that defends against hell, high water, and immigrants the consubstantial identity o f the nations o f the O ld C ontinent, and that is ultimately not so convinced that liberal democracy is its unde­ niable cultural expression. A Jean-M arie Le Pen is not offended

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by Islamism; on the one hand, the latter confirms him in the idea that Arabs cannot be civilised, and therefore cannot be assimilated {pace his convictions in I960!); on the other hand, the National Front pursues a similar identity-related strategy, and reduces this ‘identity o f France’ to a Frenchness, and even a stereotypical Frenchness, that it defines arbitrarily. O n the same note, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, head o f the Russian Lib­ eral-Democratic party, declared that ‘we must not be afraid o f Islamic fundamentalism’, because ‘fundamentalism is the establishment o f an order, o f traditions, characteristic o f south­ ern peoples. Polygamy, respect for the elderly, submission, traditional trades, the Koran— w hat’s bad about that for us Russians? T he Turkish ‘dem ocratic’ way that allowed the Turks to spread throughout Europe is m uch worse for us: it is Com intem ism , whereas fundamentalism is nationalism.’125 Unwittingly, xenophobic relativism is thus itself a rem inder that in the contem porary world there are hardly any values that are peculiar to civilisations, to cultural arenas, or to re­ ligion doomed, at best, to mutual ignorance, and at worst to confrontation. Some Muslims opt for the ‘Turkish democratic way’, and if from 1989 to 1992 Chinese or Thai dissidents apparently remained faithful to certain societal ‘values’, these values were not as ‘Asian’ as proponents o f the ‘neo-C onfucian’ business model would have us believe: according to polls, 53 per cent o f Americans approved o f the corporal pun­ ishment inflicted on Michael Peter Fay by officials in Sin­ gapore in 1994, for having com m itted vandalism, whereas a year later the execution o f a Filipino employee in Singapore aroused strong emotions in the Philippines, where in this case people were unimpressed by the benefits o f so-called ‘Asian values’. O n the one hand, the attraction o f the liberal m odel has sent thousands o f protesters into the street in Africa and Asia. O n the other, the patrimonial conception o f authority, the admiration for work well done and for discipline, the refusal to let young people wallow in licentiousness, the sus­ picion regarding democratic disorder, the tem ptation to rein in

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the right to strike, the cult o f the earth, nature, and com ­ m unity, and above all the intra-uterine definition o f one’s ow n culture, have a definite appeal in the West: at least, under Mussolini, the trains ran 011 time! We have already noted, moreover, that Western societies have not only exported the values o f ‘progress’ and ‘freedom ’. In the nineteenth century, the Young O ttom ans found in their teaching ideas and theories justifying their resistance to ex­ cessive change.126 In Iran M ehdi Bazargan, the leader o f the N ational Liberation M ovem ent, and Ali Shariati, one o f the main inspirers o f the 1979 revolution, regarded Alexis Carrel’s w ork as extremely im portant.127 A nd w ithout even m ention­ ing the sympathy Hitler encountered among certain Asian lead­ ers and in the Arab world, it is undeniable that the genocide in R w anda was conceived by m en w ith diplomas from European and A m erican universities, w ho apparently derived from their studies an idea o f racial purity radically alien to the history o f their country.128 O n May 1, 1991, H enri R ieben, a professor in the U ni­ versity o f Lausanne w ith ties to the Radical party in the Swiss canton o f Vaud, conferred a doctoral degree honoris causa on his form er student, the late Jonas Savimbi,who incarnated ethno-nationalism , and even the regionalism o f the Angolan hin­ terland, in opposition to the grasping cosmopolitanism o f the mixed-race, materialistic elite in Luanda, and w ho had curried the favour o f the religious right in the U nited States. To the accom panim ent o f the spasmodic applause o f his clownish foreign minister, the head o f U N IT A , in no way encum bered by his neo-traditional com m ander’s baton, accepted the gift of the volumes o f the Encyclopedic vaudoise, a m onum ent to the glory o f a cantonal culture invented towards the end o f the nineteenth century.129 Picturesque as it was, the ceremony was no m ore devoid o f meaning than the celebration o f the Beaujolais N ouveau in Bayangam, or the presentation o f L ohengrin’s helm et to the chief o f the Chagga. T he origins o f the O vim bundu and Swiss strategies o f identity are near

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contemporaries. Swiss nationalism dates back to 1891, the time o f the jubilee celebrating the ‘six hundredth centennial’ o f Switzerland, Obwalden and N idwalden.130 To repeat Bene­ dict A nderson’s irreverent observation, Swiss nationalism be­ longs to the same ‘last wave’ o f the ‘imagined com m unity’ as the nationalisms o f Africa or Asia; for example, it precedes Indonesian or Burmese nationalism by only a decade.131 T he support Professor R ieben lavished on Savimbi thus takes on a real ideological coherence. It illustrates the process o f cultural closure which, as m uch as the process o f universalisation and o f false uniformisation, characterises contem porary globalisation.

2

SHOULD WE STOP USING THE W ORD ‘CULTURE’? From the hills o f Beaujolais to the land o f the Bamileke, from the Deep South to Liberia, from Lusaka to R om e, from the canton o f Vaud to the land o f the O vim bundu, in short, from one space or historical landscape (terroir historique) to another, the intersection o f the processes o f inventing tradition, w hich has been constitutive o f the general m ovem ent o f globalisation for m ore than a century, reminds us that there is no culture that is not created, and that this creation is usually recent. Moreover, the form ation o f a culture or a tradition necessarily involves dialogue, and occurs in interaction w ith its regional and inter­ national environment. This is what we must now discuss in greater detail by shifting our focus from facts to methodology. As we have seen, the culturalist argum ent implicitly takes it for granted, or at least for a necessity, that a political com m un­ ity corresponds to a cultural coherence, w hether the latter is original and hereditary (the post-Herderian Volksgeist) or ration­ ally determ ined and chosen (Renans famous ‘everyday plebi­ scite’). This may be the illusion indulged in by several states that are now solidly constituted but which forged their political unity by m ore or less belatedly constructing their cul­ tural unity, following the example o f Japan, China, the nations o f W estern Europe, or the ethno-linguistic nationalisms o f Eastern Europe, including Turkey. B ut let us not take the exception for the rule, or be duped by the ferocious identity-related conflicts whose protagonists 59

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pretend to know w ho they are and w hom they are killing, for these events are themselves merely the late harvest o f the cul­ tural closure o f the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. History and anthropology offer many examples o f culturally undefined societies whose members base their identity on exchange, intermarriage, and cosmopolitanism. M ost o f the maritime areas have also been sites o f hybridisation, w hich have given rise to more or less brilliant syncretic civilisations w hich were, however, generally fragmented from a political standpoint, such as the ‘galactic’ spaces studied by S. J. Tam biah in South and Southeast Asia.1 Ethnic definitions o f culture do not allow us to grasp the historical positivity o f these configurations, w hich we are tem pted to see as incomplete. In this respect, the ‘Javanese crossroads’ is a textbook case, in the same way as the M editer­ ranean or the Caribbean: T h e horizons o f trade were certainly very specific: C hina, India, the Arab countries, Black Africa; but the m erchants w h o were engaged in it, m ost o f w hom had com e from m ixed m arriages and were naturally polyglot, co n ­ stituted an extrem ely diversified and syncretic social m ilieu that was open to all sorts o f cultures and had a predilection for universalist ideologies. This is how we m ust understand the tw o great religions that they brought, one after the other, to Southeast Asia: Buddhism , and then Islam, w h ich W est­ erners have som etim es too great a tendency to see as ‘Indian’ or ‘A rabic’, respectively, unconsciously giving a racial connotation to these term s. T hese great netw o rk ideologies have deeply penetrated the Far East, because they did away w ith the peculiarly ethnic factor that o th er religions, and notably H induism , had exacerbated. In all this, C hina, far from being a rebarbative mass, w ithdraw n into its ‘M andarin C onfucianism ’, also played a role as a turntable, or even an engine. B uddhism and Islam deeply influenced it, som etim es by central Asia or by sea.2

However, the problem goes beyond the case o f m aritim e and mercantile spaces. It is not possible, for example, to identify an African society that is not similarly a ‘frontier’ society, a ‘fringe’ society.3 Anthropological research over the last decade has demolished the myth o f ‘Sudanese tradition’: the societies o f

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the N ile valley have constantly interacted w ith the M uslim kingdoms that connected them w ith the slave markets o f Zan­ zibar, Egypt, and the O ttom an empire, and this interweaving, as well as the existence o f no m an’s lands betw een the m a i n centres o f pow er, makes it impossible to find a ‘coherent tribal cosmos, an integrated system o f discourse, an orthodoxy’ that correspond to the old presuppositions o f ethnology.4 A nthro­ pologists are now tending to abandon the concept o f an ethnic group— though not entirely, and we shall return to this point, that o f ethnicity or ethnic consciousness— and speak instead o f ‘networks o f societies’ that structured, in earlier times, more or less vast and com plex regional spaces: mercantile spaces, m one­ tary spaces, religious or political spaces that overlap w ithout necessarily coinciding.5 In these contexts, disjunctions between the political order and representations or cultural practices were probably systematic. T he conquered populations maintained their forms o f worship and customs in the kingdoms, and also, in a way perhaps more difficult to perceive, in lineage societies.6 Colonisation merely dramatised this cultural pluralism by rigidifying tradition, by modifying the nature o f social inequal­ ity and by introducing racial discrimination. Far from oblit­ erating the relative cultural indeterminatedness o f earlier times by imposing rational, legal ‘civilisation’, it complicated it by adding to it the dimension o f ‘heteroculture’: in our ow n time, Africa ‘is nourished by two cultural matrices considered as both essential (and even literally vital) and antagonistic’.7 O ne may disagree over the ‘antagonistic’ character o f these two ‘m atrices’ and Africans’ ability to overcome the contradiction. In any case Africans draw a distinction between these two ‘ma­ trices’. For instance, the Bakongo in Zaire contrast the cultural system o f the W hites (kim undele ) w ith that o f the Blacks (k in dombe); each system requires a different set o f ‘techniques o f the body’ and beliefs. Prophetic sects make it possible to move beyond the incompatibility o f these two worlds.8 Similarly, in Togo and Cam eroon, for example, people are fond o f using the

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expression the ‘W hite people’s country’ to designate the city, and ‘W hite people’s w ork’ to describe a salaried jo b .9 B ut these fault lines or cultural uncertainties no m ore char­ acterise the colonial heritage than they do the non-centralised societies or ‘peripheries’ marginalised by the ‘centre’, as is sometimes thought. The imposing edifice o f the R om an em­ pire was based on an indirect structure and a policy o f m unicipalisation that prom oted w ithin it a heterogeneity o f beliefs and customs.10 In addition it was situated ‘on the fringes o f the Greek world’: the R om ans adopted as their culture that o f another people, just as the Japanese o f the M inam oto period adopted Chinese beliefs and customs a m illennium later.11 Russian culture, w hich we think o f as rooted in the land, continually situated itself w ith respect to a foreign pole o f ref­ erence (or repulsion): Byzantium at the time o f Christianisation, then Enlightenm ent Europe during Peter the G reat’s reforms, and now ‘the radiant future’ o f the free market economy as it is understood by the gnomes o f Washington. The O ttom an elite, for its part, identified w ith an Osmanli culture that was open to Byzantine, Arabic, Persian,Jewish, and Armenian influences, and that was out o f step w ith the de­ motic culture o f the countryside, particularly w ith respect to popular Turkish-speaking culture. This symbiotic disposition o f the conquering Turks resurfaced in the Seljuk empire and in the states the Turks established in Syria and E gypt.12 This was so m uch the case that one m ight w onder w hether the politics borrowed from the West, starting w ith the Tanzimat at the beginning o f the nineteenth century, is not simply a re­ surgence o f an older strategy, rather than being the spectacular turnaround that our storytellers attribute to the demiurge Atatiirk. We also have a tendency to forget how m uch Persian culture, w hich was itself in osmosis w ith Hellenic thought, was the centre o f cosmopolitan civilisation in central Asia and India till the eighteenth century, and set its stamp on the West­ ern m odernity o f the classical age through the interm ediary o f trade w ith China and the Indian O cean.13 T he civilisations—

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Chinese, K hm er, Indian, Islamic etc.— majestically reconsti­ tuted by learned Orientalists on the basis o f their great tra­ dition in the context w e described above never had the coherence lent them by the culturalist argument. T he Europe o f the Christian Middle Ages, the Enlight­ enm ent, and the H oly Alliance itself provide a good example o f the disparity betw een local cultures that are strongly parti­ cularised and a transnational culture o f which Latin and French were successively the linguistic vehicles. It goes w ithout saying that cosmopolitanism survived the m ovem ent o f cultural clo­ sure that accompanied the flourishing o f nationalism. T he fall o f the A ustro-H ungarian and O ttom an empires, the end o f the liberal age— the ‘great transform ation’ o f w hich Karl Polanyi speaks— betw een the two world wars, and the Holocaust have not ensured the final trium ph o f identity-related strategies. N ational Socialism and its allies were defeated, the protec­ tionist and quasi-autarkic conception o f a ‘national econom y’ was bankrupted, the W ilsonian principle o f the correspond­ ence o f state borders to cultural borders betw een nationalities and languages proved impractical, and the Soviet empire, w hich practised fanatical culturalism in the name o f prole­ tarian internationalism, collapsed. In light o f the wars in the form er Yugoslavia, the Caucasus and Central Asia, one will obviously w orry about the exacer­ bation o f ethno-nationalism that m ight ensue. Nonetheless, ‘we must pay attention not only to the dog that barks, but also to the one that does not bark.’14 In sum, the worst is not always certain to occur: Czechs and Slovaks have divorced, to be sure, but on amicable terms; the Hungarians showed m oderation in defending Magyar minorities in neighbouring countries, and sometimes even regard them w ith indifference; the spectre o f a bloody dism em berm ent o f Russia seems to have receded.* * A u th o r’s note to Y ugoslavia, fro m D a y to n A cco rd s m u lticu ltu ra lism o n e at that.

the English edition T h e d e v e lo p m e n t o f th e B alkans, especially o f 1996 to 2 0 0 0 seem s to c o n firm this g en eral view, ev e n i f th e d ip lo m atically validated e th n ic cleansing, an d even i f a r e tu r n to in B o sn ia is n o w n o m o re th a n a u to p ia n goal, a n d a dan g ero u s

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Farther west, the recurrent difficulties involved in con­ structing Europe are often less the result o f an identity-related tensing o f public opinion than o f divergences among govern­ ments regarding the nature and econom ic orientation o f the European U nion. These fitful efforts to build cannot conceal the development o f transnational integration on the level o f regions, enterprises and individuals, as well as the progress achieved in recognising cultural or political particularisms w ithin certain fiercely centralising states, such as Spain. Despite the w orrying banalisation o f racist and xenophobic views and violence, and the rise o f wary economic or cultural protec­ tionism, Europe, ravaged by two world wars, has been able to revive its multi-cultural tradition and to give it an econom ic basis for w hich the culturalist approach can offer no satis­ factory account. Today the outlook for enlarging the Europ­ ean U nion depends on accepting this principle o f diversity. As Fran^oise de la Serre, Christian Lequesne and Jacques R upnik point out,15 ‘The disappearance o f the East-West division sounded the death knell for one-dimensional institutional models that sought to achieve completion, and prom oted a multiplicity o f processes whose main function now consists in overcoming ambivalences and adjusting differences arising from the continent’s disorganisation. [...] The European U nion is doom ed to remain a political enterprise that is sui generis and incomplete, evolving in accord w ith a sequence o f pragmatic compromises.’ Public opinion’s sympathy for the Bosnian or the Kosovar cause— w hich made it temporarily forget its antiIslamic paranoia— is only one sign among others o f this re­ currence o f the cosmopolitan or universalist dream, like the somewhat hypocritical nostalgia it shows for the AustroHungarian empire or its fascination w ith the literary legacy o f Trieste. For its part the U nited States has to administer a hum an het­ erogeneity that is not new but now refuses to dissolve itself in the melting pot. Moreover, we have no reason to believe that the radical identity-related strategies at w ork in Arab Muslim,

4

Heritage or production?

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African, or Asian countries will overcom e their diversity, whereas specialists on China w onder how Beijing will be able to keep political control over the growing econom ic and cultural autonom y o f its south-eastern provinces. Finally, diasporas, hom e countries and regions, as well as enterprises, found­ ations, churches and sects are asserting themselves, pursuing their ow n objectives w ithin the gaps o f the interstate system, and contributing to the dissociation o f cultural identities and political organisation.16 If we want to understand both strategies o f identity-related closure and indecisiveness about identity or processes o f cul­ tural expansion, the dynamics o f homogenisation as well as those o f ‘heterogenisation’, culturalism cannot help us, for it commits three m ethodological errors: it maintains that a cul­ ture is a corpus o f representations that is stable over time; it sees this corpus as closed in on itself, and it assumes that this corpus determ ines a specific political orientation. T he time has come to refute each o f these assertions. H eritage or production?

As soon as one begins to reflect on culture, one has to take into account one obvious fact: that o f heritage, o f w hat is received from earlier ages and inculcated in new generations. However— if only because we are ‘cultivated’!— we must not forget the achievement o f Hegelian thought w hen it ‘understands from the outset being-in-the-w orld as a production’.17 M ichel de C erteau described very nicely this oscillation o f culture ‘be­ tween two forms, one o f w hich continually causes us to forget the other’: O n one hand, it is w h at is ‘p e rm a n en t’; on the other, it is w hat is invented. O n one hand, there are the dilatoriness, the latencies, the delays that pile up in the thickness o f m entalities, obvious facts and social ritualisations, opaque, stubborn life b u ried in everyday acts, sim ultaneously c o n tem ­ porary and age-old. O n the o th er hand, the irruptions, the deviancies, all the m argins o f an inventiveness from w hich future generations will succes­

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sively extract their ‘cultivated culture’. C ulture is a vague darkness in w hich yesterday’s revolutions sleep, invisible, w ithdraw n into practices— but fireflies, and sometim es great nocturnal birds, cross it, apparitions and creations that outline the opportunity o f another day.18

There is a great tem ptation to rem em ber only the first com ­ ponent o f the concept o f culture, and to emphasise trans­ mission, reproduction, permanence, continuity and weight. This was the path followed by Geistesgeschichte (the G erm an equivalent o f the French histoire des mentalites), w hich gradually attributed to the Zeitgeist a static coherence w hen the revolu­ tionary thinkers o f the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in particular A rndt and others down to Hegel, saw in it an irresistible force o f transformation.19 Culture thus be­ came a principle determining attitudes and resistance to change. ‘Personally, I have always been convinced and frightened by the enorm ous weight o f distant origins. They crush us’, writes Fernand Braudel, w ho did not hesitate to speak o f the ‘prisons o f longue duree .20 However, for the historian this ‘long dura­ tion’— apart from the fact that it cannot be entirely reduced to cultural representations— does not exclude change. It des­ ignates the ‘rhythm ’, w hich is original and slow.21 It is on the basis o f this observation that Braudel privileges both the con­ tinuity and the irreducibility o f cultures. H e believes in the ‘heterogeneity, the diversity, o f world civilisations, in their per­ manence, in the survival o f their personages, w hich amounts to seeing as one o f the most im portant tasks currently facing us the study o f the acquired reflexes, attitudes lacking in flexi­ bility, firm habits, deep tastes that can only be explained by a slow, ancient history that is not very conscious [such as the antecedents that psychoanalysis places at the deepest levels of adult behaviour]’.22 All this is right and good if we keep in m ind that cultures are at the same time ‘combinatorials o f operations’.23 As a result, they are also innovative. Popular cultures and popular religions are not in any way immobile: they undergo evolutions, trans­ formations, and even metamorphoses.24 Thus, M ichel Vovelle

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emphasises that ‘the history o f mentalities merges not only w ith the history o f resistances, as inertias or periods o f latency, but there is also a real possibility o f sudden mutations, o f cre­ ativity on the spot, o f ages or mom ents w hen a new sensibility abruptly crystallises’25— for instance, mom ents o f revolution­ ary growth. T he study o f political societies in Africa and Asia has been confronted by this dilemma ever since decolonisation. We have constantly asked ‘w hat in fact are the relationships betw een the way in w hich N ew State polities behave and the way in w hich traditional ones behaved’.26 And one cannot be sure that the very non-com m ittal Clifford Geertz— whose w ork has been so im portant for ‘the interpretation o f cultures’— is doing m uch to advance the debate ‘w ithout succumbing to either o f two equally misleading (and, at the m om ent, equally popular) propositions: that contem porary states are the mere captives of their pasts, re-enactm ents in thinly m odern dress o f archaic dramas; or that such states have completely escaped their pasts, are absolute products o f an age w hich owes nothing to any­ thing but itself’.27 This dialectic o f perm anence and change in culture pro­ ceeds in part from the relationship that every society is bound to have w ith its environment. The myth o f the village community suggests that W estern thought is not necessarily disposed to agree w ith this view. However, the classical demonstration offered by E dm und Leach in his study o f the Kashin in Burm a has been corroborated by the analysis o f other cases in Asia and Africa: ancient societies, instead o f being isolated, constituted systems o f political, commercial, and cultural relations, and were structured by these organic ties w ith the outside.28 W hat is true o f ‘prim itive’ societies also holds, even more strongly, for empires, ancient kingdoms and contem porary states. Hence, ‘m odernisation’ does not consist in an endogenous and uni­ versal evolution from the ‘traditional’ to the ‘m odern’, but instead involves regional or international em ulation.29 Thus the nation-state in W estern Europe has often been form ed in

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accord w ith a competitive principle, o f w hich the rivalry be­ tw een France and Britain is the archetype, and has always been included w ithin transnational m ovem ents.30 As for cultural phenom ena, strictly speaking the m atter must be so obvious that we shall limit ourselves to trivial ex­ amples. The ‘emblems’31 o f a cultural identity often result from borrowing. Portuguese azulejo tiles, for instance: the technique is o f Arab origin and the blue comes from China, w hich had itself borrowed it from Persia. T he tomato, w hich is as typical o f M editerranean cuisine as olives, bread and wine, was im por­ ted from the Americas by the Spanish, and its name is Aztec in origin. M int tea, the im m em orial ritual o f M oroccan socia­ bility, was introduced there by the English in the eighteenth century and became a substitute beverage during the econo­ mic crisis o f 1874-84, finally becom ing the national drink.32 M ore seriously, political cultures, no m atter how unique, always recycle foreign representations, theories, or practices. For example, how can we discuss G erm an nationalism, w hich is so specific in its culturalist appeal to a Volksgeist, w ithout ref­ erence to the universalist model o f the French R evolution and the episode o f the Napoleonic occupation? It is revealing, m ore­ over, that emigres and refugees play a crucial role in the genesis o f nationalisms (or ethno-nationalisms), and often prom ote their radicalisation, as in nineteenth- and early tw entiethcentury Turkey, or more recently among the Irish, the Leban­ ese, the Eritreans, the Sikhs, the Tamils, the H utu and the Tutsi. These complex relationships between old and new and between the inside and the outside have been analysed in a remarkable way by the semiotic school o f Tartu and Moscow, on the basis o f the structural opposition in Russian culture between the ‘old’ (starina) and the new (novisna ). This distinc­ tion intersected, and generally blurred, other dichotomies, for example those between Russia and the West or betw een Christianity and paganism, w ithout any o f these relationships o f equivalence remaining constant. In addition, ‘the persistent tendency to consider the Russian land as new ’ has often

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coincided w ith the ‘revitalisation o f extremely archaic cultural m odels’: ‘T he very concept o f novelty turns out to be a product o f ideas whose roots go back to very ancient anti­ quity.’ Thus in the sixteenth century, various popular protest m ovem ents dem anded a return to form er times, whose ‘image ... was profoundly anti-historical and wanted to break w ith the real tradition’. T he O ld Believers, on the other hand, inverted historical time. Positive notions— orthodoxy, piety— were given the epithet ‘old’, whereas sin was perceived as part o f ''novelty’ and associated w ith the W est, a ‘new ’ space, but one that was also ‘reversed’, ‘on the left’, that is diabolical. For O ld Believers, Peter the G reat’s reforms could be nothing other than sacrilegious, and in fact these reforms did claim to be ‘new ’. T he Policeystaat, w hich is said to have given birth to the image o f a ‘new Russia’ and a ‘new people’, was imposed and perceived as a ‘Europeanisation’ o f ‘old’ Russia. As we have seen, one must not be deceived by this ‘Europeanisa­ tio n ’: ‘T he new culture was not so m uch constructed on “W estern” models (though it was experienced subjectively as “W estern”) as on “inverted” structural models drawn from the old culture.’ W e can even observe that this Europeanisa­ tion often ‘reinforced the archaic characteristics o f Russian culture’, and that ‘in this respect, contrary to the current, super­ ficial opinion, the eighteenth century belongs, organically, to Russian culture as such’.33 Popular cultures themselves— whose definition by intel­ lectuals was, as we have seen, a highpoint o f the movem ent o f identity-related closure— have never been as hom ogeneous as they were supposed to be by the theoreticians o f the invention o f tradition, and in particular by the nationalists o f Central and Eastern Europe. Historians have amply demonstrated that ‘popular religion’, for example, did not differ point-by-point from clerical and learned religion, and that moreover it was often an artefact fabricated by the clergy to m eet the needs of their pastoral work. It is doubtful that there was ever a single form o f religious practice in French rural areas under the

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Ancien Regime; w ithout even m entioning regional differences,

manual labourers, farmers, artisans, winegrowers and notables did not necessarily practise their faith in the same way. In addition, various ‘cultural intermediaries’ ensured that beliefs and rites m oved back and forth betw een the cities and the rural world, betw een the people and the elites.34 Generally, ‘in the eighteenth-century French people lived in contrasting and m ixed cultural spaces.’35 Thus, on the eve o f the French R e v o ­ lution, R ousseau’s w ork was read as m uch by the urban lower classes as by bourgeois merchants and aristocrats.36 W e w ould do better to reflect on the interfaces betw een these ‘cultural spaces’ than to see them as so many monads. The fluidity o f the popular is demonstrated in situations in which social polarity and cultural fragmentation m ight seem to prevent it. In India, for instance, the lower castes worship in a way different from that o f the Brahmins. Nonetheless, the form er often copy the latter’s practices, and have a tendency to ‘Sanskritise’ themselves.37 Similarly, in the O ttom an empire, the distance, and in particular the linguistic distance, betw een the Osmanli culture o f the elite and the Turkish-speaking demotic culture did not prevent them from sharing certain artistic expressions: the poetic form o f the g h a za l * w hich unques­ tionably belonged to the high literature o f the divan, was appreciated by an audience broader than C ourt and literary circles, even though it included a num ber o f Arabic or Persian turns o f phrase and words, and ultimately developed a lyrical thematics very close to that o f the popular poetry o f the a p k.i8 Thus we cannot accept literally assertions like that o f Marc R aeff w hen he speaks o f the ‘isolation’ o f Russian popular culture after Peter the Great’s reforms: ‘[Russian popular cul­ ture] never disappeared, but was relegated to the periphery of live, dynamic, creative forces; by sealing itself up in an isola­ tionism that distrusted every kind o f foreign innovation, it became petrified, rigidified’.39 It is more likely, on reading * T h e ghazal is a lyric p o e m , usually q u ite sh o rt.

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B akhtin’s works and those o f the semiotic school o f Tartu and M oscow, that the ‘rhythm ’ o f Russian popular culture’s trans­ form ation slowed, while retaining go-betw een relationship w ith other sectors o f society, for example through the agency o f the serfs, w ho conveyed elements o f elite culture into popu­ lar milieux, as R aeff him self acknowledges. T he culturalist argument, w hich is as m uch political as sci­ entific, eludes these roles played by innovation and borrowing by assuming that a central, hermetically sealed core o f intan­ gible representations persists over the centuries. In this it views culture as m ore static than Braudel ever did, w ith his ‘prisons o f longue duree’. As a cognitive or ideological version o f the m ovem ent o f identity-related closure that forged, in the con­ text o f ethnicist or nationalist folklore, traditions in the nine­ teenth and tw entieth centuries, the culturalist argum ent does not allow itself to reflect on the ways in w hich social actors produce their history in a conflictual manner, by defining themselves both in relation to their perception o f the past and in relation to their conception o f the future. Four o f these cultural operations deserve m ore detailed examination, because o f their recurrence in the field o f poli­ tics: tactics or strategies o f extraversion, practices o f transfer, procedures o f authentication, and the processes of forming pri­ mordial identities. C u ltu ra l extraversion a n d the transfer o f m eaning

Extraversion consists in espousing foreign cultural elements and putting them in the service o f autochthonous objectives. It may be a kind o f ‘tactic’ involving, according to M ichel de Certeau, ‘the construction o f one’s own sentences using a bo r­ rowed vocabulary and syntax’, or a ‘strategy’, if it acquires ‘the possibility o f adopting an overall project [and] totalising the adversary in a distinct, visible, and objectivisable space.’40 Hindu ‘syncretism’, w hich was institutionalised through the mediation o f various nationalist movements, seems to belong to the second category, and Christophe Jaffrelot righdy describes it as ‘strategic’.

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But situations o f domination, in particular colonial dom i­ nation, open an immense field for ‘tactics’ o f extraversion, whose accumulation ultimately affects the form ation o f the state.41 American Indian adhesion to Christianity provides a good example o f this kind o f historical experience. Faced w ith Franciscans w ho deployed an evangelism o f a culturalist type and sought to legitimise autochthonous civilisation to the point o f taking care to respect its established hierarchy, the sedentary natives o f N ew Spain chose to submit and to accept the E uro­ peans’ religion. However, they converted ‘in order to remain Indians’. The nativism o f the mendicant orders spared them the Hispanicisation the Conquistadors sought, and gave them a sort o f ‘shelter in w hich they could practice the old religion’, in the name o f the worship o f the saints: ‘O ne can thus say, w ithout paradox, that it is thanks to the m endicant orders that the Indians o f M exico were converted, but it was also thanks to them that they remained Indians’.42 However, over a longer period, this new case o f cultural intersection— ‘the M exico o f the sixteenth century saw missionaries faithful to their king Indianising themselves to the point o f becom ing the cultural m em ory o f the pagan civilisation, whereas Indians Christian­ ised themselves while at the same time remaining Indians in their being and in their beliefs!’43— is at the origin o f the idea o f the nation. It was the mendicant religious orders w ho first established ‘the existence o f a M exican entity by collecting its history and describing its culture’.44 Similarly, Christian missions in Africa were the chief matrices o f colonial nationalism, even though today the emphasis is placed instead on their role in the crystallisation and standardisation o f ethnic identities: the con­ version to the W hite m an’s religion (or to Islam) was one of the stages in autochthonous actors’ participation in the new political framework and their instrumentalisation o f the state. These examples make it clear that cultural extraversion im ­ plies a second operation: the transfer o f meaning from one practice, one place, one representation, one symbol or text, to another, for it is, almost by definition, a reinterpretation and

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deviation. This is the case for the Christianisation o f Indians in the N ew W orld, w hich led to osmosis betw een the foreign faith and ancient beliefs, in the m anner o f the ‘w orking mis­ understanding’ discussed above. T he worship o f the dead found its niche in the interstices o f Catholic celebrations. In Bogota the pilgrimage to M ontserrat allows the faithful to converse w ith the supernatural powers o f the invisible, and prostitution is banned on G ood Friday, in the same spirit as the inhabitants o f the C olom bian capital visit certain ‘priv­ ileged tom bs’— like that o f the founder o f the Bavaria B rew ­ ery— in order to attract good luck, or wear as talismans coins that have passed through the funeral pyres o f unidentified bodies.45 T he transfer o f sacredness was even more widespread in Latin America because the Catholic C hurch often orches­ trated it by seeking to capture for its own purposes the power o f the sites or symbols o f autochthonous religion. This seems to have been the origin o f the intense devotion to the Virgin o f Guadalupe.46 In the early 1530s the first missionaries estab­ lished a herm itage on the hill o f Tepeyac, on the site o f a pre­ historic sanctuary, devoted to Toci, the m other o f the gods, ‘O u r M other’. T he Indians continued to visit it, maintaining a pre-C hristian tradition, and from the middle o f the sixteenth century onwards, Creoles also began going there to venerate a painted statue o f the Virgin, O u r Lady o f Guadalupe. The latter is supposed to have been the work o f a native artist w ho was inspired by a European model, at the com m and o f Arch­ bishop M ontufar. T he prelate is said to have surreptitiously substituted the statue for the primitive image worshipped by the Indians, and to have attributed this replacement to a more or less miraculous divine intervention. T he ambiguity o f this action and o f the new adoration did not escape the notice of the Franciscans, w ho were furious about it. ‘And now to come tell the natives that an image painted yesterday by an Indian called Marcos performs miracles is to sow confusion’, thun­ dered the order’s provincial from the pulpit. N o t w ithout

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reason: the Indians w ho flocked to Tepeyac superimposed the two names o f O u r Lady o f Guadalupe and Tonantzin; the worship o f the two M others seems to have been com bined in a single cult. In a parallel manner, the conversion o f Russia to Byzantine Christianity was accompanied by the penetration o f pagan ideas into the newly established culture. Sometimes the old gods were identified w ith demons, and occupied a negative but cognitively legitimate place in the O rthodox faith. Sometimes they were assimilated to the saints, behind w hich they faded away. Occasionally they underw ent these two transformations simultaneously: Volos became the dem on Volosatik, but also St Blaise (Vlas), St Nicholas or St George; M okos continued to be associated w ith impurity, particularly sexual im purity (;m okos’j a : a loose woman), but also w ith the personification o f G ood Friday, Paraskeva-Piatnitsa, or even the Virgin.47 However, if cultural extraversion implies a transfer o f meaning, the latter can also occur independently o f this kind o f radically heterocultural context. D uring the French R evo­ lution, Republican cults were shaped by the Catholic religious imagination. ‘Today, we carried the M other o f the living God through the streets’, a weaver from Avignon wrote after a public celebration o f the goddess Reason. Local services o f worship were spontaneously organised around St Pataude, the saint w ith tricolour wings; prophets such as Marat rose up; martyrs were praised; revolutionary or patriotic posterity substituted for the hereafter; and the ideology o f the sans-culottes unhesi­ tatingly adopted Christian vocabulary.48 Conversely, the organ­ isers o f revolutionary celebrations w ho eschewed this realm o f possibilities and who ignored the sacred geography o f their cities were m et w ith indifference, incom prehension, or hostil­ ity by their fellow citizens.49 As a bridge linking culture as heritage and culture as inno­ vation, the transfer o f meaning seems inherent in political change, although the latter is not necessarily dramatic. For

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example, in the sixth century, ecclesiastical institutionalisation took place by means o f the cerem ony o f submission that honoured the powerful o f the R om an empire: the entry o f an archbishop into his city had to reproduce the ritual o f the adventus o f the greatest imperial dignitaries; laymen were enjoined to ‘bow hum bly’ before God and his clergy, as they did before their king or judge.50 These symbolic or cognitive shifts from one sphere o f society to another are systematic, and are basic to the great processes o f shaping the state, in par­ ticular its centralisation and rationalisation. It is hardly sur­ prising that they characterise the extreme identity-related strategies that exaggerate the role o f ‘forgetfulness’ (or lies) in their rereading o f the past. Invoking Ibn Taymiyah (1263— 1328) to justify the assassination o f President Sadat, seeing in the god R am , the god ‘w ith a tender heart’ o f the ancient Hindus, the martial hero o f today’s struggle against India’s Muslims, finding in the Bible the condem nation o f the Sov­ iet ‘evil em pire’ and— w hy not?— the W orld Bank; all this amounts to conferring an anachronistic meaning on texts writ­ ten centuries or millennia ago, and recruiting them for battles that w ere then unimaginable. B ut such transfers o f meaning, far from being subterfuges peculiar to identity-related radical­ isms, are the daily bread o f political action. It w ould even be difficult to imagine the latter w ithout recourse to the former. In Kenya, for example, the confusion o f the religious and political registers is such that politicians’ speeches take on the appearance o f sermons, w hen it is not sermons that turn into political discourse: w hen in power, every week President arap M oi issued the G ood W ord— his and his G od’s— in a church o f a different denom ination, and in 1983, the pastor o f R ungiri launched a furious politico-Biblical polemic by invoking the parable o f the lame sheep incapable o f leading the flock into the green pasture, w ithout it being clear w hether his target was district MP, Charles N jonjo, w hom the media suggested was a ‘traitor’, or the head o f state, shaken by an attempted putsch.51 As early as the 1920s, hymns became forms o f

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political expression, and congregations sang successively o f the messianic charisma o f Harry Thuku or Jom o Kenyatta, the courage o f M au M au in battle or their repression by British troops.52 The Kikuyu squatters w ho colonised the R ift Valley and the guerrillas w ho joined the resistance fighters in the forests compared w hat they were doing with the Biblical Exodus.53 Similarly, in Zaire political figures as antithetical as Simon Kimbangu, Patrice Lumumba, Pierre Mulele, Joseph Kasavubu, President M obutu and Etienne Tshisekedi seem to be virtually interchangeable as ‘Messiahs’, ‘liberators’, ‘saviours’, ‘redeemers’ and ‘martyrs’. Ultimately the country’s history is conflated w ith that o f Israel: R eligious images illustrate political contexts. C om m unism appears as a ‘re­ ligion’, supplied w ith an ethics, organised in ‘cults’ and ‘rites’, in ‘sacra­ m ents’ and ‘sacrifices’. C onstitutional texts are com pared to the ‘B ible’, the R o m a n C atholic ‘breviary’ or ‘missal’, ideologies to the ‘catechism ’, and the political clientele to ‘acolytes’. Political options open the d o o r to ‘Par­ adise’ or ‘H ell’, depending on the case. Political teachings are slipped into evangelical images, episodes or parables, w hile the attitude o f som e poli­ ticians earns them the nam e o f ‘scapegoats’. D em agogy moves am ong the politicians, and in a m om ent o f crisis the co u n try is full o f antichrists or antechrists; dissident leaders, groups, and regions are ‘lost sheep’ to be brought back to the ‘fold’ represented by the governm ent. C olonialism is a ‘w hited sepulchre’, and independence is like a ‘painful b irth ’; political episodes evoke the parables o f the ‘G o o d Sam aritan’, the ‘feast’, and ‘the w heat and the chaff’.54

Thus in June 1982 the trial o f thirteen political commissars that had founded the U nion for Democracy and Social Pro­ gress was studded with religious hymns in Swahili, whose social im port was abundantly clear: Arise, Jesus C hrist is going to war against Satan, We stand up w ith strength. T h e w ord o f G o d is stronger than Satan. M ay the V irgin M ary protect those w h o sacrifice themselves for the people. G od has chosen you to serve him w ith his w hole body and soul.

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Suddenly a pastor is speaking to the crowd: ‘Moses was raised to the court o f Pharaoh. H e had authority, he was called the Pharaoh’s son, w hen he saw how w retched was his people he left [Egypt].* Moses is the true democrat, he leads his people but he will not enter the Promised Land; others will die w ith him , along the way. T hat is the case today. Amen, Hallelujah.’55 In countries w here the churches have been the chief agen­ cies for the socialisation o f the elites and where the tendency to regard pow er as sacred is im mem orial, the Testament was easily established as a m etaphor for action. For instance, in 1991 protestors in Madagascar marched around the presi­ dential palace seven times in order to bring down its walls__ T h e fa b rica tio n o f a u th en ticity

A n everyday procedure o f social life, the transfer o f meaning is based on ambiguity and artifice. Does one explain the other? T he dem and for, and if necessary, the fabrication of, authen­ ticity are dear to culturalists, w ho claim to preserve the original purity o f their identity from external pollution and the aggres­ sions o f the O ther, if need be by reconstituting, in an authori­ tarian manner, ‘their’ culture, at the end o f a regressive process: evangelists seek to protect the admirable innocence o f the natives raped by conquistadors, Creoles, colonists, and other urban sinners; the nationalists o f Central and Eastern Europe erect popular culture into a reliquary o f national identity; the partisans o f militant Hinduism refer to a Vedic Golden Age; the Islamic R epublic o f Iran wages war on W estern ‘corruption’; Vladimir Zhirinovsky once suggested that Russia should con­ quer Turkey, Iran and Pakistan, w here he would be welcomed as a saviour, and w here he would leave ‘everything in the state that the local inhabitants want it to be in: flocks, kebabs, pure air, and the pilgrimage to Mecca— a pilgrimage on foot, not in an airliner’;56 and President M obutu restored ‘authenticity’. * An allusion to the fact that the leader of the UDPS had earlier been an official of the single party and had composed the Nsele manifesto.

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N eed it be said that determ ining the criteria for what is or is not ‘authentic’ is always problematic? Authenticity is not estab­ lished by the im manent properties o f the phenom enon or object under consideration. It results from the perspective, full o f desires and judgem ents, that is brought to bear on the past, in the eminently contem porary context in w hich one is situ­ ated: ‘It is in fact a matter o f a social construct, o f a convention, that partially deforms the past’.57 From Parisian wine bars and bistros to neo-traditional London pubs, from the vogue o f local products to trade in ‘antiquities’, from the real estate market for N orm an ‘farmhouses’ to fashionable ‘open beams’ in the Marais quarter o f Paris, industrial societies are great fac­ tories o f ‘authenticity’. This discourse on an entirely reconstituted, fantasized past is first o f all a critical com m entary on the present.58 In other words, it is bitterly disputed. Thus the restoration o f works o f art elicits virulent public debate, such as that w hich accom­ panied the restoration o f the Sistine Chapel. T he specialists themselves disagree. The Vatican’s prestigious workshops seek less to rediscover the original integrity or truth o f the work, w hich is inevitably hypothetical, than to preserve it, and the restoration is governed by the requirements o f maintenance. Developed in Italy, this conception is dom inant in M editer­ ranean Europe, but is opposed to that o f the more ambitious English and Germ an restorers. In any case, the w ork o f resto­ ration is marked by the taste and the state o f knowledge in the period in w hich it is carried out. In the nineteenth century, dark colours were preferred, under the influence o f rom an­ ticism, and chromatic contrasts were muted. C ontem porary sensibility requires a revision o f this artistic approach. T he pre­ occupation w ith ‘restoring the restorations’ has becom e suffi­ ciently intense to lead today’s restorers to take care to make their own w ork reversible, in order to make that o f their suc­ cessors easier w hen the idea o f the Beautiful and techniques have once again evolved.

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Similarly, the interpretation o f Baroque music has given rise to intense debate betw een music lovers w ho accept ‘alterations o f the sound structure, the balance, conceived by Bach’, and those for w hom ‘the meaning o f a musical work is inseparable from careful, vigilant restitution o f its sound structure’, w hich requires that the styles o f execution that became general from the nineteenth century on be abandoned.59 Given these conditions, we must always analyse the genesis o f the character o f authenticity that we accord to a cultural practice or product. Brian Spooner has provided a good study o f the example o f the Turkm en carpet.60 In earlier times such carpets were made by w om en w orking at home, w hich en­ sured that rigorous technical standards were respected, and it was this that gave the Turkm en carpet its specific quality. In particular, the weavers, w ho were mostly wom en, avoided buying wool on the market in order to retain control over the choice o f fibres. At the end o f the nineteenth century, the appearance o f synthetic dyes placed the production o f Turk­ m en carpets w ithin the orbit o f the world economy, and their high price probably prom oted their ‘com m odification’. Used by the nomads themselves, and sold in the cities o f Central Asia and the N ear East, the Turkm en carpet penetrated the Western market w ithout losing its direct symbolic value in the eyes o f its producers (in contrast, for example, to the carpets made in the great urban centres o f Persia). It was assessed in accord w ith two distinct cultural codes: one, strictly autochthonous, was based on the reputation o f the craftswomen, the use for w hich the carpet was intended, and its symbolism; the other, intro­ duced by the consum er on the world market, depended on various O rientalist fashions, such as the fad for Chinese art and decorative objects, or for things Japanese. N o t only could the interpretation o f symbols or the evaluation o f quality give rise to a misunderstanding in passing from one code to another, but, m ore profoundly, Turkm en producers sought to respond to the demands o f their new customers by changing the size, the motifs, or the colours o f their pieces, going so far as to

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reproduce the American star-spangled banner, as we see in a carpet in the University o f Pennsylvania M useum. Russian conquests, Persian and Afghani military pressure, and the Sovietisation o f Central Asia during the period be­ tween the two world wars all completely disrupted Turkm en society, provoked many migrations, and in the late 1930s ended up almost completely halting the production o f carpets. T he latter did not really begin again till the 1960s, in factories in the Soviet U nion, and in households or small workshops in Afghanistan. W ith the new ways o f organising production, the weavers were henceforth often m en or children (in particular orphans and refugees, after the great famine o f 1971—2). It goes w ithout saying that the war in Afghanistan com pleted the transformation o f this econom y o f the carpet. From then on, the second evaluative code seems to have w on out. N o m atter how well they may now be made, contem porary Turkm en carpets are very different from those o f the m id-nineteenth century, even though one can immediately identify them as Turkmen carpets. Moreover, the control exercised by tribal associations, w hich limited the creators’ room for innovation, has disappeared. And the foreign consumer, no m atter how well-informed, has contributed to the unification o f an artistic genre that used to be m uch more fragmented because o f the heterogeneity o f Turkm en familial and tribal order. T he de­ mands o f the global market have also changed. M ore attentive to the designs o f oriental carpets before the appearance o f mechanical looms, buyers later emphasised craftsmanship and technique, w hich became a criterion o f distinction, and as it grew it was extended to tribal carpets that had been formerly neglected, such as those made by the Baluchi. In short, the definition o f authenticity in carpets is elusive and inseparable from the influence o f the world market, even w ithout reference to the fact that it is not an exclusively cultural, but also a material process. At the same time, young Turkmens, young Afghans, young Iranians, no doubt caring little about the authenticity o f their carpets, are looking for

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authentic blue jeans, Levi’s 501s, to w hich they accord a symbolic value far superior to the one they have for us. T he processes o f ‘inventing tradition’ have already shown us that the concern for authenticity is often connected w ith transformations o f society and changes in the scale o f its place o f reference. It is one o f the expressions o f m odernity and glo­ balisation. As such, it is in no way limited to dependent societ­ ies forced to redefine themselves in relation to changes imposed from outside or compensating for their unbridled extraversion. C ountry music in the U nited States— a superb example o f the ‘fabrication o f authenticity in the area o f popular culture’— constitutes a response to the ‘progression o f m odernism by preserving or constructing fundamentalist values’, at a time w hen part o f A m erican public opinion is w orried about the developm ent o f permissiveness in society and the decline o f WASP hegemony.61 In this regard it is not unrelated to the rise o f fundamentalism in the D eep South, even though the latter’s m ain ideological target has been the East Coast establishment, w hich is nonetheless also largely ‘Protestant, W hite, and AngloSaxon’. B ut country music also plays a role similar to the instrum entalisation o f popular music by the nationalists o f Central and Eastern Europe. In 1931 the orchestra director Lamar Stringfield praised ‘the bloom ing o f a form o f A m er­ ican musical nationalism’ that could only come from ‘em o­ tions rooted in the people’, and that he thought he saw in ‘retro’ music: ‘Naturally, the American popular music least influenced by others is the one preserved am ong the inhab­ itants o f the m ountain regions and the Great Plains. T he lack o f m odern means o f transportation has helped these people keep intact their sensibility as hum an beings, and protected their music from any kind o f artifice.’62 H enry Ford, one o f the leading figures in the globalisation o f our world,63 was strongly attached to this idea. Despite the fact that his famous ‘M odel T ’ sold in great numbers thanks to the lowering o f production costs, and accelerated the end o f the isolation o f the countryside and the extension o f the urban

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m ode o f life, he saw cities as ‘pestiferous excrescences’ and praised country manners, w hich he considered ‘healthy’ and marked by a ‘dauntless honesty’. He thought the ‘true U nited States is outside the cities’, and naturally attributed to Blacks, the most recent immigrants, and ‘international Jew s’ the decline o f morality, the consum ption o f alcohol, the use o f tobacco, sexual licence and jazz. H e did not shirk from reprinting in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, excerpts from the Protocols o f Z ion, to subsidise the G erm an-A m erican Bund, whose leader was notoriously pro-N azi, and to accept the German A dlerkreuz from the T hird R eich in 1938. T o fight what he regarded as damaging developments in A m er­ ican society, the brilliant carmaker prescribed, w ithout m uch originality, a return to peasant customs. In 1925 he launched a campaign to prom ote traditional dances, the round dance and the square dance, and published a small book entitled Good M orn­ ing: A fter a Sleep o f T w enty-F ive Years, Old-fashioned D ancing is being Revived by M r and M rs H enry Ford, w hich condem ned the

Charleston and recom m ended that dancers hold their right hands in such a way that only the thum b and the index finger touched their partner’s waist. He had violinists come to D ear­ born in order to ‘standardise the revival o f traditional dances’. (This Taylorisation o f popular culture is comparable to other efforts at ‘calibration’ in Central Europe, Turkey and the Soviet U nion, by means o f constituting ethno-cultures and turning popular practices into folklore.) T hrough his netw ork o f dealers Henry Ford also sponsored tours by ‘retro’ violinists. But the most interesting part o f this saga o f country music resides in the attitude o f the public, w hich set its ow n defi­ nition o f the authenticity o f popular culture. T he w inners o f the musical contests financed by Ford often led deplorable lives and hardly conform ed to the ethics o f abstinence he praised. The old m an that he tried to substitute for them , A l l i s o n M ellen D unham — a craftsman w ho had made the snowshoes used by Admiral Peary on his N o rth Pole expedition— did not cut the mustard. Ultimately, the figure o f the ‘retro’ musician

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was displaced by tw o other types o f country music performers, the ‘hillbilly’ and the ‘singing cow boy’, both o f them products o f the m odem media. M ost o f the successful hillbilly singers w ere in fact city-dwellers in the Southeast, and in California, and not rustics from the Appalachian mountains, the area that was supposed to be the hom e o f true American popular music. In other words, ‘authenticity, as it was understood by devotees o f country music, did not mean strict adhesion to an ideal tra­ ditional music’, it was not ‘synonymous w ith historical tru th ’, but was on the contrary culturally constructed, both by its prom oters— the theoreticians o f musical nationalism, H enry Ford, and radio personalities— and by the audience. M ore generally, w e can conclude that ‘the collective m em ory is sys­ tematically unfaithful to the past, in order to satisfy the needs o f the present’,64 rather than providing a mechanical trans­ mission o f a culture or an identity. W hereas culturalist reasoning posits the existence o f a per­ m anent inner core peculiar to each culture that confers on the latter its veridical nature and determines the present, analysis reveals a process o f cultural elaboration in the areas o f ideology and sensibility that speaks to us o f the present by fabricating the past. This is the inner spring o f the ‘cinescenic’ show staged by the right-w ing French politician Philippe de Villiers in Puy du Fou at his family castle and electoral fief.65 His consensual, ruralist reconstitution o f earlier times is part o f an overall strategy in the Vendee region, w hich was able to invent for itself a very real m odernity— particularly in the agricultural and industrial areas— in the name o f a ‘C houan (royalist rebel) tradition forged in response to the shock o f the bloody events o f 1793.66 In many ways this ‘refractory culture’— to adopt an expression used by Jean-Clem ent M artin and Charles Suaud— is comparable to that o f the American Deep South after the Civil War. It draws from the historical expression o f a par­ ticular sense o f place (terroir), a universal and contem porary message. T he Vendee is supposed to be the land o f a right w ing that is Christian, progressive, and even socially conscious,

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through the agency o f Catholic Action movements. R ejecting both liberal materialism and Marxist atheism, it is supposed to represent a third avenue toward change. T hrough a pyrotechnical creation of a comm unitarian peasant world wickedly disturbed by urbanisation, Philippe de Villiers, whose ‘heart and body are firmly attached’ to the provinces, dramatised an ideology o f rejection. Appealing to Cathelineau, Clem enceau, and Marshal de Tassigny, he celebrated ‘the selfsame Vendee that knows how to say “n o ”’.67 Thus he took his place in this prestigious lineage by resigning his post as sub-prefect in 1981 to avoid serving a ‘socialist-communist governm ent’. N o n e­ theless, contrary to appearances, renunciations were in no way backward-looking. Philippe de Villiers got him self anointed by universal suffrage in 1987 and represented the Vendee, in full republican legitimacy, as the president of its general coun­ cil. H e saw the period he rejected as simple parenthesis, w hich he is seeking to close through his political efforts: ‘J eanne Bourin said to us recently: “You are ahead o f your time. Y our taste for risk, for creation, for popular art, for militant disinter­ estedness, is not of this century. It belongs to the thirteenth and the twenty-first centuries.” W e were bo m too late or too early.’68 T he votes w on by the list led by Philippe de Villiers in the 1994 European elections reveal that this ‘refractory’ attitude productive o f authenticity finds a certain resonance: it provides a significant proportion o f the French population w ith a way o f interpreting industrialisation and its consequences, a read­ ing o f the economic crisis and integration into the European U nion and the world market and a stance w ith regard to im ­ migration. Culturalist reasoning requires that the reaction op­ posing so many changes inconceivable to the ‘C houans' and their ‘peasant’ heirs be organised around the central notion o f identity: basing himself on his Vendean identity, Philippe de Villiers is defending French identity. It matters little to him that this ‘identity o f France’, as Braudel has deciphered it, is historically constructed at the confluence o f material and

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cultural factors; that it was very belated, if w e follow Eugen W eb er’s analysis; and that it is in any case incomplete, if we take into account the residue o f real social diversity, for ex­ ample in the dom ain o f family structures.69 For the culturalist believes in the existence o f identity-related divinities, the pri­ mordial identities, that im perturbably traverse the centuries, each provided w ith its ow n core o f authenticity.* H ard as I have looked, so far I have seen only processes o f forming cultural or political identities whose crystallisation is often recent, and can in any case be dated w ith relative precision. T h e fo r m a tio n o f p rim o rd ia l identities

T he analysis o f political situations, w hich seems dom inated by identity-related conflicts that should logically corroborate the validity o f the concept o f primordial identity, in fact con­ tradicts the latter’s pertinence. For example, the growing ten­ sion betw een H indu nationalists and Muslims in India seems to be the prototype o f an atavistic antagonism betw een such prim ordial identities, since it sets against each other two re­ ligions that have also been the matrices o f great civilisations. Nonetheless, the conflict betw een H induism and Islam merely adopts the ideological discourse o f militant organisations w ithout m uch concern for the reality o f the facts. It overes­ timates the age and unity o f each o f the protagonists, while at the same time concealing the interchanges betw een them. C ontrary to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, H induism is not em bodied in any single Sacred B ook that provides it w ith a unified model. Its religious texts are addressed to particular sects, and historically it was presented precisely in the form o f * L ike th e ways o f th e L o rd , th o se o f th e social sciences seem im p e n etra b le. T h e c o n c e p t o f ‘p rim o rd ia l alleg ian c e’ seem s to have b e e n first fo rm u la te d b y a M arxist au th o r, H a m z a A lavi. In th e m in d o f its p ro p o n e n t, it d esig n ated th e b o n d s o f a g ro u p , su c h as ties o f caste o r fam ily relationship, th a t p re v e n te d p o o r peasants fro m p e rc e iv in g class c o n tra d ic tio n s an d led th e m to act against th e ir o w n o bjective interests. (H . A lavi, “ Peasant Classes an d P rim o rd ia l Loyalties,” Journal o f Peasant Studies 1, O c to b e r 1973, pp. 23—62)

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a ‘conglomerate o f sects’,70 to the point that Indologists had doubts about its character as a religion, and saw in it a ‘j uxta­ position o f religions, m oreover largely unstructured’.71 N o t till the nineteenth century did movements o f socio-religious reform seek to rationalise Hinduism by rediscovering its Holy Scriptures in the monotheistic sense o f the w ord, by adopting an ecclesiastical m ode o f organisation, by purifying practices o f worship, by comparing Vedic teachings w ith W estern sci­ entific knowledge and by attem pting a ‘social’ interpretation o f the hierarchy o f castes. T he logic o f the reform movem ents was clearly that o f ‘strategic syncretism’, and the adversary from w hich they borrow ed ‘prestigious and efficacious cul­ tural characteristics’ was the Christian m onotheism that mis­ sionary proselytising made threatening. But Islam soon provided a second model o f reference and repulsion w hen, in the early tw entieth century, the colonial power began to favour M uslim elites in order to counter­ balance the nationalism o f their H indu counterparts and to banish the spectre o f partition. Muslim political mobilisation during the Khilafat movement in the 1920s turned into antiH indu communal agitation. O nce again H indu nationalists reacted to this danger by adopting, still under the pretext o f returning to the Vedic ‘Golden Age’, the qualities attributed to the aggressor: physical robustness, solidarity, unity, and even, in some cases, a non-vegetarian diet! T he H indu nationalist movement that till 2004 governed India in the shape o f the BJP was responsible for instigating dozens o f com m unal riots in the latest incarnation o f ‘strategic syncretism’. Thus we see that ‘the H indu nationalist identity engendered by “strategic syncretism” is not very faithful to traditional H indu values such as polytheism, religious tolerance, hierarchy, and the absence o f ecclesiastical organisation.’72 T he fabrication o f Vedic authenticity by ‘assimilating the O th er’s values’ has pro­ vided a vehicle for a radical m utation o f H indu cultural iden­ tity and its politicisation in a nationalist manner. For its part, Islam in the Indian subcontinent has not proven to be either

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m ore united or m ore stable than Hinduism, no m atter how H indu nationalists have perceived it. In India, communalism is fed, not by the internal coherence o f each o f the two religious comm unities, but precisely by their relationship, w hich has been an antagonistic one in certain situations and historical periods. H ow ever it should be stressed that this antagonism is not im m anent to their respective dogmas, or to their encounter in an enlarged polity constructed by the colo­ nising pow er. T he M ughal empire, especially during the reign o f Akbar (1556—1605), was founded on a compromise— an unequal one, to be sure— betw een Muslims and Hindus. T here were num erous exchanges and examples o f syncretism betw een the tw o groups, even in the religious domain. O f course, the refusal o f the Muslim conquerors to let themselves be assimilated by H indu culture— like so many other groups before them — necessarily provoked autochthonous resistance, and from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries onwards Shivaji’s empire, and later the Maratha Confederation, took up arms against the Mughals. H ow ever, the crystallisation o f a H indu com m unitarian identity did not occur till the 1860s.73 This concom itance o f the precipitation— in the chemical sense o f the w ord— o f communalism and the construction o f a bureaucratic state by the colonising power were not in any way accidental. T he genesis o f particular identities in the new political space was not the rejection or negation o f the state, but rather an inventive adaptation to the radical changes it rep­ resented, a way o f appropriating its institutions and sharing in its resources. This is now well know n to Africanists, and R .H . Bates can state, as a good liberal reductionist, that ‘ethnic groups are, in short, a form o f m inim um w inning coalition, large enough to secure benefits in the com petition for spoils, but also small enough to maximise the per capita value o f these benefits.74 We shall see that matters are, unfortunately, more complicated than that. However, the organic connection betw een the form ation o f the state, strategies o f material accu­ m ulation in a suddenly enlarged econom y and identity-related self-assertion are found in many situations.

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In Europe itself the heralds o f linguistic nationalisms in the nineteenth century often belonged to educated or semi­ educated social categories that saw in official recognition of their vernacular languages by the state— or better still, the creation o f a state corresponding to the area in w hich their vernacular language was spoken— a powerful means o f social ascent.75 The motivations o f the Sinhalese militants w ho forced the adoption o f their idiom as the official national language in 1956 resembled those o f the Arabic-speaking Algerian intel­ lectuals w ho w on the same suicidal victory in the 1980s. N ineteenth-century socialists were not mistaken in speaking o f ‘petty-bourgeois nationalism’. Instead o f expressing the spirit o f ‘peoples’ hidden in the depths o f their ‘popular culture’ (as the culturalist fable would have it), identity-related strategies betray the hunger o f the new elites, eager to be inte­ grated, for power and wealth. T he responsibility o f the middle classes, bureaucrats, intellectuals, and students (or dropouts) in the radicalisation o f identity-related conflicts— for example, in Sri Lanka, Natal or R w anda76— is often more crushing than that o f the masses. Let there be no mistake: these elites do not content them ­ selves with activating already constituted communities whose identity is supposed to be in some way dorm ant. Far from pre­ existing the state, primordial groups, w hether religious or ethnic, o f w hich they claim to be the representatives, are the more or less poisonous fruit o f the state itself. In this regard the trajectories o f authenticity in sub-Saharan Africa or o f com munalism in India constitute the rule, w hich is confirm ed by the examples o f communalism in Sri Lanka, ethnic national­ isms in Burma, confessionalism in Lebanon and nationalism in Central Asia and the Caucasus.77 In all these cases the crystal­ lisation o f particular identities, such as we know them today, took place in the colonial period, under the com bined (but possibly conflictual) action o f the foreign occupiers, their autochthonous collaborators and their adversaries.

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Nonetheless, colonisation was only one contingent factor in this process, despite w hat African nationalist ideologues m ain­ tain. State centralisation and economic change produced similar identity-related logics in situations that it would be abusive or anachronistic to term ‘colonial’. For example, in their current consciousness and organisation, the Baluchi in Iran are the progeny o f political and administrative measures taken in the nineteenth century by the Qajar dynasty.78 Kurdish tribal con­ federations in the province o f Khorassan were also founded by the central governm ent, w hen they were deported by Shah Abbas I, in the sixteenth century.79 As for the renow ned ‘Kurdish identity’ o f the relevant parts o f Turkey and Iraq, it also proceeds from a process o f ethnogenesis that has its origin in the regional com petition betw een the O ttom an empire and Persia. Let us recall first o f all that all Kurds are not integrated directly into the tribal structure. T he latter was superimposed on other social rela­ tionships and cem ented the dominance o f the military aris­ tocracy over a floating population less faithful to a specific tribe than following a leader w ho happened at the time to be dom inant.80 As a result, Kurdish tribal consciousness is pro­ bably just as m obile and relative as ethnic consciousness in Black Africa. M oreover, the internal organisation o f the tribes reflected the interactions betw een Kurdish society and its neighbouring states, the Persian and O ttom an empires, w hich made the m ountains o f eastern Anatolia a buffer zone betw een their respective ambitions. In the nineteenth century, the reforms instituted by the Sublime Porte abolished the insti­ tution o f the Kurdish emirates, w ithout making arrangements for direct administration o f this part o f the empire. T he tribal chiefs then made themselves the privileged intermediaries o f the central power, and tribal structure tended to fragment, its complexity becom ing inversely proportional to the density o f the administrative network. In addition, the prom ulgation o f a land law in 1858 led to the emergence o f a new category of landowners w ho changed the rules o f the clientielist game, and

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in 1891 the raising o f a militia inspired by the Russian Cossacks, the Hamidyah, changed the pow er relationship betw een the tribes or even actually gave rise to para- or proto-tribal social groups, as the Sah-Sevan militia established by Shah Abbas I had done in sixteenth-century Iran. Finally, the fall o f the O ttom an empire upset the framework o f interaction between the state and the tribal order, the drawing o f a border between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, w hich prom oted unbridled smuggling, being one o f its im portant consequences.81 In the context created by Balkan, Caucasian, and Arab nationalism, the exterm ination o f the Armenians and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the Kurdish elites, encouraged by President W ilson’s enthusiasm, were able to dream of an ethnic nation-state, if one can put it that way. However, their nationalism did not eliminate either identification w ith the tribe or the religious consciousness that partially blurred it. M ost of the nationalist revolts were led by sheikhs, and the leader o f the Kurdistan Labour Party, Abdullah Ocalan, w ho had thought he could go to war against religion in the name o f Marxism-Leninism, had, before his capture in 1999, to curb his ambition and began to speak o f a liberated Kurdistan that would be the ‘cradle o f Islamic internation­ alism’.82 But religious or political adhesion is not itself insep­ arable from tribal identification. T he establishment o f the Naqshbandiyah and Qadiriyah brotherhoods, followed by the creation o f the N urcu brotherhood, were contem poraneous w ith the tribalisation o f the province, and were in many ways responses to the vacuum resulting from the overthrow o f the emirates and the threat o f proselytisation posed by Christian missions.83 Allegiance to the sheikhs usually occurred at the tribal level and was collective, like the nationalist rebellions that followed tribal lines and thus helped reproduce them , at the price o f their military effectiveness. In other words, the Kurds’ identity-related strategies, taken in their diversity, reflect a century-old historical phase in the course o f w hich many social and political innovations have taken place, such as the

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centralisation o f the state, the developm ent o f the tribal order and the various Sufi and other M uslim brotherhoods, the pri­ vate appropriation o f land, emigration, urbanisation, the estab­ lishment o f an armed revolutionary group, and guerrilla warfare and its repression by a military bureaucracy trained in interna­ tional ‘anti-subversive’ techniques. These strategies are any­ thing but primordial. H ence we must return to the W eberian approach that saw in the tribe ‘a political artefact’ generally established by the state, o f w hich it is a subdivision, and that denied the utility o f the concept o f ethnicity: ‘T he notion o f “ethnically” determ ined social action subsumes phenom ena that a rigorous sociological analysis ... w ould have to distinguish carefully.’84 Curiously, however, W eber does not pursue this thought to its logical conclusion, and instead contrasts ethnic membership or ‘pre­ sumed identity’ w ith a group based on family relationships and endowed w ith a ‘concrete social action’, whose historical character he nonetheless recognises.85 In fact, family rela­ tionships are also an artefact, ‘an idiom rather than a system’, through w hich actors constantly negotiate their membership in groups and their social allegiances.86 As such, it is above all a field o f conflict— for example, it is the main site o f sorcery in Black Africa— before possibly becom ing a field o f solidarity and collective action.87 Seen in this light, the generative continuity from the family to ethnicity to the state is clear. In ancient Greece th egenos, the phratry and the tribe were not ‘primordial identities’peculiar to pre-civic society; they flourished as institutions o f the polis, providing its mem bers w ith the cohesion, the philia, that united them .88 Today, a concept like that o f asabiyyah, w hich some specialists in the M uslim world use to designate the ‘com m unity ... bound by ties o f blood or simply a similarity o f fate’, must not confuse us either. In Ibn K haldun’s writings, it has to do w ith the domain o f illusion (amr wahmt) and has no real foundation (la haqiqata lahu ).s9 ‘T he city in the head’, wrote M ichel Seurat, w ho made use o f this concept in his study o f

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Bab Tebbane in Tripoli, Lebanon.90 Thus defined, asabiyyah is perhaps less a ‘basic solidarity’ than a ‘basic anim osity’. The reaction o f differentiating oneself from the O ther (ta ’assab) is primordial, and solidarity with on e’s ow n people is only a ricochet action, according to the old adage ‘W ith my brother against my cousin, with my cousin against my neighbour, etc.’91 In the very different situation o f the French departm ent o f Yonne, ‘positions o f eligibility have long been transmitted w ithin networks in which family ties and m atrim onial strat­ egies are closely intertw ined’. Nonetheless, these networks are not ‘fixed entities’, and it would be futile to try to classify them: ‘We are dealing here not with more or less identifiable groups, but w ith a set o f potentialities that may be realised in accord with concrete situations. The operation o f voting is one o f the phases in which this relational system is actualised.’92 U nder­ stood in this way, Arab (or Burgundian) asabiyyah merely reminds us o f an obvious fact stubbornly denied by the culturalists: there is no such thing as identity, only operational acts o f identification. T he identities we talk about so pompously, as if they existed independently o f those w ho express them , are made (and unmade) only through the m ediation o f such identificatory acts, in short, by their enunciation.93 Historical experience shows that an individual’s act o f iden­ tification is always contextual, multiple and relative. For ex­ ample, someone from Saint-Malo will define him self as a resident o f that tow n w hen dealing with som eone from Rennes, as a Breton w hen dealing w ith someone from Paris, as French w hen dealing with someone from Germany, as a European w hen dealing w ith an American, as W hite w hen dealing with an African, as a w orker w hen dealing w ith his boss, as a Catholic w hen dealing w ith a Protestant, as a husband w hen dealing with his wife and as an ill person w hen dealing with his doctor. Each o f these ‘identities’ is ‘presum ed’, as M ax W eber says o f ethnicity, and may prom ote integration into a social group, for example into the political sphere, w ithout itself alone founding such a group. As a corollary, none o f these

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‘identities’ exhausts the panoply o f identities at an individual’s disposal. T he culturalist argum ent is flawed because, not being satisfied w ith erecting into an atemporal substance identities in continual m utation, it conceals the concrete operations by w hich an actor or a group o f actors define themselves, at a specific historical m om ent, in given circumstances and for a lim ited time. T here is no doubt that in R w anda H utus killed Tutsis in the name o f their respective ethnic identities, and we shall have to account for that fact w hen the time comes. B ut if both o f these groups were motivated solely by this one iden­ tity-related factor, then w hy did they wait so long to kill each other, and w hy did some Hutus not kill, choosing instead to follow identificatory paths other than their ethnic membership (their Christian faith, their democratic ideals, their R w andan nationalism). In the same manner, w hy did Catholics stop slaughtering Protestants and how did the French becom e rec­ onciled w ith the Germans? Anyone w ho studies a concrete society constantly encoun­ ters such changes, as well as leaps from one identity-related register to another. ‘We were distressed because we were pro­ bably going to be drowned. Everyone had become a Christian again,’ reported a Zairean officer fleeing the rebels in Kivu in the 1960s w ho had been surprised by a storm in the middle o f Lake A lbert.94 In this example the sequence o f the variation in identity is very brief. B ut there are examples o f genuine, long­ term itineraries o f identity, such as that o f the Chinese in Indonesia. Recognising Islam’s commercial and cultural hege­ m ony in the region, merchants w ho had come from Fujian or G uangdong betw een the thirteenth and the eighteenth cen­ turies converted to the M uslim faith and blended into Javanese society. A lthough the D utch encouraged them to establish themselves in specific communities, many Chinese remained faithful to Islam and to Malay or Javanese customs till the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Starting in the nine­ teenth century, the influx o f poor immigrants and Chinese w om en, the political support o f the M anchu empire, the

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advent o f the Republic in 1911, and especially the application o f article 109 o f the Fundamental Statute o f the D utch Indies (1854), w hich drew a distinction betw een ‘oriental foreigners’ ( Vreemde Oosterlingen ) and ‘natives’ (Inlanders ), led to a gradual ‘re-Sinification’ o f the Chinese population o f Java, w hich ended up being reduced to the status o f an ethnic m inority.95 By an irony o f history, their distant cousins in mainland China, the H ui, remained Muslims, and now are experiencing a similar fate in a radically different political and econom ic context.96 The nature o f inter-com m unal violence defies explanation if we do not take into account these changes o f identityregister. T he neighbour w ith w hom one trades and socialises as a fellow resident o f a com pound or village suddenly be­ comes the Enem y one suspects o f the worst designs, w hom one rapes or kills. In Maria Iordanidu’s novel, a few days after a massacre o f Armenians in Istanbul, Loxandra suddenly asks herself: ‘Is Mustafa, my egg-seller, a M oham m edan?’: ‘M em et, there’s som ething I’d like to know. B u t you m ust tell m e the truth. W ere you there, in the streets, massacring people?’ ‘By Allah, M em et was n o t there’. ‘Because I was w ondering a ls o ...’. A nd she broke into tears. ‘W h a t cam e over them? W hat had he ever done to them , p o o r little Ardine? N o, tell m e— w hy did they have to kill him ?’ ‘Alas, alas, alas!’ M em et lam ented. ‘Alas, alas, alas!’ the offal seller lam ented a little later. ‘Alas, alas, alas!’ said the m an w h o sold grilled chickpeas. ‘T h e y m ade a mistake.’ T h e blood on the sidewalks disappeared, the dogs had lapped it up. Life continued its course as though n o thing had changed.97

The abruptness o f this slide into mayhem, w hich shocks foreign observers, is surprising only because we take for gran­ ted the principle o f identity-related uniqueness. W ithout being agreeable, it becomes plausible if we recognise that everyone is given to tinkering w ith his or her identity, depending on the alchemy o f the circumstances. To that extent, the idea o f com ­

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m unity is debatable. It suggests too strongly that we belong to one, aggregate identity, w hich is supposed to dictate our interests and passions, whereas we tend to situate ourselves w ith respect to ‘a plurality o f partially disjunctive, partially overlapping com m unities’98— but then why should we keep using the term, if it is clearly misleading? It is not a m atter o f denying the terrible efficacy o f identities that are fe lt to be pri­ mordial. A lthough we are convinced o f the ‘artificial origin o f the belief in com m on ethnicity’, so we must acknowledge that this belief works, and that ‘rational association’ is likely to be transformed into ‘personal relationships’ in an ‘overarching com m unal consciousness’.99 In some sense, primordial iden­ tities ‘exist’, but as mental facts and as regimes o f subjectivity, not as structures. Instead o f being explanatory factors, they must themselves be explained: while we agree that ‘identity, considered ethnographically, must always be mixed, rela­ tional, and inventive’, that it is ‘conjunctural, not essential’,100 it remains to be understood under what conditions a group o f individuals apprehends it in the form o f a perm anent, pri­ mordial core in order to follow magicians w ho instrumentalise this illusion to their ow n advantage. In the meantim e, an initial conclusion can be drawn that contradicts the culturalist argument: we identify ourselves less w ith respect to m em bership in a com m unity or a culture than w ith respect to the communities and cultures w ith w hich we have relations. Well know n to theoreticians o f ethnicity and nationalism,101 this phenom enon is more widespread. In the Cevennes region o f southern France, for instance, Catholic and Protestant identities ‘are defined m uch more in relation to each other than in themselves and in relation to their own doctrines’.102Anyone familiar w ith village life in France knows that Louis Pergaud’s T he War o f the Buttons (trans. Stanley and Eleanor H ochm an, N ew York: Walker, 1968) is to the under­ standing o f the countryside w hat Machiavelli’s The Prince is to the study o f governm ent. T he coupling o f the assertion o f identity and its borders throws light both on the development

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o f particular identities w ithin the state and the identity-related withdrawal concom itant w ith globalisation: in both scenarios, the broadening o f social actors’ space puts them in contact with other groups or other cultural habits. This also reminds us, from a different point o f view, that the ‘culture’ to w hich people appeal and on w hich they draw itself consists o f borrowings, and exists only in relation to the O ther, a relation that may or may not be one o f conflict. T he pro­ duction o f identities, and thus also the production o f cultures, is relational; it reflects a relationship to the O ther as m uch as a relationship to the Self. Thus it probably emanates less from a ‘privileged institutional site o f the symbolic process’ as M ar­ shall Sahlins suggested, and from the ‘heart o f societies’, than from their fringes and their hollows, both o f w hich interest post-m odern anthropology.103 Tableaux o f th o u g h t or tables o f the law?

Thus ‘culture’ is less a m atter o f conform ing or identifying than o f making: making something new w ith som ething old, and sometimes also making som ething old w ith som ething new; making Self w ith the O ther. Culturalism commits a final error in attributing such cultural operations, whose logic it fails to understand, to precise political orientations. T he section o f French public opinion that fears Islam and associates it w ith given practices or beliefs— segregation o f w om en, jih a d , the amputation o f thieves’ hands, fatalism— would be less mechanist if it rem embered that Christianity has also, at one time or another, authorised the use o f all sorts o f means o f repression and punishment. T he same is true in the social domain, and we have seen Breton Catholicism— anti-revolutionary, anti-repub­ lican, and ultramontane— transformed into a force for m od­ ernisation and give rise to the most progressive agricultural syndicalism o f its time, prom ote the birth o f an independent press and open the way to a left-wing voting bloc.104 O n a strictly political level— and w ithout going back to the Wars o f R eligion in w hich the French massacred each other in

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the name o f G od— Christianity has been incarnated in diverse and often antagonistic choices. U nder the Vichy governm ent, for instance, tw o divergent interpretations o f Catholicism got jum bled up. In Marshal Petain’s view, the defeat o f France by G erm any was a punishm ent for the country’s moral bank­ ruptcy: ‘T he spirit o f enjoym ent destroyed what the spirit o f sacrifice had constructed [...]; you have suffered, and you will suffer still m ore!’ This ‘penitential’ language was all the better received by the bishops and most believers because in their view the R epublic had never acquired full legitimacy, while the new governm ent did not make any particular demands on them .105 Nonetheless, some prelates, Catholic intellectuals associated w ith the periodicals Esprit, Sept and Cahiers du Temoignage chretien and young people shaped by the Catholic Action m ovem ents, quickly distanced themselves from the new ideology o f the moral order and its racist derivative, w hich they interpreted in Christian terms as ‘a powerful pagan trend’, as Father de Lubac put it. A m ong the anonymous mass o f the faithful, the Resistance could resort to the language o f religion, even if the spirit o f charity had to pay the cost, as is illustrated by these tw o tracts that circulated in Besangon in 1943:106 M y very dear brothers, C hristm as will n o t take place this year. T h e V irgin and the child Jesus have been evacuated. Saint Joseph is in a concentration camp, the stable has been requisitioned, the M agi are in England, the Ass is in R o m e , and the C o w in Berlin; the angels have been shot dow n by anti-aircraft fire, and the stars have been detained by the head o f state. Let us n o w pray ... O u r Father de Gaulle w h o art in England, hallowed be thy name, m ay thy victory com e on earth, on sea, and in the air. Give th em today their daily bom bardm ent, and let them suffer a h u ndred times the sufferings they have inflicted on the French. Leave us n o t un d er their dom ination, and deliver us from the Boches. A m en.

Every form o f religious belief, every cultural representation, every ideological discourse, every literary text, every symbol can be interpreted in a different or contradictory m anner by

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individuals or groups w ho refer to it. W e have already noted that on the eve o f the R evolution R ousseau’s w ork was read in very diverse milieux, but it is likely that the low er classes and the aristocracy did not draw the same lessons from it. His­ torians have pointed out that the nobles w ho emigrated or were condem ned to death had in their libraries books that were prized by the revolutionaries: Marshal de Broglie studied the Encyclopedic in prison while Louis XVI read M ontesquieu and Voltaire.107 ‘Ultimately’, Tocqueville w rote, ‘all m en pla­ ced above the people were alike: they had the same ideas, the same habits, followed the same tastes, enjoyed the same pleas­ ures, read the same books, spoke the same language.’108 They nevertheless cut each other to pieces. T he Renaissance, another m om ent o f great historical change, confirms the extreme political plasticity o f cultural forms. Thus Elizabeth I’s trium phal entry into London in 1559 followed the Gothic style o f this ritual, barely purged o f its Catholic apparatus: dynastic legitimacy adopted the usual symbol o f the tree; the traditional virtues o f the speculum principis were repeated in accord w ith a new Protestant ethic through a tableau representing the Biblical beatitudes and the defeat o f vice. Since the R eform ation condem ned religious iconography and ceremonies, the monarchy easily took over medieval festivities and used them to prom ote its own glory: thus spectacles were staged in honour o f the Virgin Q ueen visiting her kingdom .109 It is true that that era, w hich was sat­ urated with neo-Platonic philosophy, was propitious for such means o f transferring meaning: ‘All over Europe, humanists and writers used a single repertoire o f sources and images to express widely different ideals, depending on the period, the place, and the circumstances. T he same mythological figures and the same symbolic images might thus completely change their meaning, and had continually to be adapted to differing occasions.’110 But neither does the analysis o f the contem porary world perm it us to conclude that ‘religions’, ‘cultures’, or ‘civilisa­

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tions’ have the hom ogenous political voices that Samuel H u n ­ tington sees as doom ed to collide. T he Shia faith has always been inspired by a great diversity o f political attitudes that cannot be reduced to an atavistic distrust o f temporal authority.111 In other words, it did not predispose the Iranian people to the 1978 revolutionary uprising. A few years before the revolution, the philosopher Ali Shariati, w ho sought to reconcile Islam w ith a radical, T hird W orld-type com m it­ m ent, deem ed it necessary to stigmatise the ‘Safavid Shiism’ o f his compatriots w ho had w orked hand in hand w ith the monarchy. B ut he also clashed w ith Ayatollah M otahhari, w ho was outraged by his extremism and w ho was set to becom e one o f the chief ideologues o f the future Islamic Republic, before being shot by other revolutionary Islamists.112 As soon as the new regime was established, its leaders, although they were Shias, disagreed not only regarding problems o f econom ic and foreign policy, but also over the principles o f Islamic legitimacy to w hich they appealed. T he conservative or quietist segment o f the clergy could not lightly accept K hom eini’s creation o f the velayat-e fa q ih (government by doctors o f law): the Grand Ayatollahs K ho’i, Q om i and Shariat-M adari expressed their reservations, and the latter two were im prisoned for speaking out; similarly, the Hojjatiyyeh, an influential religious society founded in 1953 to combat the Baha’i heresy as well as to propagate Shia Islam and ‘defend it scientifically’, refused to grant Ayatollah Khom eini the status o f Imam till 1983, w hen it was obliged to repent and officially suspend its activities. The reservations o f this segment o f the clergy w ith regard to the velayat-e fa q ih and the governm ent’s action w ere dictated above all by theological considerations, even if they also involved a rejection o f state control o f the econom y, agrarian reform, and the political authority’s infringements on the private domain in the name o f the sacred rights o f the family and o f property.113 O ne day the complexity o f Ayatollah K hom eini’s thought will have to be fully appreciated. Westerners read only his

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political tracts— chiefly oral teachings taken dow n by students in N ajaf in 1970, and then published in Persian and Arabic— and not his treatises on philosophy and law, w hich are neoPlatonic and Aristotelian in inspiration, or his mystical poetry, composed in the Gnostic and esoteric (erfan) vein o f Shiism.114 M oreover as a leader K homeini played the part o f a jamnmard, o f a ‘companion knight’, as m uch as that o f a messianic imam: his behind-the-scenes style o f governm ent, relying on a ‘household’ (beyt) o f faithful assistants w ho served as his inter­ mediaries, and proceeding by arbitrating betw een com peting factions, recalled the ethos o f the fotow w at* w hich is certainly not incompatible w ith Islam, but cannot be reduced to it.115 K hom eini’s way o f operating, w hich was characterised by extreme rigidity till the fall o f the monarchy, later put great emphasis on pragmatism— except on the question o f the cease-fire w ith Iraq— and was governed less by the blinding light o f Shia dogma (or that o f ‘revolutionary Islam’) than by the necessities dictated by the circumstances. At first he pre­ tended to remain ‘above politics’; he forbade Ayatollah Beheshti, the leader o f the Party o f the Islamic Republic, to be a can­ didate in the presidential election held in January 1980, and asked other religious dignitaries not to concern themselves w ith the official posts to be filled. O nly the wave o f attacks that decimated the headquarters o f the Party o f the Islamic R epublic and the governm ent during the sum m er o f 1981 allowed clerics to seize the levers o f state power, in particular the accession o f Ayatollah Khameini to the presidency o f the Republic. In the subsequent period (1982—3) the velayat-efaqih was imposed, w ith the help o f a vast campaign, as an ideo­ logical doctrine and constitutional principle, and the clerics w ho persisted in rejecting it, following Ayatollah ShariatMadari, were ruthlessly repressed. Nonetheless, Ayatollah K ho­ meini, in a final turnaround, partially revised the constitutional * Groups of young people, inspired by a fairly ambivalent ‘knightly’ ethos, who con­ trolled the neighborhoods in Middle-Eastern cities.

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principle o f the velayat-e fa q ih on the eve o f his death, in the hope o f preventing the R epublic from falling into the hands o f conservative clerical elem ents.116 Thus is it som ewhat misleading to present the establishment o f the Islamic R epublic in terms o f a mechanical victory o f Islam over the state, the result o f a battle waged over several centuries. T he Iranian revolution led less to the capture o f pow er by religion than to the latter’s dependency on power, to the extent that the Islamic sphere is subjected to increased bureaucratisation and state centralisation.117 Above all, Shiism has politically divided believers as m uch as it contributed to their revolutionary unification in 1978-9, as a result o f a com­ bination o f contingent circumstances. The very figure o f Imam Hussein, whose m artyrdom in Karbala in 680 is celebrated w ith great fervour during the annual ashura festival, and who provided the demonstrators o f 1978 and the young soldiers in the war against Iraq w ith a motivating symbol o f their fate, is in reality equivocal. O ne can see in Hussein either a model o f the battle against injustice and for truth, or a simple intercessor w ith God, in the framework o f a quietist religious faith. T he first interpretation justifies militant com m itm ent; the second can accom m odate the classic moves o f relations w ith a cli­ entele.118 I cannot resist the tem ptation to complicate matters for my culturalist friends by rem inding them that at the height o f the revolution, Imam Hussein was also invoked by Sunni Muslims, w ho were foreigners and even hostile to ‘Shia culture’; that in neighbouring Turkey, he shaped the Alevi m inority’s adhesion to Kemalist secularism, and in the 1970s, even to M arxist-Leninist criticism o f the capitalist state; and finally, that he did not prevent the two main Lebanese Shia militias, Amal and Hezbollah, from fighting w ith each other.119 Hussein is moreover not the only model o f life Shiism proposes to its believers. M ehdi Bazargan, the historical leader o f the Liberation M ovem ent o f Iran, w ho briefly occupied the post o f prim e minister after the 1979 revolution, reproached Shariati for having concealed the fact that Ali’s first son Hassan

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concluded a pact w ith the caliph after his father’s assassination, w ithdrew to Medina and preferred peace (and perhaps pleas­ ure) to m artyrdom .120 Attacked for his moderate attitude w ith regard to the monarchy, Ayatollah Shariat-Madari similarly appealed to the example o f Hassan the conciliator.121 T he entire ‘political language o f Islam’122is subject to debate. O ne example is the key notion o f jih a d , ‘holy w ar’, w hich provokes a Pavlovian response in the Western world. Even aside from the majority o f the Al-Ashar ulama and the mass o f Egyptians w ho reject Islamism, the galaxy o f radical groups contesting the legitimacy o f the Nasserian or post-Nasserian regimes does not concur regarding the meaning o f this con­ cept and the practical consequence to be drawn from it. For Sayyid Q utb, the great Islamist thinker executed in 1 9 6 6 , jih a d covered a w hole range o f practices that allowed the true be­ liever to break w ith the impious order o f the jaliiliyah, and to move from personal meditation on the Koran to armed combat: To establish the reign o f G od on earth, to do away w ith that o f m en, to take pow er away from those o f His w orshippers w ho have usurped it in order to return it to G od alone, to give authority to divine law (chari’at allah ) alone and to do away w ith the laws created by m an ..., all that cannot be done w ith serm ons and discourse, for those w h o have usurped G o d ’s pow er on earth in order to m ake His worshippers their slaves will not give it up through the grace o f the W ord alone, for otherw ise the task o f His Envoys w ould have been very easy.123

It remained for Q u tb ’s heirs to discover how to translate his ‘guidelines’ into acts. For example, Shukri Mustapha, the leader o f Takfir wal-Hijra, chose the strategy o f retreat, o f hijrn, w hen confronted by the impiousness o f the state, and contrary to the Muslim Brotherhood, he refused to see the reconquest o f the O ccupied Territories as a priority o f jihad. H e told his military judges: ‘If the Jews or others arrive, the m ovem ent must not take part in the battle in the ranks o f the Egyptian army, but on the contrary, it should take refuge in some secure place. In general our line is to flee before the external enemy as before the internal enemy, and not to resist him.’124 O n the other hand

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Faraj, the ideologist o f the group that assassinated President Sadat, saw in jih a d the ‘hidden im perative’ w hich he took lit­ erally, using Ibn Taym iyah’s w ork as justification: holy war is an armed uprising against the jahiliyah and the m urder o f the Pharaoh. His essay rejected one by one definitions accepted by other Islamist groups and significantly influenced the avenue opened up by Q u tb ’s pioneering book.125 T he multiplicity o f meanings o f the political language o f Islam governs its indefiniteness. It authorises detours, shifts, correspondences, transitions and possibilities that culturalist assumptions ignore, and that the theoretical mishmash that has com e to guide our thinking no longer takes into account. N othing, for example, seems to us more clear than the M anichaean com bat betw een Islam and secularism in Turkey. Yet the lines o f continuity from the O ttom an empire to the R e ­ public are undeniable, and there are numerous ‘elective affin­ ities ’ betw een M uslim and Kemalist ethics. Thanks to these conformities, and to the institutionalisation o f democracy and the structure o f civil society, both Islam and the Republic were reconstituted differently: the form er adopted m uch o f the latter’s positivist ideology and acted through the agency of legal political associations, while the state gradually ‘Islamised’ itself, w ithout ceasing to be purely ‘republican’. It is this rene­ gotiation o f the relationships between government and reli­ gion that resulted, though not w ithout tensions, in the rise o f an Islamic party— N eem ettin Erbakan’s Welfare Party, w hich was transform ed into the Virtue Party in 1998 and into R ecep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Developm ent Party in 2001— and o f the Islamic brotherhoods, albeit w ithin the framework o f a parliamentary system.126 Egypt seems to be undergoing a process that is both com ­ parable, in that it confirms the compatibility o f Islam w ith secular ideologies, and divergent, insofar as this compatibility has operated in a different way and as its political orientation casts considerable doubt on the future democratisation o f the regime. Having acceded to the Presidency thanks to the

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support o f the Muslim B rotherhood, in order to legitimate his Arabism and his statism in the eyes o f the people, Nasser disseminated a neo-Hanabilah and Ibn Taymiyah ideology, while at the same time repressing his former allies. By so doing he sowed in the 1960s the seeds o f Islamic radicalisation, which Hosni M ubarak’s politically brittle governm ent has had such a hard time controlling.127 T he Algerian governm ent and military nexus, ‘le poiw oir, has also been accused o f having nurtured this force, before it turned against it after 1992.128 Weber, unjustifiably appropriated by a pedestrian cultural­ ism, can in fact help us avoid any misunderstanding by speak­ ing about ‘the frequent ambivalence or silence o f religious norms w ith respect to new problems and practices’. T he ‘logi­ cal consequence’ o f this is ‘the unm ediated juxtaposition o f the stereotypes’ absolute unalterableness w ith the extraordinary capriciousness and utter unpredictability o f the same stereo­ types’ validity in any particular application’. In order to illust­ rate his point, Weber cites the very example o f ‘M uslim sharia : ‘It is virtually impossible to assert what is the practice today in regard to any particular matter.’129 In itself, Islam has no political meaning. T he radicalisation o f some o f its tendencies, in addition to the fundamental fact that it does not constitute a hom ogeneous phenom enon either w ithin the M uslim com ­ m unity or w ithin each o f the states that it encompasses, is his­ torically contingent. It reveals the emergence o f an ‘ethic based on inner religious faith’ ( Gesinnungsethik ) that ‘systematises’ religious obligations and thus ‘breaks through the stereotyping o f individual norms in order to bring about a meaningful total relationship o f the pattern o f life to the goal o f religious salvation’: M oreover, an inner religious faith does n o t recognise any sacred law, but only a ‘sacred in n er religious state’ that may sanction different m axim s o f conduct in different situations, and w hich is thus elastic and susceptible o f accom m odation. It may, depending on the pattern o f life it engenders, produce revolutionary consequences from w ithin, instead o f exerting a ste­ reotyping effect. B ut it acquires this ability to revolutionise at the price o f also acquiring a w hole com plex o f problem s w hich becom es greatly in ten -

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sified and internalised. T h e inherent conflict betw een religious postulates and the reality o f the w orld does n o t dim inish, b u t rather increases [...]. A religious ethic evolves that is oriented to the rejection o f the w orld, and w hich by its very nature com pletely lacks any o f that stereotyping character w h ich has been associated w ith sacred laws. Indeed, the very tension w h ich this religious ethic introduces into the hum an relationships tow ard the w orld becom es a strongly dynam ic factor in social evolution.130

Islam, insofar as it depends on such an ‘ethic based on inner religious faith’ rather than simply on conformism obtained by social control or political coercion, does not involve adhesion to a ‘stereotype’ peculiar to a cultural community. Instead it involves rupture and is a vehicle o f individuation. It pushes society towards innovation rather than towards legacy. It en­ courages change instead o f providing a mere transmission o f retrograde values and the ‘return to the M iddle Ages’ we hear so m uch about. This is the lesson, for example, to be drawn from a scrupulous analysis o f social transformations in Iran since 1979, or from the nebula o f M uslim movements in Turkey and Islamic organisations in Algeria.131 T he fact that we do not care for this inventive response, in the form o f an iden­ tity-related withdrawal, to the challenges o f the contem porary world, or that it has ‘failed’,132 is another matter, on w hich Muslims do not, alas, hold a monopoly. In any event, we cannot limit ourselves to formulating the problem in this way, as if political actors negotiated w ith a single cultural corpus, namely ‘their’ culture. In studying a concrete society, we discern a plurality o f cultural repertoires. W hat we call a ‘political culture’ is a result, a m ore or less m ud­ dled synthesis, o f these heterogeneous elements and their m utual ‘elective affinities’. For example, the topic o f sacrifice haunts N igerian political life and mediates many o f the rela­ tionships am ong its actors: General M urtala M oham m ed, the ephemeral head o f state assassinated in 1976 after a reign o f 200 days devoted to fighting corruption, remains the obliga­ tory point o f reference for those w ho have succeeded him in power. His m artyrdom echoes the m urder o f the main leaders o f the N igeran Federation in January 1966, and that o f their

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murderer, General Ironsi, a few m onths later. T he Igbos experience o f war in Biafra was one o f mass immolation; the northern, mainly Muslim cities are periodically ravaged by mahdi w ho guarantee their acolytes prom pt access to a martyrs paradise; and ritual murders or lynching o f thieves, corrupt politicians and sorcerers are common, if one believes the febrile imagination o f the Nigerian press. These practices and sacri­ ficial discourses, which are omnipresent, draw on cultural rep­ resentations that are diverse and even antagonistic: among these are most ethnic groups’ myths o f origin, popularised by many traditionalists, a myriad o f cultural societies and even w ell-know n writers; Christianity and Islam, w hich celebrate the Passion o f the Messiah and the Eid al-Fitr, and the het­ erodox religious movements that follow m ore or less in their w ake.133 In this example cultural innovation represented by the problematic o f sacrifice is clearly relational: it registers an interaction betw een heterogeneous corpuses, not the m uta­ tion o f one o f them. Obviously globalisation has intensified and systematised such effects o f juxtaposition or osmosis. But the phenom enon precedes globalisation and— let us reiterate— seems inherent in the very reality o f culture. Islam, in particular, is not a civilisational unity. Although it is expressed primarily in Arabic, it can also be experienced in high literate culture and a fortiori in everyday life, through the mediation o f many other languages, and above all in Persian and Turkish. O n the strictly political level the concepts and symbols it conveys have their origin in the Koran, the Traditions o f the Prophet and the examples set by the earliest Muslims. B ut these texts and customs are steeped in materials drawn from pagan beliefs in ancient Arabia, from Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism. M ore­ over, they have undergone, over time, other influences pro­ ceeding from w ithin the confines o f the D ar al-Islam. Starting in the eighth century, the translation into Arabic o f Persian manuals on the art o f governance and court etiquette, as well as o f Greek philosophical works, enriched and inflected M uslim

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political thought and vocabulary. T he R om an, Persian and Byzantine empires also transmitted to Islam many govern­ mental practices before the Turkish and M ongol invasions o f the eleventh to sixteenth centuries once again completely trans­ formed Islam’s political culture. Last but not least, M uslim societies fell under the sway o f the West. Willingly or unw il­ lingly they assimilated many o f the latter’s mental categories.134 C ontem porary Islamism has flourished on these m ulti­ layered contributions, even though it very classically prides itself on its ‘authenticity’. O ne o f its precursors, al-Afghani, borrow ed so heavily from European thought that one may w onder about his religious faith.135 In any case contem porary radical movements have introduced into Islam’s political vocabulary many concepts that were foreign to it, beginning w ith ‘republic’ and ‘econom y’.136K hom eini’s ideology was im ­ bued w ith T hird W orld and even Marxist representations, w hich the Imam no doubt encountered through his encoun­ ters w ith Palestinians during his exile in Najaf, and w hich his disciples learned from Shariati.137 From this point o f view Islamism is a prolongation o f nationalism.138 Following the latter’s example, it sets itself against the West but at the same time appropriates Western ideas and institutions. It is evident that the dynamics o f globalisation have transformed the his­ torical conditions o f the relationship between Muslim civili­ sation and w hat Braudel called Civilisation, w ithout, however, founding this relationship. Thus anyone w ho wants to understand a ‘political culture’ must reconstruct the cognitive connections between one era and another, w hich often consist in exchanges betw een one civilisation and another. T he task is not always easy, for the logic o f cultural closure, w hich is inherent in the invention o f tradition, has as its consequence— and often its intention— to conceal these linkages. Thus the fabrication o f H indu identity by European Orientalist scholars and their autochthonous emulators has led to a genuine ‘de-Islamicisation o f India’.139 U p to the early nineteenth century the Indian subcontinent was nonetheless perceived by Western travellers as M uslim ter­

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ritory, and not w ithout reason, since the M ughal conquests o f the thirteenth century had shifted the centre o f Islamic civili­ sation from Mesopotamia and the Iranian plateau towards Delhi. T he East India Com pany recognised Muslim hege­ mony by adopting Persian for its transactions, the language o f the Mughal em pire’s educated classes and bureaucracy. W ith the abolition o f the M ughal empire in 1857, India was grad­ ually returned to its Buddhist and H indu past, reinterpreted in a communalist light under the pressure o f identity-related political strategies. T he Islamic stratum in the country’s m e­ m ory could not, however, be simply ignored. Beneath the ‘Vedic’ and British heritages, the M uslim legacy still makes itself felt in the vocabulary o f politics, in administrative tech­ niques, in the conception o f the space o f sovereignty and in the subcontinent’s integration into the Asian and Persian G ulf trading economies. It is simultaneously ironic and eloquent that the N ehru dynasty issued from a line o f bureaucrats who served the Mughals, and that the spinning wheel, the Gandhian symbol par excellence, w hich is designated in H indi by the Persian w ord ‘carkha , was introduced into the region by the Muslims. From the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries India was constructed on the basis o f a zone o f compromise and osmosis betw een the social representations o f H induism and those o f Islam, w hich are now said to be opposed. In the ‘galactic’ universe that prevailed before British colonisation, the difference in religious views did not have the im portance that was conferred on it by the problematic o f the nation and the ideologising o f religious identities: ‘These two traditions had homologous notions o f terrestrial life, conceived as a rite, o f the moral personality o f man, and o f society conceived as an organic, hierarchised w hole.’140 H ere we see again the effects o f compatibility and detours that we located w ithin certain Muslim societies. T he complex relations between political action and cultural repertoires are created precisely in the darkness o f these m uddy waters that all the ethnic cleansing in the world will never make clear. For their part, geologists have abandoned the hypothesis

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o f an ‘igneous core’ at the centre o f the earth. B ut culturalists still believe firmly in the existence o f such incandescent cores at the heart o f cultures. Ultimately, it is this very concept that is the problem , and the w ord culture should incontestably be jettisoned if vocabulary were biodegradable: it inexorably lends support, even am ong those w ho w ant to break w ith culturalism, to the illusion o f cultural totalities and coherences w hen w hat w e need to do is to express indeterminism, in­ com pletion, multiplicity and polyvalence. Paul Veyne notes that ‘our everyday life is composed o f a great num ber o f dif­ ferent program s’, and that we ‘are constantly m oving from one program to another, just as we change radio frequencies, but w e do so w ithout know ing it’.141 It is time to propose a simple step that w ould enable us to perceive, at the lowest cost, cultural channel-changing in the political arena. P olitical utterance

Thanks to post-Saussurean linguistics, we know that the reading o f a text is part o f its production. T he same goes for lis­ tening, and specialists now speak o f ‘musical perform ance’ in order to rem ind us that the listener acts. Perhaps we should also refer to ‘political perform ance’ in order to emphasise that the reception o f cultural phenom ena, ideologies and institutions is never passive and contributes to their ‘form ation’. Political science is no doubt somewhat behind other disciplines— par­ ticularly history and anthropology— in exploring this ap­ proach, even though in the 1980s the latter was able to renew to some extent our understanding o f authoritarianism .142 Let us accept, then, the idea that a political field is first o f all one of utterance or enunciation, and that the necessity o f approaching ‘politics from below ’, o f studying ‘popular modes o f political action’, and o f distinguishing betw een ‘state-building’ and the ‘form ation’ o f the state proceeds from this obvious fact, rather than from a populist conception o f the social sciences.143 Submission is itself a kind o f action. In the South Afri­ can ‘hostels’ into w hich w hite owners literally packed their

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workforce (2.8 m en per bed in one such dorm itory in the W estern Cape!), the prison-like space was rearranged by the residents, w ho tried to recover a m inim um degree o f com fort by moving beds and chests to free up space to be used for pre­ paring food.144 Similarly, in actual prisons, inmates try to remodel their surroundings.145 Ultimately, the same is true o f culture if one tries to define it in terms o f heritage, as a ‘prison o f the longue duree: the act o f enunciation constantly reshapes the straitjacket restricting action. T o espouse a cultural repre­ sentation is ipso facto to recreate it. Thus notions o f cultural ‘survival’ or ‘dependency’, for example, have little validity. T o exhume a text or a symbol from a distant past, or to im port an ideology or an institution, amounts in fact to giving them a new life. India’s trajectory has already taught us a great deal on these two points: H indu nationalists have broadly reinterpre­ ted the Vedic Golden Age they praise, and the parliamentary system has little in com m on w ith the W estm inster model bequeathed by the British. W e must move in this direction in order to clarify the relationships betw een the order o f culture and that o f politics, drawing on Mikhail B akhtin’s w o rk .146 First let us finally recognise the cultural heterogeneity o f political societies. The latter do not form cultural wholes. They contain a variety o f ‘discursive genres’ o f politics, limited in number, but w hich are in theory irreducible to one another. A discursive genre corresponds to a relatively stable form o f more or less homogeneous utterances, for example, statements o f the Islamic, Christian, H indu, Confucian, nationalist, liberal, or Marxist-Leninist types. ‘Each particular utterance is certainly individual, but each sphere o f linguistic usage elaborates its own relatively stable kinds o f utterances, and that is w hat we call discursive genres!147 A fundamental point: in our view discursive genres— w hich we will also call repertoires— are not lim ited to explicit discourses, w hether oral or w ritten, but extend to other modes o f communication, for example gestures, music and clothing.

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T he irreducible diversity o f discursive genres is the foun­ dation o f the heterology constitutive o f every society, that is the radical heterogeneity that culturalism— along w ith other trends in the hum an sciences— seeks desperately to conceal. B ut at the same time the existence o f a finite num ber o f dis­ cursive genres tends to limit this heterology by offering social actors a range o f repertoires. ‘Each genre, if it is an essential genre, is a com plex system o f ways and means o f taking possession o f reality, o f completing it and at the same time com prehending it. A genre is a set o f means for collective ori­ entation to reality, w ith a vision o f com pletion’, Bakhtin writes. Todorov adopts this definition in a way that is parti­ cularly suggestive for our purposes: ‘Thus the genre forms a m odelling system that offers a simulacrum o f the world ’148 on the m odel, for example, o f Marxism, Islamism and all microcosmic ideologies. In addition, hybridisation occurs betw een genres and espe­ cially betw een autochthonous and im ported ones: ‘We call a hybrid construct an utterance that is related, by its grammatical (syntactical) and compositional characteristics, to an individual speaker, but in w hich two utterances, two ways o f speaking, two styles, two “languages” , two semantic and evaluative hori­ zons, are in fact mixed.’149 Thus the scholar must draw up a list o f the ‘essential genres’ o f politics coexisting in a given society by locating their origin (autochthonous or im ported), the historical conditions under w hich they crystallised and their possible hybridisation. This kind o f approach allows us, for example, to demonstrate that ‘African political cultures’ are differing assemblages o f hetero­ geneous political genres, and cannot be subsumed under an ideal type o f ‘African culture’: the ‘essential genres’ are not everywhere the same (nationalist and bureaucratic repertoires in Cam eroon; M arxism and sorcery in the Congo; prophecy in Zaire; the Christian repertoire in Kenya etc.). T he allogeneous heritage o f colonialism is itself disparate (French Jacobinism, British governm ent, Salazarian corporatism), and over time

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acquired new ‘genres’, (e.g. the American federal m odel in Nigeria, and Marxism-Leninism in Ethiopia, Angola, M ozam ­ bique, the C ongo and in Benin). A utochthonous repertoires are no more hom ogeneous than other ones, and the possi­ bilities ofhybridisation are many (in the C ongo, the repertoire o f the invisible co-exists along w ith liberal democracy just as well as it used to co-exist w ith Marxism, while in Ethiopia the latter had strong affinities w ith the Christian repertoire o f the Coptic church). M oreover, the analysis o f genres reminds us that a political culture evolves, and it reconstructs the latter’s dynamics: certain repertoires disappear (Marxism at the end of the 1980s), and others are rehabilitated (multi-party dem o­ cracy, ethno-nationalism) or appear (the them e o f civil society and ‘good governance’, w hich are rather close to, but distinct from, the liberal democratic repertoire and, in my opinion, stand in a relationship ofhybridisation w ith the Christian rep­ ertoire o f the Protestant missions). O nce the basic political genres have been determ ined, the scholar must examine the ‘dialogic’ relationship, that is, the intertextual relation between these genres, from the twofold point o f view o f synchrony and diachrony. O n one hand, from a synchronic point o f view, ‘no utterance can in general be attributed to a single speaker’: ‘It is a product o f the interaction between interlocutors, and more broadly, a product o f the w hole complex social situation in w hich it em erged’.150 In short it is contextual, as we have seen in relation to identity-related utterances: not only does the choice o f the identity one claims depend on the circumstances in w hich one lives and on the interlocutor addressed, but also an identity-related utterance varies depending on w hether it is received w ith sympathy or antipathy. O n the other hand, from a diachronic point o f view, every utterance is related to earlier utterances: at the end o f the twentieth century, one could no more speak o f the dicta­ torship o f the proletariat or ethnic cleansing w ithout these terms immediately taking on the sinister meaning conferred on them by Stalinism and National Socialism, respectively, in

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the same way that from one genocide to another, H utu and Tutsi identities constantly changed. Like H eraclitus’s river, w hat we call a ‘political culture’ is the constantly changing and yet relatively perm anent resultant o f these multiple effects o f intertextuality. That is why similar utterances acquire a different and sometimes contradictory re­ sonance from one actor to another or from one society to another: as we have seen, the Shia m artyr Hussein is not inter­ preted in the same way in Iran and in Turkey, or in the Iran o f the Shah and in that o f Khomeini, not to m ention the vari­ ations from one individual or group to another. This point must be emphasised since it sets the limits o f the cultural inter­ pretation o f politics. It is this context, ‘the w hole complex social situation in w hich it em erged’, w hich cannot be reduced to the conceptual dimension alone, that gives an utterance its meaning. Let us take the case o f the Christian discursive genre, which imbues the political grammar and vocabulary o f many African countries. First, it is capable o f intertw ining itself w ith a variety o f repertoires. Thus in the 1960s a manifesto drawn up by rebels in Congo-Leopoldville com bined in a single declaration Marxist statements, racist sentiments and prophetic or even millenarian Christian religiousness: O u r revolutionary th eo ry is truly a correct and proper adaptation o f the M arxism -L eninism o f the perio d o f M ao T se -tu n g ’s th o ught to the concrete conditions in the society o f m en o f the Black race and th eir souls. H ow ever, it is m o re than that, for w e are living the edification o f proletarian B ro th erh o o d thro u g h the concrete and actual practice o f C h rists great com m andm ent: ‘Love thy n eighbour as thyself.’151

Moreover, in the rest o f the text other repertoires are ‘em ­ bedded’,152 for example, that o f witchcraft (‘O u r enemies are devils, ferocious demons, w ho have becom e extremely cruel’) and that o f the bureaucratic state (the use o f a letterhead, the choice o f a capital city, a plan to establish a Peace Bank). A t other m om ents in Zairean history, or in other circum­ stances, we can see the prophetic genre— whose historical

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origin goes back to both an autochthonous tradition and Christianity’s contribution— merging in another com bination o f repertoires. As a w orthy successor to Patrice Lumumba, Pierre Mulele andjoseph Kasavubu, President M obutu always tried to appropriate this genre to his ow n advantage, and long had state television and the ideologues o f his party present him as a messiah. In the 1970s, for instance, he stigmatised the ‘ten plagues’ that were ravaging the country, it being up to him to deliver his people from them. But students at Kinshasa U ni­ versity soon inverted this religious description o f the regime in order to challenge it: they spoke scornfully o f Equateur, the president’s native region, as ‘N azareth’, ‘B ethlehem ’, or ‘the Promised Land’, in order to stigmatise the shameless looting in which the presidential clique indulged.153 Later Etienne Tshisekedi, w ho had become a dissident, tried to establish a stub­ born synthesis o f the prophetic repertoire and democratic demands w hich his sorry performance as opposition leader and prime minister from 1991 to 1994 did not entirely discredit. Thus prophecy is an ‘essential’ and extremely polysemous genre in Zaire. But the series o f political meanings it assumes depending on the speaker, the period, and the place— the pres­ idential palace or the university campus— w here it is for­ mulated, differs from those it will assume in another historical situation, because there the ‘complex social situation’ will be different, because the religious field w ith w hich it establishes a ‘dialogic’ relationship will have its own peculiarities and because its speakers will have their unique personalities, forged by an equally unique history. In Cote d’Ivoire, President H ouphouet-B oigny also did not hesitate to present himself as a messiah. To justify his refusal to w rite his memoirs, he once told officials o f his party: ‘I’ve always answered you w ith a smile: there are two great figures in the world w ho wrote not a word, not even a single letter, but w ho are nonetheless the most widely read in the world, M oham m ed and Jesus Christ [applause]. You will say: they had their words w ritten down by disciples. But all o f you w ho are

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assembled here today, old and young, are disciples o f my action [applause].’154 M oreover, in his view, his old adversary N krum ah was a ‘false prophet’, a ‘false messiah’.155 T he pro­ phetic tradition is also alive in C ote d ’Ivoire society, and the state has not failed to try to co-opt into its machinery the leading pastors o f this religious trend. Public opinion itself is not insensitive to the transfer o f the redemptive genre into the political field. Thus it was in very Christian terms that strikers at the Ivoire H otel expressed their regrets in 1985: As a result o f num erous conflicts, w e opposed o u r employer, w e clumsily broke oft th e dialogue o n 23 D ecem ber 1982, thus com prom ising any pos­ sibility o f negotiating. H en ce the party and the governm ent, co n cern ed to m aintain public order and stability, for w hich they are responsible, m ade the necessary decision. T hus tw o h u ndred and seventy o f us lost o u r jobs [...]. B ut w hatever the effects o f this decision that affects us, w e are aware o f the fact that it was taken in the superior interest o f the nation, and thus in our ow n interest, in conform ity w ith the ideals o f o u r great party, the P D C IR D A and its venerable leader. [...] T herefore w e ask the indulgence o f all o u r brothers, and consequently, o f the President and the governm ent, for the errors w e have com m itted, so that an op p o rtu n ity m ight be offered us to recover o u r lost happiness__ 156

A nd yet it took only a b rief visit to Cote d’Ivoire to under­ stand that the Christian prophetic repertoire did not mean exactly the same thing there as it did in Zaire. Perhaps because Felix H ouphouet-B oigny, even if he exaggerated his royal ancestry, came from a good family and had always affected a natural indifference to power— ‘I did not becom e a leader by acceding to the supreme magistracy o f my country— I was born a leader’157— whereas President M obutu had to act like a Sartrean bastard. Perhaps also because his description as a messiah, although it may appear somewhat excessive, was at least based on his historic role in abrogating the forced labour that had actually freed his people in 1946, whereas M obutu’s personality and record were enough to make one disgusted w ith the profession o f prophet. In any case in Zaire, the legiti­ mising function imparted to the figure o f the Messiah operated

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in a context o f political coercion and econom ic collapse that contrasted cruelly w ith the situation in Cote d’Ivoire, at least till that state too underw ent its ow n internal struggles. Thus ‘saying’ is not always equivalent to ‘doing’.158 T he practice o f a single utterance is eminently variable because it is historical, that is, unique. Paul Veyne w ould claim that it is ‘a period political gimmick whose unexpected ornateness constitutes the key to the enigma’: ‘hum an facts are rare’, in the sense o f the Latin w ord ran to .159 In 1974 President Macias N guem a decreed that ‘N o hay mas Dios que Macias’. H e required the Catholic clergy to state from the pulpit that ‘God created Equatorial Guinea thanks to Macias’, and played on similarity o f sound between ‘Macias’ and ‘Mecias’ (‘Messiah’ in Spanish).160 In itself this was no more than what President Eyadema caused to be said about himself in Togo, where he was systematically called Joshua ‘the con­ queror o f Canaan’, Moses ‘the m an raised from the dead in Sarakawa’, and ‘Saviour’. Archbishop Dosseh o f Lome com ­ pared him to Christ, and he appeared every evening on tele­ vision in the form o f an ethereal being, standing on a cloud descending from the sky and landing on the earth.161 However, if ideological control and coercion were terrible in Togo, they were even worse in Equatorial Guinea, w here virtually all those w ho held degrees were killed and the population was reduced almost to slavery. T he politico-prophetic gim m ick was different in the two countries. It goes w ithout saying that this historical specification o f the Christian messianic genre in each o f the African states will be a m atter for ‘dialogue’ in gen­ erations to come, and that its semiotic coherence will be to that degree diminished. If this ‘relatively stable type o f state­ m ents’ does not correspond to a general conception o f gov­ ernm ent (or o f protest) in sub-Saharan Africa, we can guess that elsewhere it is likely to clothe still other political trajec­ tories. In Mexico, for instance, the liberal elites, w hether con­ servative or anti-clerical, have continually made use o f an eschatological discourse on revolution, studded w ith Biblical

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references in w hich the M exican people also emerges as the chosen people o f Israel, in search o f the Promised Land o f democracy, freedom and the ejido ,*162 T he cultural interpretation o f politics is necessary, be­ cause— and we shall return to this point— political action is cultural. But this cultural interpretation must be part o f a general history, as we immediately see in the case o f the neoConfucian m yth in East Asia. In addition, the ‘politics o f the belly’ in Africa is not a ‘political culture’, and still less a political culture o f corruption.163 It is a system o f historical action whose uniqueness lies in its false resemblances.164 In w riting this book I found in my files a quotation that I intuitively attributed to an African apologist for the single-party regime: ‘We need a ram, we need a bull, otherwise the flocks o f sheep, o f cattle will invade the country everywhere where there is aid for grazing’. In fact these words were uttered by Lech Walesa in O ctober 1981.165 They associate the Christian and Hebraic conception o f pastoral power w ith the symbol o f the ‘ram ’ that one encounters in Kenya and C ote d’Ivoire, and w ith the equally ‘A frican’ them e o f ‘eating’ foreign aid. Nonetheless, this lexicological and even semantic proximity o f political dis­ courses veils historical trajectories that are clearly irreducible, even if in these cases the objective o f the m etaphor was oddly comparable: to justify the sole candidacy o f the leader and make it enchanting. T he idiom o f the belly in politics is not peculiar to Africa. R onsard described unfair sovereigns as ‘subject-eaters’, and in the seventeenth century Tuscans similarly said o f their com ­ manders (provedditore) that they ‘ate’ everything that came w ithin their reach.166 In T he O a k and the Calf: a M em oir Solzhenitsyn writes that the members o f the nomenklatura ‘nibble’, while in 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev lamented: ‘We are cutting up the country like a cake. [...] They came to share and drink and eat— or eat and drink.’167 In Brazil, Lula was * The ejidos are the community properties created by agrarian reform.

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astonished to see President Collor indulging in corruption w ith ‘an incredible gluttony’.168 In China everyone has know n since Confucius that an oppressive governm ent is m ore ter­ rible than a voracious tiger. Entering a magistrate’s office was like throw ing oneself into the maw o f a wild animal, and the whole question was w hether one was going to eat or be eaten.169 T he Republic did not improve the situation: in the early 1920s, newspapers described as ‘pigs looking for food’ members o f parliament w ho shuttled back and forth betw een Beijing and Shanghai to collect their pay in each o f the two camps battling for the presidency o f the R epublic.170 A nd after the revolution, at the time o f the Great Leap Forward, the official responsible for the party’s rural policy gravely w o n ­ dered, ‘W hat does comm unism mean? First o f all, good food, and not merely a sufficient quantity o f food.’171 In fact ‘heavy eating and drinking’ (dachi dahe) remains a crucial political ritual in today’s China.172 In Muslim countries the pastoral image o f government appears in classical and early m odem Islamic writing, and one o f the pastor’s duties is to feed his flock. T he m etaphor o f food— the act o f cooking or eating it— some­ times expresses the act o f occupying a public office: the sover­ eign’s servants eat or break his bread; som eone paid a salary by the O ttom an governm ent was an ‘eater o f w ork’ (uazifehor ); the janissaries’ officers were called soup-makers or cooks, and w hen they w anted to give the signal for mutiny, they symbol­ ically refused the sultan’s food by turning their kettles upside down, the kettles having become the symbol o f the identity and the fidelity o f their profession.173 Even President Jacques Chirac complained in 1989 that the ‘renovators’ in his party had failed to ‘avoir la reconnaissance du ventre’, that is, to show gratitude to those w ho had helped them .174 T he recurrence o f this symbolism should not mislead us, even w hen it is coupled w ith a pastoral representation o f power: in each o f these situations, we are dealing w ith different practices and unique intertextual relationships, because we are encountering different overall histories. O n the one hand, the

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same statements resonate w ith discursive genres that differ from one situation to another: in Black Africa the ‘politics o f the belly’ is connected not only w ith the pastoral, redemptive problematics o f pow er— ‘First seek the political kingdom , and the rest shall be given you as w ell,’ said N krum ah the Osagyefo (‘R ed eem er’) in a truly prophetic way!— but also and espe­ cially w ith the repertoire o f witchcraft, a practice located pre­ cisely in the entrails. O n the other hand, the pastoral-ventral them e ‘converses’ w ith particular historical processes: south o f the Sahara, the dif­ fusion o f religious representations o f power has been pro­ m oted by confessional education, w hich has been one o f the chief matrices o f nationalism; Christian missions soon became addicted to the delights o f economic accumulation and the ecclesiastical pie is shared in the same way as the ‘national pie’ Nigerians talk about; and m odern forms o f witchcraft— such as the ekong along the coastline o f Central Africa— serve as a vehicle for the historical m em ory o f the slave trade etc. The ‘politics o f the belly’ that leads the hum orist’s goat in the Cameroon Tribune to say ‘I graze, therefore I am ’ is the system o f historical action that is practised in specific cultural modes but nonetheless not reducible to a specific culture. It corresponds to a historical positivity that M ichel Foucault ended up call­ ing ‘governm entality’, but w hich he had already defined in L ’Archeologie du Savoir. T h e positive facts that I have tried to establish should n o t be understood as a set o f determ inations that are im posed from outside on individuals’ th o u g h t or inhabiting it from the inside as it were in advance; rather, they constitute the set o f conditions under w hich a practice is exercised, under w h ich this practice gives rise to partially or w holly new utterances, and u n d er w h ich it can be m odified: it is less a m atter o f limits put o n subjects’ initiative than o f the field in w h ich it is articulated (w ithout constituting its centre), rules that it im plem ents (w ithout having invented or form ulated them ), relationships that serve as its support (w ithout being their ultimate result or the po in t w here they converge).175

Instead o f seeking to establish stable causal relations betw een general cultural phenom ena and political action, we should try

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to analyse concrete means o f enunciating a cultural represen­ tation in a specific context. T he possible interpretations o f a political discursive genre are probably not infinite, since the latter is in a ‘dialogic’ relationship to a finite num ber o f earlier utterances whose interpretation was itself not infinite. In Russia, National Socialism tends to be associated w ith the horrors o f the Second W orld War, and the definition o f it proposed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky— ‘T he philosophy o f the National Socialist, that is, o f the ordinary man, the petty bourgeois.. .w ho wants to live peacefully in his apartm ent’— remains atypical. In central Europe socialism remains asso­ ciated w ith a feeling o f economic mediocrity, restrictions on freedom and the alienation o f national sovereignty, even though voters have now turned to the ‘post-C om m unists’. Islam, having failed in the past to legitimise pluralist political experiences w ith w hich contemporaries could establish an intertextual relationship, now seems to be having some diffi­ culty in expressing democratic passions, even though nothing in its dogma obliges it to inhibit them. In general, Christianity offers its believers a model o f liberation— Exodus— that can also function as model o f political submission, insofar as it cel­ ebrates the virtues of obedience and patience the R edeem er requires o f us. But these tendencies o f differing discursive genres are merely historical. T hey reflect a certain sedimentation, a given rela­ tionship o f intertextuality whose stability is relative and can be reopened by cultural or political innovation, socio-econom ic transformations and the production o f new utterances or the reinterpretation of old ones. C om m on sense requires us to acknowledge, w ith U m berto Eco, that in a language vocabulary has a literal meaning, ‘the one that dictionaries list first, the one that the man in the street would m ention first if he were asked the m eaning o f a given word: N o theory o f reception can get along w ithout this pre­ liminary restriction. Every free act on the part o f the reader comes after and not before the application o f this restriction.’176

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Nevertheless, the field o f this ‘after’ is sufficiently vast to deprive the culturalist argum ent o f validity. Christians have sometimes interpreted the grammatical sentence ‘T h o u shalt not kill’ in strange ways, w ith the C hurch’s blessing. W e have also seen that in Islamic societies fundamental and relatively elementary notions such as hijra and jih a d are interpreted in divergent ways, w hatever the im portance o f the literal m ean­ ing (jihad is a kind o f combat, w hich may be peaceful; hijra is a journey, w hich may be internal). It is not even clear that an utterance whose literal meaning is fairly clear— the verses giving the man the ‘direction’ o f the w om an— constitutes the absolute ‘scriptural prison’177 its reading suggests. C ontem ­ porary M uslim w om en decipher the Koran w ith regard to their new social practices as city-dwellers, universal ratio­ nalism, the com peting models set against it by television or travel. Significantly, w hether or not there is a ‘scriptural prison’, the Islamic R epublic o f Iran has had to adapt itself to contem porary M uslim w om en’s desire to participate in the public sphere and to ‘be in society’, w ithout this aspiration necessarily contradicting their religious faith: in this regard the m eaning o f wearing the veil has been m uch m ore ambiguous than is often thought in W estern countries, especially France.178 In any event, the cultural dimension o f political action is still m ore complex. T he political enunciation o f culture, as we have said, exploits the polysemy o f more than one repertoire. It involves a bundle o f essential genres that are historically sedim ented and hybridised.* T he effects o f intertextuality produ­ ced by this are multiple. We can now better see w hat we need to examine. T he historically delimited polysemy o f cultural representations leads us to substitute for the analysis o f political cultures the study o f the cultural reasons for political action. A nd the ambivalence arising from intertextuality suggests that these cultural reasons for political action primarily involve the imaginaire. * We should remember that a plant is said to be hybridised when it is naturally fer­ tilised by the pollen of another species or variety.

Part II OWLS WITH RHEUMY EYES D ow n D ow n D ow n D ow n

w ith w ith w ith w ith

owls w ith rheum y eyes!* tortoises w ith double shells! cham eleons doing balancing acts! the stuffed turkeys!

This is how Burkina Faso’s ‘committees for the defence o f the revolution’ expressed themselves during their second national m eeting in 1987.1 T heir discourses, we can argue, took on a specific cultural content. O n the one hand, the content seems to us comical, because we now find it unintelligible. O n the other hand, it was understood by everyone in O ugadougou, because the Burkinabe had an ongoing symbolic relationship w ith the animal world via totemism. In Burkina Faso recourse to a zoological vocabulary in the political sphere is not unusual. U nder the preceding regime the two legally recognised parties had identified themselves w ith the elephant and the lion, respectively, and ridiculing the animal emblem o f the opposing party was the best way o f dis­ crediting the latter. President Thomas Sankara developed a veritable typology for animalising and destroying ‘enemies o f the people’. T he commercial bourgeoisie were ‘panic-stricken buffalos’, the local servants o f French imperialism were ‘black cats’ and ‘roaming dogs’, corrupt officials were ‘mangy dogs’, mercenaries and racists were ‘war dogs’, soldiers and dishonest customs officials were ‘stuffed turkeys’, non-revolutionary gov­ ernm ent officials were ‘dum bfounded owls’, T hird R epublic * The French original is ‘au regardgluant'. 122

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politicians in the form er French colony o f U pper Volta were ‘owls w ith rheum y eyes’, merchants and crooked officials w ere ‘tim id hyenas’, politicians were ‘ravening wolves’, m er­ cenaries were also ‘wild geese’, fake militants were ‘strutting guinea fowls’, merchants were ‘terrified foxes’, labour union activists and merchants were ‘tortoises w ith double shells’, and politicians, the forces o f darkness, and expatriates were ‘cha­ meleons doing balancing acts’.2 T he hybridisation o f this symbolic repertoire and o f the international revolutionary discursive genre was often rather heavy-handed: C om rades, let us have the courage to recognise that in a num ber o f our offices and m ilitary corps hippopotam uses, lizards, and cham eleons are still in o u r midst. T hese w ater or land animals are trying in every way they can to block the transform ation taking place in the arm y B ut their acts o f sabotage directed against the R D P* are so subtle and clever that all sincere com rades m ust be m uch m ore vigilant and d eterm ined to unm ask and com bat them . B u t the people will n o t be fooled. T h a t is w hy the im ­ m ediate task in cu m b en t up o n every soldier involved in the revolutionary process is to dislodge the last representatives o f the neo-colonial army, w herever they m ay be hiding.3

However, we must not underestimate the audience for this kind o f politico-sociological vocabulary in Burkinabe public opinion. T he latter was ‘conversing’ w ith the corpus o f stories learned in childhood, whose heroes are often animals, the actors in a veritable moral economy o f trickery, w hich Denise Paulme persuasively compares to Greek metis.4 In addition, this bestiary o f counter-revolution was probably not original and was largely borrow ed— that is, in accord w ith the theory o f enunciation, recreated— from the man in the street, w ho is always ready to ridicule, to ‘distance himself facetiously’, and to make ‘paradoxical implications’.5 Finally, and especially, these revolutionaries knew how to use such animal vocabulary to evoke a phantasmal resonance. Many o f their favourite m et­ aphors— starting w ith the various avatars o f the owl— referred * The Revolution democratique et populaire party.

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to the disturbing world o f the invisible, and m ore particularly to witchcraft. It is particularly revealing that the ‘enemies o f the people’ were accused o f acting at night: In fact, we have to recognise that m any o f these acrobatic cham eleons, perching on old, grey branches, are m aking a last effort to adapt themselves to the colours o f the branches o f the tree o f August.* This is show n by the fact that som e individuals w ho probably think they are cleverer than our m ilitary comrades are taking interm ediary positions; pretending to be fervent defenders o f the R D P by day, they h u rry to don the m antle o f counter-revolution once night has fallen. Fortunately for the revolu­ tion, this m antle smells so bad that its nocturnal wearers can be quickly detected.6

T he political battle against the ‘enemies o f the people’ is com ­ pared to tracking down witches, and this transfer o f meaning, this switch from one register to another, has a very strong emotional charge, at the same time that it seeks to root the state’s concerns in those o f everyday life and in popular onto­ logy. From this point o f view, the case o f the Burkinabe is not unusual. O nly a few African leaders have resisted the tem p­ tation to conflate opposition w ith subversion, and then sub­ version w ith witchcraft. In O ctober 1990 Sassou Nguesso, the president o f the Republic o f the Congo (Brazzaville), accused ‘dark forces’ o f having provoked the wave o f strikes that shook his hold on power.7 Eleven years earlier President M obutu claimed w ithin the legislative council that the leaders o f the U DPS were ‘serpents, not nioka but udoki ’, that is, witches.8 President Hastings Banda o f Malawi exclaimed in 1992: ‘I know there are some dissidents w ho are acting in the shadows and w ho m eet w ith foreigners at night. W hy don’t they come out into the daylight so that we can have a constructive dia­ logue?’9 And in Kenya President arap M oi constantly stigmat­ ised the ‘nocturnal meetings’— in theory forbidden— which, on the pretext o f being funeral wakes, allowed unscrupulous politicians to force their fellow citizens to swear an oath o f allegiance to them .10 Till he stepped down as president in * Thomas Sankara took power in August 1983.

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2002, he used the repertoire o f witchcraft in an attempt to dis­ credit the m ulti-party system, the cause o f disorders.11 The ‘ethics o f unity’12 that has been constantly prom oted by single­ party regimes for three decades implicitly confers on these regimes a role analogous to that that had been played by cer­ tain prophetic movements in the battle against witches. Perhaps this explains their predilection for the redemptive genre. In any case, single-party regimes have undeniably made use, in order to legitimate themselves, o f the vague fear that conflict arouses in sub-Saharan Africa because it is immediately asso­ ciated w ith a m ore fundamental disorder o f a metaphysical nature. This did not, however, prevent them from falling prey themselves to the ‘demons o f division’ and having internal fac­ tional struggles, which were also experienced in terms o f w itch­ craft.13 In this context, there is no more convenient way o f disqualifying an adversary than to attribute to him this kind of plotting in the realm o f the invisible. T he accusation is some­ times made explicit. In Cam eroon in the 1950s the part o f the press favourable to French policy presented U m Nyobe, the nationalist leader o f the U P C (Cameroon Peoples’ U nion), as a blackmailer w hose father was ‘a monster, a panther-w itch who was killed because he had also killed many o f his brothers in the forest’.14 B ut the U P C themselves accused collaborators w ith the colonising power, and especially informers, o f being witches, a moral stance also adopted by nationalist fighters in Zim babwe in the 1970s.15 ' T he example o f C ote d’Ivoire is still m ore interesting, since there one sees the repertoire o f the invisible intertw ining with the Stalinist them e o f ‘conspiracy’ inherited from the period w hen the Rassem blem ent democratique africain (African D em ocratic Rally) was allied w ith the French Com m unist Party. In 1963 the first ‘conspiracy’ was discovered— or rather invented— as Felix H ouphouet-B oigny himself later admitted. It was followed by another affair, in 1964, w hich led to the ‘suicide’ o f Ernest Boka, the chief justice o f the Supreme C ourt. ‘I am not afraid that some young people may get me

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with fetishes,’ H ouphouet-B oigny warned. In fact, Boka conceded in his ‘confession’, w hich was published in full in the governm ent press, that there was supporting ‘p ro o f o f his manipulations in the realm o f the invisible: ‘I have played the sorcerer’s apprentice, but the great sorcerer is stronger. All the forces rose up against me. I provoked them .’16 In 1973 it was the turn o f the military officers, w ho were supposed to have ‘conspired’, to be accused o f making hum an sacrifices.17 As for Jonas Savimbi, Professor R ieb en ’s form er student, it is more or less beyond dispute that he had dissidents in his organisation or rivals burned as witches, at least in 1983, and probably also during the 1970s.18 Critics o f post-colonial authoritarian regimes also m ined this vein, as soon as the conditions became more favourable. In Benin President Kerekou was depicted as a w itch during the great protest demonstrations in 1989,19 and in Madagascar the lifeblood o f the opposition publicly claimed, in 1991, that President Ratsiraka was raising two ‘monsters’ in his palace that were supposed to be fed hum an foetuses in order to make their predictions. But it quickly appeared that these accusations were basically ambivalent, and that the indignation or fear they manifested was mixed w ith a certain respect, or at least a cer­ tain admiration, for truly extraordinary powers. It is, for instance, revealing that President Kerekou rather smugly accepted his nickname o f ‘Cham eleon’, and that in 1996 he was re-elected w ith 59 per cent o f the votes cast, after surviving serious chal­ lenges. Similarly Jean-Bedel Bokassa played alternately on two registers o f his pantheon, that o f Tere, the peace leader (he was called ‘G ood Father’ Bokassa), and that o f Ngakola, the war leader (he was also called ‘indestructible’Bokassa, strengthened by the fetishes given him by Idi Amin, and protected by witches and female secret societies).20 A similar ambivalence seems to have surrounded the figures o f Leon M ba in Gabon and Fulbert Youlou in the Congo: their dealings w ith the invisible made their fortune, before it got them into trouble.21

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It was w ith o u t excessive embarrassment that African heads o f state surrounded themselves w ith marabouts and joined mystical brotherhoods that soon became the central organi­ sations o f the regimes involved and agencies o f social advance­ m ent.22 Thus the Zairean chronicle o f recent decades has periodically been filled w ith sensational revelations. In 1982 Nguza Karl i Bond, a form er minister w ho had temporarily gone over to the opposition, unveiled the action o f a ‘syn­ dicate’ o f ‘wives o f governm ent barons’ w ho were battling their rivals— the famed ‘deuxiemes bureaux '— and the ‘eco­ nom ic success o f single w om en’, by using their influence on President M o b u tu ’s wife— and by resorting to the services o f an impressive num ber o f fetish-makers. A part from certain facts it w ould be b etter n o t to m ention, fetishes and fetish-m akers to o k up residence in the m ost intim ate part o f m y hom e: the bed ro o m — in m y absence, to be sure. A nd, since as m inister o f Foreign Affairs, I was alm ost always travelling, the fetish-m akers’ w ork was m ade easier. T hese charlatans did n o t lim it themselves to leaving statuettes or o th e r spells about, b u t also provided ‘m edicines’ in the form o f grains, pow ders, o r liquids that could be p u t in m y food. O n e day, a frightened servant told m e I should n o t touch the food. I pretended to have indi­ gestion, and forew ent eating. A n o th er servant gave a piece o f m eat dipped in this p o w d er to o u r shepherd dog. [...] T h e p o o r animal collapsed and died imm ediately. From that poin t on, the situation becam e serious. [...] T h e pow erful ‘syndicate’ decided to subdue me. T h e president sum m oned m e for this purpose, and I had to tell him everything. His com prehension was in p ro p o rtio n to the strange sim ilarity betw een his ow n case and mine. ‘O u r wives are goin g too far!’ he cried, to m y great relief.23

After the establishment o f a m ulti-party system, the dignitaries o f the Second R epublic confessed all the turpitudes they had had to condone in order to remain in favour w ith President M obutu. O ne o f these dignitaries was Bofossa wa Mbea Nkoso, a form er minister, w ho admitted to having lain alongside corp­ ses as part o f a pact he had made w ith Satan.24 B ut there is no need to hear such explicit accusations or confessions to be convinced that there are invisible practices in the world o f politics, since these practices clearly exist. There are no elections

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without manipulations o f this kind: forty-seven marabouts questioned in Abidjan in 1985 claimed to allow their clients to w in an election, and in 1992, certain individuals in Brazzaville tried to slip grains o f maize endow ed w ith ‘magical powers o f multiplication’ into the ballot box, along w ith their ballots.25 N o ministerial portfolio could be had w ithout the inter­ vention o f a practitioner o f the magical arts: ‘T here is no point in consulting your marabouts, I know them all,’ H o uphouetBoigny warned, and in fact the avenue leading to his residence in Cocody was the site o f num erous sacrifices.26 Every rebel­ lion, w hether nationalist or Marxist, was accompanied by seers and amulets.27 Every coup d’etat secured this advantage, to the point that some putschists thought they could get along w ithout other weapons, and succeed in overthrow ing the dis­ honoured regime by strictly mystical means.28 Every political career may even have involved hum an sacrifices. It has been proven that Sekou T o u re’s career included such sacrifices; one o f the functions o f the concentration camp in Boiro was to serve as a breeding ground for victims, and reports o f ritual murders multiplied in the countries around the G ulf o f Guinea.29 In the battle against apartheid in South Africa, this system o f inequality was assiduously associated w ith the evil works o f ‘witches’: Bulala aba thakathil (kill the witches); exclaimed Thabo M beki, one o f the leaders in exile o f the A N C , in a speech given in Amsterdam, taking up the w ar cry o f King Dingane. T he Inkatha death squads that hunted dow n the A N C ’s ‘comrades’ on suburban trains, shouted in return: ‘Bulala aba thakathiV 30 Far from being the remnants o f a tradition that econom ic development would soon erase, practices o f the invisible offer a means o f interpreting the monetarisation o f exchange, o f con­ ceiving the market economy, o f shaping changes in the family order, and o f mediating relationships w ith W hites. Thus repre­ sentations o f the invisible are not static: they are themselves subject to change, and new forms o f witchcraft are appear­ ing, such as the ekong in C am eroon.31 A lthough it speaks o f

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ancestors, this dim ension o f social life cannot be reduced to a cultural heritage. It is also a field in w hich the future is being invented. G iven that fact, w hat w ould be extraordinary would be political actors w ho did not put their trust in this field. T here is no political action outside the invisible, for it is also involved in every football match, every school examination, every love affair or marriage, every illness or death, every lab­ our conflict, every aspect o f business management, every kind o f banditry. T he belief in the invisible is shared by virtually all social actors, large and small: every resident in a tow n may stop shak­ ing hands for fear o f ‘sex killers’ w ho annihilate m en’s virility by shaking their hands, or give up trading for fear o f ritual murder, or hold out their palms in order to drive away the ‘w hite lady’ w ho kills babies; a Congolese insurance agent be­ gins an investigation because he was convinced that several o f his uncles were taking out life insurance policies on their nephews in order to ‘eat’ them later on; the employees o f a public enterprise in M auritania w ork only afternoons, w ithout incurring the slightest disapproval, because the head o f the firm is a m em ber o f the caste o f blacksmiths, and to avoid mis­ fortune it is advisable to avoid members o f this caste during the m orning.32 Even if he does not believe in the invisible, an Afri­ can is forced to take into account the beliefs o f those around him or his constituency: some candidates in the 1985 legis­ lative elections in C ote d’Ivoire had themselves ‘arm oured’ solely in order to reassure their families or their supporters.33 Does this shared belief thus constitute the culture o f Africa? Certainly not, if one means by that that it forms a hom o­ geneous, atemporal set o f representations that are m ore im ­ portant than other repertoires, that are in some sense the absolute discursive genre o f politics, and that they constitute a prim ordial w orldview in relation to w hich everything else is merely superficial. To be sure, the historian can locate a rela­ tively unified conception o f witchcraft among the Bantus of the rain forest.34 But anthropology shows that the actual practices

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o f sorcery in this case are neither hom ogeneous nor exclusive o f other repertoires o f social action. Contrary to a long-held opinion, they can co-exist w ith cults o f possession35 and they are found in the hearts o f Catholic believers w ho are not for that reason any less Christian (or any m ore charitable!): ‘W hat is really astonishing and scandalous is that the bishop o f Sangmelima is going to war against those w ho are active members o f the Christian community, and stands solidly behind witches, magicians, and fetish-makers. [...] T he most w orrisom e thing is that this prelate, as we know , has a certain num ber o f priests on his conscience, from Y aounde to Sangmelima. Today, he w ould clearly like to eat Abbe Gaspard M any alive, f ...] T he rapidity w ith w hich he is rallying around this w hole affair, it seems, shows a desire to destroy, pure and simple.’ This was the com m ent o f a Cam eroonian newspaper after the sus­ pension a divinis o f a priest involved in a m ovem ent com ­ bating witches.36 In addition, in a given cultural arena, practices o f witchcraft vary from one region to another and from one period to another.37 If we examine them today, we find a landscape o f the invisible that is more diversified and complex than the w ork o f the founders o f anthropology suggested it was. T he famous distinction betw een witchcraft and sorcery, introduced by Evans-Pritchard on the basis o f Azande culture, seems to have been unjustifiably generalised; it is the exception rather than the rule.38 Moreover, the claim that sorcery is an ideological apparatus o f dom ination is unsatisfactory.39 In actuality it serves the small as well as the great, and helps produce at least a re­ lative social indeterminateness.40 Bakhtin would probably have spoken o f ‘heterology’ here, and it may play in Africa the role that Bakhtin attributed to carnival in sixteenth-century West­ ern society. Nevertheless, practices o f the invisible, while they do not constitute African culture as such, are undeniably cultural prac­ tices. O n the one hand, we like to think that they are foreign to us, but nothing could be less certain. O n the psychological

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level African theories o f witchcraft say little more than the writings o f G roddeck, Laing or Esterson. And the new forms o f magic that identify getting rich w ith eating other people are ultimately very Marxian: primitive accumulation is based on real alienation, and it is because the capitalist seizes the pow er o f life itself that there can be accumulation.41 But if that is so, then it matters little that the construct o f a radical foreignness separating ‘T h e m ’ from ‘U s’ helps make the African ‘invisible’ a cultural phenom enon o f exotic character. O n the other hand, these practices o f the invisible, w hich are immediately comprehensible for Africans, are one o f their fav­ ourite instrum ents for reinventing their difference in the pro­ cess o f globalisation, and thereby contribute to the definition o f universality. In order to understand this, we must keep in m ind that this dim ension o f social life has always been a priv­ ileged ‘frontier’ along w hich cultural innovation took place, in relationship to the foreign world. For example, the initiatory itineraries o f healers or treatments o f the ill generally transcend ethnic divisions, and marabouts attached to presidents are usually natives o f other regions or other countries than their venerable clients. In our ow n time, Africans move in a realm o f the invi­ sible that is transnational and globalised: Kenneth Kaunda and Joaquim Chissano have consulted Indian gurus, Paul Biya has consulted an Israeli rabbi versed in the Kabbalah, and in Douala there is a rum our that a band o f witches has links w ith the Italian Mafia.42 Conversely, our mailboxes are overflowing w ith the cards o f marabouts offering their services, and in R o m e Archbishop Milingo is battling spirits that are assailing charismatics the world over. T he phenom enon is not new, and owes little to recent advances in globalisation, insofar as W hites, even if they are missionaries, are immediately perceived in relation to the dis­ tinction betw een the visible and the invisible, and insofar as the spectre o f witchcraft constantly haunts the social experiences through w hich the subcontinent participates in the interna­ tional system: slavery, the colonial situation, Christianisation,

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the penetration o f the capitalist economy, and the political struggles o f decolonisation.43 W hen, the better to oppose the program o f structural adjustment the moneylenders sought to impose on Tanzania, the crafty Julius N yerere said that the International M onetary Fund was a ‘w itch’ and not a ‘healer’, he could be certain that the argum ent w ould have an impact on public opinion!44 But it is equally clear that these representations and politics o f the invisible belong to the order o f the imaginaire. It is not that all this is not ‘true’; it becomes true as soon as people believe in it: they fall ill and die w hen attacked by witchcraft; they hunt out and kill witches; they go into combat protected by their talismans, and die in a hail o f bullets; they are sent to prison because they are suspected o f ‘fetishing’; they are cured in the name o f this same worldview by publicly exercising a trade and sometimes by being members o f a professional society recognised by the state. W itchcraft and the invisible exist be­ cause there are people w ho are certain that they exist. The state­ ments that proceed from this certainty are performative, and that is enough. They are also equivocal, and that is still more important. Between the good and bad uses o f the invisible, the borderline is very thin. This world is a world o f reversibility, and thus o f perm anent suspicion. The accusation o f practising witchcraft tends, moreover, to be allusive: a hint suffices, and there is a great deal o f over-interpretation. This amounts to saying that misunderstanding is the rule, but it generally works, for better and for worse. T he dimension o f the invisible is imaginary because it is phantasmal. We recall Gilles D eleuze’s definition: ‘The imaginaire is not the unreal, but the inability to distinguish the real from the unreal’.45 All the same, the imagi­ naire is not constituted once and for all; rather, it is ‘consti­ tutive’.46 H ow can we conceive this ‘constitutive im agination’ o f political m odernity w ithout falling into magical idealism?

3 THE IMAGINARY POLIS W ith the help o f post-m odern anthropology, the notion o f the imaginaire is flying high and the idea o f studying ‘the imagi­ nation as a social practice’ is now widely accepted.1 In 1964, C ornelius Castoriadis put forward the concept o f the ‘social imaginaire . In subsequent years, he refined his thought on ‘the imaginary institution o f society’ to emphasise that ‘history is impossible and inconceivable w ithout the productive or creative imagination, w ithout what we have called the radical imaginaire as it is manifested, simultaneously and inseparably, in both his­ torical action and in the constitution, in advance o f any expli­ cit rationality, o f a universe o f meanings’. In Castoriadis’s view ‘w hat holds a society together is holding together its world of m eanings’.2 M ore elegantly Paul Veyne noted that ‘instead o f speaking o f beliefs one has to speak simply o f truths’, but ‘truths them ­ selves are im aginations’. ‘Constitutive imaginations’ that have ‘the divine pow er o f constituting, that is, o f creating w ithout a pre-existent m odel’: This im agination is n o t the faculty psychologically and historically know n u n d er that nam e; it does n o t enlarge, either in dreams or in prophecy, the dim ensions o f the ja r in w hich we are enclosed; on the contrary, it builds the sides o f this jar, and outside the latter, noth in g exists. N o t even future truths, and thus these truths cannot be m ade to speak. In these jars, religions and literatures are m oulded, along w ith politics, behaviours, and the scien­ ces. T his im agination is a faculty, but in the Kantian sense o f the word: it is transcendental, and constitutes o u r w orld instead o f being its leaven or its daim on. H ow ever— and this w ould m ake any responsible K antian faint

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dead away— this transcendental is historical, for cultures succeed each other and do n o t resemble each other. H um ans do not find the truth, they m ake it, just as they m ake their history, and truth and history pay them back.3

Over the past thirty years historians, anthropologists and even political scientists have made a great deal o f progress in under­ standing these imaginary ‘containers’ that serve as systems o f historical action. But this problematic is perhaps o f an older vintage than one might imagine. W ithout going back to Spinoza or M ontesquieu, and temporarily side-stepping Marx, we see that in M ax W eber’s w ork individuals and groups have economic interests and ideals that are expressed in ‘lifestyles’, that is, in particular ethoi.4 The concept o f utility includes precisely this dimension o f the imaginaire, and social action is irreducible to an instrumental definition o f rationality: ‘The Weberian conception o f a comprehensive sociology [...] com ­ bines methodological individualism w ith an anti-utilitarian anthropology and a critique o f the rationalist conception o f subjectivity: this paradoxical combination explains to a large extent the originality o f W eberian sociology’, Philippe R ay­ naud observes, emphasising that, for example, ‘the W eberian analysis o f bureaucracy must be thoroughly revised in order to bring out the impossibility o f a complete reduction o f subjec­ tivity to instrumental rationality’.5 Despite the com m on interpretation o f his work, M ax Weber forbids us to magnify the West as the great rational dis­ penser o f capitalism. T he latter is an imaginaire resulting not from any im m anent necessity— as in M arx— but from a ‘se­ quence o f circumstances’. As for the m eaning and ‘universal’ value o f the cultural phenom ena that served as its matrix, Weber expresses a reservation that is quoted only rarely: ‘at least we like to think so’ (i.e. that they [these cultural phe­ nomena] take on a universal meaning and value).6 H e stresses ‘how irrational this conduct is, in which man exists in function o f his enterprise and not the other way around’. A nd he also

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mocks: ‘W hen a w hole people’s imaginaire has been directed tow ard purely quantitative magnitudes, as in the U nited States, the romanticism o f numbers exercises its irresistible magic on businessmen w ho are also “poets” .7M ore fundament­ ally, the capitalist entrepreneur “gets nothing” for himself from his wealth, except for an irrational feeling o f having done his jo b [Berufserfii11ung].,s Even w ith regard to post-m odern con­ cerns, W eber’s intellectual project is scarcely outdated: ‘R a ­ tionality is a historical concept that contains a whole w orld o f oppositions. W e need to discover w hat spirit gave birth to this concrete form o f rational thought and life: from what source did this idea o f a jo b to be done [Berufsgedanke] and devotion to professional w ork [Berufsarbeit] develop? This an irrational idea, as we have seen, from the purely eudaemonistic point o f view o f personal interest, yet it was and still remains one o f the characteristic elements o f our capitalist culture. W hat interests us here is precisely the origin o f this irrational element that it contains, like any notion o f Beruf.,9 Tocqueville’s enquiry into centralisation and democracy was already related to thinking about the imaginaire. Democracy in America grasped what W eber later analysed in a famous passage: in the U nited States utilitarian reason— the doctrine o f enlightened self-interest— is ‘universally accepted’, and plays the role o f w hat we w ould now call the social imaginaire. Thus virtue is described as ‘useful’ rather than ‘beautiful’.10 And the equality prized by the democrat is first o f all a feeling, or rather an enchantm ent:11 It is in vain that w ealth and poverty, com m and and obedience, accidentally set great distances betw een tw o m en; public opinion, w hich is based on the ordinary course o f things, brings them back to the co m m o n level and creates b etw een th em a kind o f imaginary equality, despite the actual inequality o f their conditions. This o m n ip o ten t opinion ends up pene­ trating the m inds even o f those w hose self-interest m ight m ake them oppose it; it m odifies their ju d g em e n t at the same tim e that it subjugates their w ill.12

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Feeling in this case often becomes a ‘passion’: D em ocratic peoples are fond o f equality at all times, b u t there are som e eras in w hich they push their passion for equality to absurd extrem es. [...] In these eras, m en rush to equality as if it were a conquest, and seek it as if it were a precious good that som eone was trying to take away from them . T h e passion for equality penetrates every part o f the hum an heart, expands, and fills it entirely. D o n o t tell m en that by yielding so blindly to an exclusive passion they are com prom ising their dearest interests; they are blind, or rather they see in the w hole universe only one thing w orth having.13

In Tocqueville’s work the form ation o f a public sphere that underlies the R evolution and the construction o f democracy is itself an imaginary process: B eneath real society, w hose constitution was still traditional, m uddled, and irregular, in w hich laws were still diverse and contradictory, ranks sharply distinguished, social status fixed, and burdens unequal, an im aginary society was gradually constructed, in w hich everything seem ed simple and co­ ordinated, uniform , equitable, and in conform ity w ith reason. T h e masses’ im agination gradually abandoned the first society and w ithdrew into the second.14

Passion and imagination: if these two notions are at the heart o f the work o f the founding fathers o f political sociology, it is because they designate tangible realities. Power, economics, and the relationships between historical actors belong to a dimension irreducible to simple materiality and its abstractly ‘rational’ management. Since we have discarded the w ord ‘cul­ ture’, we can no longer say, w ith Marshall Sahlins, that ‘culture is utility’.15 But we have to enquire into this radical autonom y o f symbols, representations, languages and political feelings through the m ediation o f w hich we produce our history: ‘In the web o f synthetic acts o f consciousness, there appear at times certain structures, w hich we shall call imaging consciousnesses. These arise, develop, and disappear in accord w ith their own laws ...; it would be a serious mistake to confuse this life o f the imaging consciousness that endures, organises itself, and disin­ tegrates, w ith that o f the object o f this consciousness, w hich

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during this same time, may very well remain unchangeable.’16 In a similar m anner the object o f the imaging consciousness may be transformed w ithout the latter changing in a significant way, as is shown by symbolic inertia: for instance, the cleavage betw een left and right in French political life emerged by chance on the benches o f the Constituent Assembly in 1789, but it continues to be effective and has even been transplanted into a series o f foreign political systems. In short, we have to understand the imaginaire as the dim en­ sion from w hich issues a continuous dialogue between heri­ tage and innovation that characterises political action in its cultural aspect. U nderstood in this way, the imaginaire is first of aH an interaction, since ‘an image is merely another rela­ tionship’:17 that is, an interaction betw een the past, the present, and a projected future, but also an interaction between social actors or betw een societies, whose relations are filtered by their respective ‘imaging consciousnesses’. T h e irreducibility o f political im aginaires

Let us clear up any ambiguity if that should still be necessary. ‘R ational’, ‘centralised’, ‘bureaucratic’ and ‘disillusioned’ socie­ ties are just as imaginative as older, ‘traditional’ societies that are supposed to be dom inated by a magical or religious concep­ tion o f the world. Nationalism is an ‘im agined com m unity’, as A nderson reminds us. Proletarian internationalism was also an ‘im agined com m unity’. And today capitalist countries or m ul­ tilateral institutions celebrate a ‘market democracy’ that is also a myth; on the m odel o f R om an autarky18 it may enchant or reassure, but it does not really correspond to the actual func­ tioning o f the contem porary economy. The very idea o f a market is based on a ‘fiction’, whereby labour, land, and m oney are commodities: ‘Labour, land, and m oney markets are no doubt essential for the market economy. But no society could endure, even for a short time, the effects o f such a system based on crude fictions, if its hum an and natural substance as well as

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its commercial organisation were not protected against the ravages o f this devilish mechanism.’19 Finally, w hat is the com ­ modity fetishism Marx talks about if not an imaginaire ? Belief, the miraculous, rum our and rite remain im portant ingredients o f industrial m odernity.20 Thus in all societies the blotter o f the imaginaire soaks up the ink o f political action. Ultimately the latter becomes delirious in the clinical sense o f the term. The anti-Semitic phobia o f German National Socialists and some o f their European allies was too extreme to allow conclusions to be drawn from it. But in our own day the invention o f a phantasmal history by nationalist ideologues o f the form er Yugoslavia— the reign o f Dusan for the Serbs, that o f Tomislav for the Croats, the Slovenes’ ‘millenarian dream’, the Albanians’ reference to their Illyrian ancestors— has led them to a ‘kind o f deep incapacity to distinguish what belongs to the present from w hat belongs to the past’.21 For example, Serb extremists constantly trot out the opportunity they lost in 1918, interpret contem porary diplomatic positions in terms o f First World War alliances, regarded the late President Tudjman as having dismembered their fatherland using the same knife as was wielded by Croa­ tian Fascists in the Second World War, and stigmatise the ‘Vatican-Com intern conspiracy’, the ‘Hitlerian-Vatican-Com intern’ or the ‘Islamic-Vatican-Comintern’ conspiracy. They scrawled swastikas on the portrait o f Pope John Paul II and denounced the director o f the hospital in Vukovar as a ‘female M engele’. Political action can also involve dreams, and in the tw entieth century they remained a very com m on m ode o f decision­ making. Between the two world wars the Kikuyu national and religious movement in Kenya was deeply influenced by the aroti, seers whose wisdom came from the Holy Spirit and w ho believed in a Christianity o f the poor, prophetic and poten­ tially revolutionary.22 In the late 1950s R u b en U m Nyobe, the nationalist leader o f the Cam eroon People’s U nion, kept a careful record o f his dreams, and their great political im port­ ance and anthropological richness have been analysed by

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Achille M bem be.23 In Zanzibar John Okello, w ho led the 1964 revolution, had the distinct advantage o f receiving his instruc­ tions from a divine emissary, and even, at the height o f his career, from G od Himself.24 In Zim babwe guerrillas fighting for independence in the Zambezi valley relied on Shona rain­ makers w ho were mediums in com m unication w ith their ancestors.25 In Liberia President Tolbert heard the U nique O ne ask him to appoint as his vice-president the M ethodist bishop w ho was leading Christian opposition to his regime.26 These examples may amuse or puzzle us. But we would be w rong to see in this kind o f political-oneiric activity merely the rem nant o f a tradition on its way out. Dreaming has been historically, and still remains, a vehicle o f social change. Starting in the seventeenth century, Malay and Javanese treatises on oneirom ancy conceived o f nature ‘as a vast mechanism that was complicated but coherent and predictable’; they were part o f a trend to individuation and rationalisation related to Islam, w hich broke w ith the order o f the concentric kingdoms o f the hinterland.27 Even today young M uslim w om en often chose to wear the liijab after having a dream, thus distancing themselves in a more or less conflictual m anner from the quietism o f their parents, and espousing a militant interpretation o f their faith.28 Thus the world o f the night serves religious innovation, social com m itm ent and even cognitive transformation, if we join most experts in acknowledging that the Islamist m ovem ent is introducing new categories o f thought into Muslim civilisa­ tion, in the name o f a return to tradition and authenticity. Sim­ ilarly, in the West, dreaming has been ‘one o f the main ways in w hich the individual has asserted him self’.29 Thus dreaming is nothing less than m odern, and is now part and parcel o f the experience o f globalisation. Eugene Wonyu, an official o f the Cam eroon People s U nion, wrote at the end o f the 1950s: ‘In my quest for a way o f saving the Basaa, w ho had been excluded because o f their false shepherd, one night I received in a dream the visit o f a man w ho told me to go see Ahidjo and make him understand that Mayi and his group

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were not all the Basaa.’ In so doing he was already putting his ambition as a notable w ho w anted to be co-opted into a con­ text in w hich oneiric representations o f the native land were mixed w ith nationalist demands and the stakes in the Cold W ar.30 Nonetheless, his com m ent was hardly heard beyond the boundaries o f his ow n country. O n the other hand, the disappearance o f M boum a, the president o f the parliament in Gabon, at the height o f the political crisis in 1990, aroused great concern, w hich was immediately echoed in the foreign media. H ad he been liquidated by President B ongo’s hench­ men, w ho had already been accused of killing a political opponent in a hotel? N o, his wife explained: he fled w hen he saw soldiers assigned to protect him arriving, for the preceding night he had dreamed that the army w ould attack his house and arrest him .31 Political dreaming now moves around the world ‘in real time’, and in O ctober 1990 the world held its breath w hen Saddam Hussein said that the Prophet had very opportunely, but apparently w ithout m uch logical consist­ ency, asked him to w ithdraw from Kuwait.32 The oneiric side o f politics is clearly transnational. Thus President Kaunda in Zambia was long counselled by an Indian sage, D r M. A. Ranganathan. As a youth the latter had under­ gone a shamanistic test that transported him to the banks o f an unknow n river where a benevolent black man had com forted him and said: ‘O ne day I’ll be your brother.’ R esponding to a job offer, the young Indian went to Zambia in 1974 and dis­ covered that the river in his dream was none other than the Zambezi. Fascinated by President Kaunda’s humanistic thought, D r Ranganathan obtained an audience, and to his great aston­ ishment recognised in the head o f state the man in his ini­ tiatory journey. W hen he told Kaunda this, the President said simply: ‘You are my brother. Stay w ith me. We will w ork together.’ Ranganathan wielded great influence over a leader in w hom he saw a reincarnation o f Abraham Lincoln, and as a result he was consulted not only by the Zambian political class but also by other African heads o f state w hom he visited as his ‘brother’s’ emissary.33

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U ltim ately it m ight turn out that dreaming is one o f the fundamental mechanisms o f globalisation, through w hich the hybridisation o f cultural representations takes place. D uring the M iddle Ages the inclusion w ithin the Christian corpus o f the themes o f the O rient and the Celtic and barbarian imagiuaire occurred in part in the melting pot o f the monastic orders, w hich had ‘stored up ’ dreams com ing from elsewhere for several centuries before the urban revolution, Gregorian reform, the transformations o f the regular clergy, and especially the birth o f the m endicant orders made it possible to put this oneiric capital into circulation.34 T he world o f images can be identified w ith the major issues in a society to the point o f incarnating them. For example, the torrent o f electoral marketing and encounters between polit­ ical activists putting up posters in Western democracies unw it­ tingly repeats ancient iconographic battles. T he seventhcentury Byzantine quarrel betw een iconoclasm and iconolatry is legendary. Its bitterness resulted from the sophistication of the theological codification o f the icon in the Eastern O rth o ­ dox C hurch. B ut in a comparable way, in sixteenth-century France R eform ers and Catholics fought over images. This ver­ itable ‘symbolic revolution’ did not am ount to either collective insanity or social or econom ic rationality. R ather, it consisted in a ‘learned political dram aturgy’, in ‘one o f the specific forms o f prophetic action’.35 Iconography probably emerged all the m ore strongly as a stake in conflicts because images substitute for w riting w hen illiteracy is prevalent: ‘W hat the Bible is to those w ho know how to read, the icon is to the illiterate’ (John o f Damascus, D e Imaginibus, 1 ,17). A m ong Catholics, O rthodox Christians and Lutherans, the religious image was the prim ary instrum ent for propagating the faith am ong the popular masses, and from the fifteenth century on, overseas. Serge Gruzinski has analysed the ‘war o f images’ that extended over five centuries o f M exican history.36 Having conquered the N ew World, the Spaniards distribu­ ted many illustrations showing the saints or the Virgin, and

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destroyed the Indian idols. The operations o f extra version and transfer o f meaning have essentially taken the form o f a com ­ m utation o f religious effigies, and the ambiguous exchange that gave rise to the ‘imagined com m unity’ o f nationalism has been precisely a ‘w ar’, but also a com m union, or at least a sharing o f images. The latter came to define the borderline betw een life and death. Finding themselves firmly enjoined to give up their idols, the Indians fabricated false ones in order to satisfy their tormentors— at a time when, in order to get rid o f someone, it sufficed to put such an idol in his hom e and then call in the Inquisition. If the possession o f an image am ounted to heresy, or on the contrary, to conversion, that was because the image incarnated a genuine Weltanschauung. H ow ever, the conquest soon produced compromises and misunderstandings that opened up the ‘infinite chain o f syncretisms’,37 that is, simultaneous, iconographic disputes, o f w hich the case o f the Virgin o f Guadalupe is the archetype. In 1555 the first Mexican religious council thought it necessary to criticise the ‘abuse o f paintings and the indecency o f images’: ‘In this domain m ore than in others we must take steps, for w ithout being able to paint or to understand w hat they are doing, every Indian w ho wants to, w ithout distinction, starts painting images, and this ends up discrediting our holy faith.’38 These disputes preceded by a few years the iconoclastic madness in the O ld W orld, and in the same way the Tridentine decree regarding the legitimate use o f images, published in 1563, anticipated nationalist movements in the Americas and the awakening o f European nationalities in the nineteenth cen­ tury, as Anderson points out. This symmetry may not be purely accidental, since C hrist­ ian imagery— and especially Baroque imagery— made a de­ cisive contribution to the gradual unification o f the social sphere, w ith political and religious representations constantly overlapping.39 It was particularly through the avid consum p­ tion o f religious images, w hich were received from the colo­ nising power but immediately reinterpreted and recreated, that

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the Indians were integrated into the Hispanic order and began to shape it by appropriating it. These ‘everyday forms o f state form ation’40 gave rise to an intense subjectivity o f the image. In the eighteenth century, the latter was a permanent, hum an­ ised presence; it was venerated but was attacked in disappoint­ m ent, anger, or drunkenness: ‘The image is insulted, whipped, scratched, slapped; it is burned w ith a candle, broken, torn dow n, trampled, stabbed, pierced and torn to pieces w ith scissors; it is tied to a horse’s tail, daubed w ith red paint or hum an excrem ent, used to wipe the bottom !’41 From iconolatry to iconoclasm is only a short step, especially since it may involve drug-induced hallucinations, individual madness or collective and profanatory deviance. In addition, religious ima­ ges may also be vehicles o f political resistance, and even o f rebellion, as in the case o f the ‘speaking V irgin’ o f Cancuc am ong the Indians in Chiapas in 1712, or o f O u r Lady o f Guadalupe am ong the rebels fighting for independence.42 T he example o f M exico reminds us that it is not only the ‘form ation’ o f a state, but also the form ation o f the inter­ national system, that may sometimes take the form o f an iconographical battle. We know how zealously the leaders o f Saudi Arabia and Iran seek to contain the pernicious influence o f satellite television; similarly, in Algeria, Islamists have made the prohibition o f satellite disks one o f their energising themes. Conversely, some French mayors are concerned about the reception o f Arab images in their suburbs. As new as they are, these contem porary conflicts o f globalisation are no differ­ ent in nature from those that arose from the dissemination over several centuries o f Western iconography, in particular— but not exclusively— Christian iconography. The interweaving o f traditions from w hich our ‘global’ world has emerged has often involved a cross-fertilisation o f images, in w hich colo­ nised peoples have constantly played creative roles. Represen­ tations from foreign lands, and often imposed by foreigners, have been reinterpreted in accord w ith autochthonous ‘ima­ ginary consciousnesses’.

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From this point o f view, the prodigious syncretic vitality o f Latin America, w hich underscores the cultural procedures o f extraversion and transfer o f meaning, is not in any way excep­ tional. We can even note that the introduction o f Catholic and Lutheran iconography into Malagasy society, in the course o f the second half o f the nineteenth century, aroused immense interest once the initial ‘sheer amazem ent’43 had passed. In fact, for the Malagasy the illustrations o f the Sacred H eart repre­ sented ‘the souls o f those w hom we had eaten’, an indigenous conviction that referred to the traumatism o f the slave trade. According to popular belief, the captives deported to the Mascarene islands were eaten by the W hites, and thus the mis­ sionaries w ho explained to their flocks that they did not want to ‘take the bodies o f your children, only their hearts’ were not as reassuring as they m eant to be. For the same reasons Mala­ gasy catechists avoided singing the line o f the canticle o f the Sacred Heart, ‘May my heart die o f love for you’. In their desire to condem n the Infamous, Protestant communities spread the rum our that priests killed people in order to ‘tear out their hearts’. At the same time, however, they tried to defeat papist images by projecting w ith a magic lantern large coloured tableaux provided by the Religious Tract Society, w hich were often inspired by Pilgrim’s Progress, a w ork constructed on the basis o f a series o f religious visions. However, Protestants did not always escape the misadventures o f their Christian enemy brothers: at the end o f the century, a Protestant society founded in Tamatave to aid orphans was accused o f being involved in the export o f enslaved children. In 1891, the telescoping o f imaginaires took on an unexpected amplitude w hen the Catholic bishop condemned from the pulpit the establishment o f a Maso­ nic lodge in terms heavy w ith unintentional innuendoes that confirmed the M erina in their fear o f W hite anthropophagy. Thus the role o f the imaginaire in the form ation o f political societies is quite obvious. It remains to explain its status. It is not always enough to see it as a ‘political unconscious’ on the model of, for example, the ‘family romance’ Lynn H unt discerns

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‘under the surface o f conscious political discourse’, as so many ‘unconscious and collective images o f the family order that underlie revolutionary politics’.44 For often the imaginaire is at the fro n t o f the stage, and is part o f the actors’ consciousness, though o f course we must not prejudge the nature o f the unconscious to w hich it refers. For example, in Madurai, in the southern Indian state o f Tamil N adu, ‘cinema is every­ w here’: thousands, even tens o f thousands, o f fan clubs are found all over the city; posters showing actors cover every available space; film music is available on cassettes and CDs and accompanies marriages, puberty rites and religious festiv­ als; recordings o f dialogues are played in bars and restaurants, and managers do not hesitate to reply to them; young people imitate the hairstyles and clothing o f their stars, and children replay the fightscenes that punctuate their favourite films.45 O ne m ight say that film provides the experiential framework o f a lifestyle or ‘ethos’ that is constantly being ‘negotiated’ among the spectators, producers, and actors, between the state­ ments made in films and their reception. M oreover, the seventh art, introduced in India as early as 1896, was first a space o f ‘negotiation’ betw een the colonisers and the colonised society, since native film directors immediately brought in aesthetic conventions drawn from popular culture and classical theatre, thus giving rise to the completely unprecedented genre o f the epic and mythological melodrama. B ut if film is ‘everywhere’ in Madurai, it is also, more pre­ cisely, in politics. Perhaps it w ould be better to say that politics is in film. At least in some states, Indian democracy quickly became a ‘cine-dem ocracy’. T he different parties tried to rally to their cause stars w ho could w in their fans’ votes. This instrumentalisation o f fame is itself com m on enough: in France, the form er Rassem blem ent pour la Republique (Rally for the Republic, a neo-Gaullist party) and the Socialist Party have acted in the same way by putting athletes or famous artists on their slates. Nonetheless, things go farther in India. T he actorcandidates incarnate their film roles and get elected on this

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basis. In Andhra Pradesh, ‘N T R ’ (N.T. Ram a R ao, 1923—96), w ho had already played helpful divinities in a hundred Telugu films, campaigned in 1983 robed in saffron, touring in a char­ iot-like vehicle, and w on his seat m ore or less by incarnating in his person a figure from the M ahabharata .46 In the neigh­ bouring state o f Tamil N adu, Shivaji Ganesan and especially M. G. Ram achandran (‘M G R ’, 1915-87) used their netw ork o f fan clubs to convert into political capital their film images as virile, self-made m en concerned about the poor. By so doing, they achieved, both in their audience’s imaginaire and in the reality o f their charitable practices— w hatever the latter’s ambivalence— genuine ‘rituals o f m utuality’.47 In this case it was less a m atter o f m utual aid or redistribution than o f dir­ ection, reform, and moral rehabilitation in a society in w hich generosity and benefaction define an individual.48 T he actorbenefactor or politician-actor guides his audience, his elec­ torate. H e proposes a model o f ethical and material success with which the disadvantaged can identify. M G R was certainly the actor w ho best achieved the transfer o f his personality to his roles, and from his roles to his political personality: his young admirers were convinced that he was in life w hat he was in film, and that he w ould not have accepted roles whose values he did not share. W hen M G R became C h ief M inister o f Tamil Nadu, he affected the same simplicity and continued to be perceived as a close relative, a protective big brother, a father, and even for some a lover w ho was thought to take a personal interest in each individual. T he fact that the govern­ mental achievements o f the C hief M inister were not as satis­ factory as his fine sentiments changed nothing, and did not prevent his screen partner and friend, the actress Jayalalitha, from succeeding him .49 Thus Dravidian populist nationalism was in a way a cine­ matographic U topia.50 But can one not say the same thing about the H indu nationalist m ovem ent today? T he campaign to reconstruct the temple o f Ayodhya— the supposed birth­ place o f the god R am — was largely orchestrated through

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audio-visual techniques, at a time w hen television was w in­ ning colossal ratings by broadcasting the H indu epics, the R am ayana and the Mahabharata, in serial form and contributing to their national standardisation. In 1990, the president o f the BJP undertook a 10,000 km. tour o f India in a car altered to resemble the god A ijun’s chariot; in this respect he confom ied to the scenario o f the R a th Yatra (chariot procession),* and was often w elcom ed w ith intense religious fervour, w om en per­ form ing ras-garbaf or puja *, and militants brandishing trishuls (tridents) or offering their leader containers filled w ith their blood. As for the political exploitation o f R am by H indu nationalism, it draws directly on the repertoire o f H indi Bmovies, beloved o f urban youths, by replacing the ‘god w ith a tender heart’ o f ancient times w ith a more muscular and aggressive avatar.51 Such situations— in w hich political actors are just actors and follow scripts or scenarios more or less stereotyped by various cultural genres— are not uncom m on. T he French know som ething about them , having elected to high office in 1995 a man w ho was perhaps as m uch a character in the ‘Guignols de I’Info as a political leader. The American ‘televised dramas’— the Senate hearings involving Judge Clarence Thomas and his accuser Anita Hill in 1991 , the Oliver N o rth hearings in 1987, and the K ennedy-N ixon duel in 1960 , not to m ention the O. J. Simpson trial in 1995— are impressive examples o f the genre.52 Film and television merely amplify, thanks to the magic o f their art, w hat epics and the theatre have already achieved. In classical scholarship Christian M eier has shown that ‘G reek tragedy was necessary for Athenian democracy’.53 In the nineteenth century Balkan nationalists drew on the epic ’ **

* A procession with a chariot, on which is placed the statue of a divinity brought out from its temple for this occasion. . t Dances peculiar to Krishna. t Worship of the divine image. ** Translator’s note A popular French TV programme that contributed to establishing the image of Jacques Chirac as a sympathique man largely overwhelmed by events.

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repertoire and in more recent times terrorists o f the Secret Army for the Liberation o f Armenia (ASALA) took their inspiration from the epic o f Vartan.54 Similarly, in T urkey the militants o f the extreme left and right w ho fought each other in the 1970s identified with the heroes o f oral popular lit­ erature, w ith Karaoglan and Tarkan respectively. Supporters o f Bulent Ecevit, the leader o f the Republican People’s Party, also compared him w ith Karaoglan, w ho continued to be cel­ ebrated in song, at the time by several more or less politically com m itted bards (agik), and whose exploits were know n to every schoolchild.55 In Sri Lanka Sinhalese and Tamil activists stylised their battle by invoking mythical figures, while in the Central African Republic ‘E m peror’ Bokassa drew on the Napoleonic legend, to the point o f trying to make his ow n return from the Island o f Elba.56 As a great lover o f the wajang kulit, the classic Javanese marionette theatre, Sukarno took as a pseudonym the name o f one o f its characters, Bima, and he described the first female fighter in the battle to ‘liberate’ Irian Barat in 1962 as a true Srikandi, a heroine o f this repertoire.57 Finally— a last example but not the least im portant— it has often been noted that the Iranian revolution o f 1979 borrow ed the form and the pathos o f the tazich, the ritual celebration o f the death in 680 o f Hussein and his companions, at Karbala. But the people o f the great cities w ho had risen up were responding not solely to religious emotions. T heir choice was political and conscious. For example, on D ecem ber 10 and 11, 1978, during tasu’a and ashura, the two most im portant days o f m ourning for Hussein, the faithful were confronted w ith a genuine alternative: participating in the usual procession in their neighbourhood, com m em orating Hussein as an inter­ cessor, or joining the enorm ous marches in the city centre which praised the same Hussein as an inspirational figure and where demonstrators risked their lives by demanding the de­ parture o f the Shah. T he residents o f Teheran w ho chose the second option felt that they were replaying the tragic scene in

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Karbala: they identified w ith Hussein, rising up against injust­ ice, or w ith his sister Zeinab, bearing witness to his mar­ tyrdom; they saw in the Shah the villainous general, Shimr, w ho served Yazid, and in w hom the American ‘Great Satan’ was reincarnated.58 T he notion o f the theatricalisation o f politics has sometimes been suggested as an explanation for this kind o f phenom ena, w ith reference to G eertz’s w ork on the ‘theatre-state’ in Bali: It was a theatre-state in w h ich the kings and princes were the im presa­ rios, the priests the directors, the peasantry the supporting cast, crew, and audience. T h e crem ations, teeth-filings, tem ple dedications, the pilgrim ages and blood sacrifices, m obilising hundreds, even thousands o f people and great quantities o f wealth, were n o t means to political ends, they were the ends themselves, they were w hat the state was for. C o u rt cerem onialism was the driving force o f co u rt politics. Mass ritual was n o t a device to shore up the state; the state was a device for the enactm ent o f mass rituals. To govern was n o t so m uch to choose as to perform . C erem ony was n o t form but substance. Pow er served pom p, n o t pom p pow er.59

In fact, the idea o f theatre, as we understand it today in the West, presupposes a relationship o f representation that Brecht theorised w hen he spoke o f the ‘distanciation effect’ (Verfrem dim gseffekt), so that ‘this art tears everyday things out o f the sphere o f w hat goes w ithout saying’.60 But in politics we are less in the register o f distancing or expression (Ausdruck) than in that o f celebration, understood as a performative act. M G R ’s fans in M adurai, participants in processions in the kingdom o f M erina in the m id nineteenth century, Florentines taking part in civic ceremonies that marked the pace o f city life during the Renaissance, the people o f Teheran transforming the street demonstrations in the autumn o f 1978 into an immense tazieh — none o f these were attending spectacles to w hich they remained exterior.61 T hey were weaving their history via the rituals whose im portance Hegel grasped in his com m entary on the French R evolution. In this sense any polis, even if it is m odern and urban, is religious. This is a crucial point, to w hich we shall return in our conclusion.

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The concept o f distantiation is not found in the cultural repertoires constitutive o f the political practices we have just mentioned. The empathy linking ‘actors’ and ‘spectators’ is very strong, the latter participating in the plot through their exclamations or replies, by their laughter or tears, and by w hole­ heartedly accepting the magic o f the ‘illusion’ Corneille spoke about. Perhaps we should recall here that at the end o f the six­ teenth century, English theatre critics thought that w hen male actors wore w om ens clothing, it altered their virility and threatened to compromise that o f their audience!62 Similarly, if the conditions under which theatrical representations occurred in Athens remain obscure, ‘we are justified in believing that ... citizens attended the performance o f tragic dramas not only as spectators but also as citizens.’63 The interaction between audience and w hat happens on stage is just as intense in Java­ nese ludruk or Iranian tazieh , and in the latter case, specialists refuse to speak o f theatre: the efficacy o f the narrative o f Kar­ bala is such that the w retched person w ho has agreed to wear the red clothing o f the villainous Shimr sometimes has to be protected from the anger o f the populace.64 This kind o f investment in the dimension o f the imaginaire finds its sequel today in the melodramatic genre that is sweeping Asia, or in the soap operas produced by American and Japanese television that draw colossal audiences: viewers o f these programs not only identify w ith the characters, but reinterpret them in terms o f the specific issues in their own societies, and transform their family relations through this m ediation.65 Such existential religious forms prove to be powerfully performative from the point o f view o f social action, but they do not determ ine the latter. Foucault pointed this out w ith ref­ erence to the ‘political spirituality’ o f the Iranian revolution, in pages that have been too hastily refuted: ‘[religion] was truly the vocabulary, the ceremonial, the atemporal drama w ithin w hich one could situate the historical tragedy o f a people staking its existence against that o f its sovereign.’66 At the same time that they were making a rational, conscious choice to

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rally to the revolutionary cause, the demonstrators were relying on a narrative structure organised around the idea o f mar­ tyrdom and the dem and for justice, a concept— haqq— whose connotation in Persian is probably m ore complex than it is in English or French, and refers to the dialectical relationship betw een the order ofinteriority (baten) and that o f appearances (.zaher ).67 T he expressions a z khodgosazhteh and a z ja n gozashteh, frequently used during the events o f 1978 to denote the protestors’ ‘abnegation’, reflect the feeling o f abandonm ent felt by those w ho were ready to die for justice, following the example o f Karbala.68 B ut the efficacy o f the m yth o f Hussein was nonetheless completely contingent: social actors can interpret this m yth in a quietist mode, and in normal times his celebration by merchants in the bazaar is, for the most part, a means o f increasing commercial and financial trust, and is in this respect comparable to the beliefs o f the N o rth American Protestant sects studied by M ax W eber or to African tontines.69 T he immediacy— or, to’ adopt the philosophers’ term , ‘im m ediation’— o f political rituals, grasped in their evanescence, has to do with the ‘em otion’, or ‘passion’, or ‘feeling’ they elicit. In the preceding pages we encountered enough hatred and fear to render expanding on them here superfluous. But the em otional spectrum o f politics is broad: it often involves tears that are not necessarily explained by fear or grief. W hen the Europeans returned to Madagascar in 1861, Radam a II wept on hearing the Ascension mass sung, and the first Catholic believers w ept on contem plating a painted image o f the Sacred H eart.70 W hen Paris was liberated in 1944, the faces o f Paris­ ians were also bathed in tears, and the election o f the president o f the R epublic by universal suffrage also aroused strong em o­ tions. In Turkey robust Anatolian peasants wept at the m ention o f the Dem ocratic Party that had done so m uch for the coun­ tryside and whose leader Adnan Menderes had been so ini­ quitously hanged by the military.71 In the M ethodist church President Clinton allowed his feelings to show on the day o f his inauguration.72 T h e Shias are well know n to be great weepers.

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These affective reactions should not be taken too lightly.73 Spinoza saw in the passions ‘the causes and the foundations of political society, o f its institutions and their disorders.74 T he subject is less outdated than it might seem, and we have to acknowledge that the question o f political subjectivity ought to be one o f the central concerns o f political science, if only because it often constitutes a political problem in itself. Thus in Iran, there was serious debate about w hether the tears tradi­ tionally shed to comm emorate the death o f Hussein were counter-revolutionary or were instead related to a form o f pas­ sive resistance that had maintained over the centuries the m em ory o f his martyrdom .75 T he history o f Kenyan national­ ism was dom inated by the famous clitoridectomy crisis of 1928-30, w hich set the Kikuyu elites against the Christian missions.76 And in the U nited States, polemics regarding moral­ ity, ‘political correctness’, or the return to ‘American values’ are rife.77 Paul Veyne opportunely points out that ‘culture is also a question o f pride, o f the relationship to the self, o f aesthetics, if one prefers; in short, o f constituting the hum an subject’, and that subjectivity ‘has been, over the centuries, a historical issue as disputed as economic issues or the distribution o f pow er’.78 Seeing politics from this point o f view amounts to returning to the founding fathers o f the social sciences. That does not nec­ essarily involve restoring to the throne the Subject, supposedly so battered by the erring ways o f m odern philosophy. From Tocqueville to W eber and Foucault there emerges, on the contrary, a great continuity o f thought that brings out the his­ toricity o f all subjectivity and seeks to conceive ‘the historicity even o f forms o f experience’.79 T he question then becomes not that o f the Subject, or that o f individualism— for in their non-specificity, these notions are incapable o f accounting for this kind of historicity o f experience. T he question is that o f the production o f subjectivity, in other words, o f the ‘subjectivation’ that Gilles Deleuze, com m enting on Foucault, has defined in terms so W eberian that they are probably almost acceptable to political scientists: ‘Subjectivation is the pro-

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duction o f modes o f existence or lifestyles’.80 This point should be emphasised: subjectivation and even individuation are not synonyms o f individualisation. Among the Tamils, for instance, ‘individuality o f eminence’ and ‘civic individuality’ are achieved through the relation betw een the individual and his family, his caste and his neighbourhood. From a W estern point o f view, this ends in the paradox that ‘Tamils have a strong sense o f individuality, but no abstract notion o f the individual.’81 Y et it is possible to find in it an ethos, a socially valued lifestyle that structures the subjectivity o f actors. Similarly, the repertoire o f the ‘refined’, ‘civilised’, ‘polite’ (alus) person in Java or that o f the ‘m an o f integrity’, ‘fellow knight’ or ‘being in society’ (adam-e edjtem d’i) in Iran epitomises a relationship to the self inseparable from a relationship to the O ther.82 T he sphere o f politics (or o f the state) constantly interacts w ith these processes o f subjectivation, even w hen the latter seem to emerge uniquely from the heart o f private life: ‘It was fascinating to see how the state and private life interacted, col­ lided, and at the same time were embedded within each other’, Foucault noted regarding the research he conducted w ith Arlette Farge on ‘disorder in families’.83 And Tocqueville had already perceived that the om nipotence o f the state and the autonom y o f the individual were correlative, and that the pro­ cess o f individuation involved the rationalisation o f the family.84 Even if ‘we must abandon the simplistic scenario according to w hich individualism develops along w ith the state’,85 the pastoral conception o f power, w hich came from Egypt, Assyria and Judaea, was adopted by Christianity, w hich made it into a kind o f individual relationship between the shepherd and his flock, and associated it, at the end o f the M iddle Ages, w ith a new form o f political organisation, that o f the m odern state: ‘I do n ot believe that we have to consider the “m odern state” as an entity that has developed in spite o f individuals, unaware o f w hat they are or even o f their existence; rather, we should see it as a very elaborate structure in w hich individuals can be included on one condition: that their individuality be assigned

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a new form and that it is subjected to a whole set o f specific mechanisms. In a sense, the state can be seen as a matrix o f individualism or a new form o f pastoral pow er,’ Foucault ex­ plained.86 T he concrete research carried out by French his­ torians, as well as by German rational critique— in the works o f Cassirer, Elias and Panofsky— have shown that these were not simple philosophical abstractions. T he state’s actions have in fact contributed to the shaping o f the very divisions be­ tween the emotional and the rational, betw een appearance and the inner self, popular cultural practices and so-called high culture.87 In return these various repertoires inform political language and symbolism. Although we are not always able to interpret it very well, the sexualisation of power relationships recurs in many societies, and it is not the least im portant procedure for the disqualifi­ cation or, on the contrary, the implicit prom otion, o f those in authority. W ithout going back to the pornographic literature that attacked M arie-A ntoinette, we have only to listen to cer­ tain French militants and officials— In the words o f a supporter of the Front National in Haute-Loire, ‘We are the R ig h t w ith real balls. The others, Giscard and Barrot, are the R ig h t w ith hardly any balls at all.’ ‘We have to let the institutions and the badly-fucked scream, they are the false elites,’ proclaimed the mayor of Valenciennes, Jean-Louis Borloo88— a strong indi­ cation that populism in France in the 1990s was connected with a certain idea o f virility. In a different genre English con­ servatives, already terrified by the independence o f w om en working in factories and the religious or charitable activism o f M ethodist women, were quick to vilify the ‘lost creatures’ (i.e. prostitutes) w ho joined the ranks ofworking-class radicalism.89 This relationship between the conception o f subjectivity and political action is perm anent and crucial. Politics is also, from day to day, a matter o f pleasure and aesthetics. W hat has been pompously called a ‘political culture’ is above all, and per­ haps only, a political style that is experienced as being con­ gruent w ith an ethical imaginaire.™ W ithout being necessarily

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aware o f it, we expect our leaders to have specific qualities, and politicians themselves make such claims. The Greeks wanted their leaders to be handsome, to speak well and to have active sexual roles.91 T he Rom ans also associated passivity in pleasure w ith political im potence, and at least their emperors dem onstrated all too clearly that this was an unfounded prejudice.92 B ut the plebeian also wanted the ruler’s necessary evergetisme to be exercised w ithout pride and that it be given a popular face, even if it annoyed the viri graves atque severi, the wise, grave m en o f the upper levels o f society, w ho deplored this kind o f levitas popularis, w hich was so contrary to the severitas and the gravitas they themselves expected in the sov­ ereign. That is w hy Caesar, Augustus, Germanicus, N ero and even, at the beginning o f his reign, Caligula were loved by the masses, and w hy Tiberius was so hated.93 Today, our contem poraries cultivate in the same way an ethical conception— a ‘moral econom y’, as John Lonsdale puts it94— o f their polis, w hich imposes itself on actors, but which is not unanim ous and remains an object o f debate, and even con­ troversy. In Africa, for example, wealth is often perceived ‘as the external sign o f internal virtue’.95 It may be exhibited as such by politicians.96 Nonetheless, w ith the growing denun­ ciation o f corruption, it is increasingly stigmatised. O ne o f the difficulties involved in establishing democracy south o f the Sahara may result from the fact that public opinion requires from its leaders everything and its opposite in this domain: both the redistributive benefits o f the ‘politics o f the belly’ and the austerity befitting ‘good governance’. T he elusive character o f the qualities expected in politicians also poses a problem for the analyst, for it is hard not to reify them w hen putting them down on paper. The analyst may point out that Felix H ouphouet-B oigny suffered from being shorter than M odibo Keita and Sekou Toure, a disadvantage for w hich he compensated by delivering marathon speeches: ‘W ithout consulting his notes, w ithout drinking a glass o f water or allowing himself any rest, the “O ld M an” spoke for five and one-half hours before an audience fascinated by the

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dem onstration,’ the single party crow ed in 1985.97 T o the des­ pair o f the diplomatic corps, these performances became the main way o f rem inding the world that the head o f state was still alive. H owever, can we be sure that the party members attending these meetings did not secretly share this dismay when confronted by such a massive demonstration o f the orato­ rical art befitting the ‘chief? Moreover, Paul Biya, in Cameroon, probably never surm ounted the terrible handicap represented by his high-pitched voice in a society in w hich eloquence is on a par w ith sexual activity as an attribute o f the exercise o f power, and denotes that the person concerned possesses the principle o f the evn.9** Biya nevertheless succeeded in keeping control o f the state under singularly difficult conditions. If we wish to break w ith the culturalist argument, the whole problem o f interpretation stems from the fact that political qualities are both central and elusive. In Java, one has to show one’s radiance (teja). W hen he was on the point o f being deposed, Amangkurat III (1703—8) seemed to be ‘pale as a Chi­ nese with a stomach-ache’, whereas his predecessor, Amang­ kurat II (1677—1703), had a face transformed w hen he went to war. Are these impressions produced by the chroniclers o f ancient times? Everything suggests that Sukarno did not neglect this repertoire, and drew a certain legitimacy from his escapades in a country where the ruler’s sexual potency is a guarantee o f the kingdom ’s prosperity.99 From this to erecting radiance into a tangible and necessary quality, there is a step that our approach forbids us, o f course, to take. Autres lieux, autres moettrs (or in any case, other ideas). T he Senegalese, w ho have nothing against love, nonetheless em ­ phasise the political qualities o f join, kersa and m un. Speaking before a m eeting o f his party in 1976, Leopold Sedar Senghor declared: ‘In fact, our Senegalese hum anism is based on the three m ajor values repre­ sented by jom , kersa, and mun.Jom is the inner feeling o f o n e ’s “ h o n o u r” , o f * The evu is the organ of witchcraft among the Beti.

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one s dignity as a w h ole m an, w hich inspires the respect o f others, and manifests itself as taraanga or “politeness” . Kersa could be translated as “ self­ m astery . It is the spiritual strength that allows us to dom inate o u r instincts, o u r passions, and o u r feelings in order to channel and guide them . It is also the sensitiveness o r esprit de finesse that allows us, in each situation, and for each problem , to apply ourselves to the object in the p ro p er m easure. It is the restraint” , the “m odesty” that causes us to avoid every kind o f excess, every disintegration o f the person, no m atter h o w m inim al. As for mun, far from signifying resignation, it is the peasants’ “patience” [...] that sig­ nifies coherence and persistence in action as well as in ideas or feelings, in efficacy.100

Senghor drew from these remarks a critique o f the city, and especially o f officials and businessmen w ho sinned through a lack o f jo m by being too fond o f money, and whose capri­ ciousness betrayed a lack o f m u n .m In the view o f the Sene­ galese, kersa is the essence o f the well-bred man. It is not surprising if a particular minister belonging to a caste turns out to be crude and irascible, as were, according to rum our, Habib T hiam and Iba D er Thiam. Conversely, the ‘restraint’ o f Pre­ sident A bdou D io u f inspired hagiographers.102 However, we should not underestimate the actors’instrumentalisation o f this repertoire, or the perm anent negotiations they conduct w ith the ‘moral econom y’ o f their polis: Abdou D io u f took care to choose as his prim e minister a ‘caste’ man, if only because the latter could not overshadow or try to succeed him. Similarly, by stigmatising the sins o f the city, Senghor implicitly re­ m inded his audience that he was the hero o f the peaceful social revolution that (in the 1950s) established the supremacy o f the rural hinterland and the Islamic brotherhoods over the Creole elite o f the ‘four urban com m unes’. T he culturalist ideology o f the identity-based populism that we have scrutinised— for example, Islamist movements or H indu nationalists— exploits the benefits o f public generosity, developing genuine ‘strategies o f beneficence’.103 They proba­ bly derive a large part o f their influence from this register of subjectivation, w hich cannot, however, be reduced to a simple econom ic reward given to their voters: it is also a symbolic or

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ethical gesture that responds to expectations o f a moral or cultural order, i.e., the order o f the imaginaire. For that reason it is difficult to define precisely. Democratic and bureaucratic societies also have their political styles, w hich are curious mixtures o f representations inherited from history and current fashions. O n the one hand, these issue from the ‘quiet power’ o f m em ory and terroirs. O n the other, they arise from the bearing and energy o f a young man, and even, if possible, an athlete. O ne has to preside over republican banquets and assiduously attend receptions, but also pose for photographs, with a radiant smile, in relaxed postures, pretending to have been caught in a swimsuit, or— why not?— hitch-hiking to a meeting, like the French prim e minister Edouard Balladur in 1995. Rem arks made in the same year by Jacques Chirac’s young supporters on the eve o f his election as president o f France show that ultimately a leader anointed by universal suffrage is still elected because o f certain qualities that are attributed to him: ‘I voted for Chirac because I love him . H e is handsom e, he has presence. H e ’s fantastic in the pictures o f him as a young m an. I w ould really like to have gone to bed w ith him at that age. I’d still like to, for that m atter.’ ‘Chirac is great w ith his clow n’s face, and I like that a lot. It’s freedom , the legalisation o f hash. O h, you d o n ’t think so? Well, maybe. H e lets you dream, anyway.’ ‘T h e family is im portant. It’s obvious that C hirac’s wife is com pletely psy­ chotic and a little decrepit. A nother m an m ight have asked for a divorce. Chirac d id n ’t. H e ’s standing by her. H e even found a jo b for his daughter.’104

In their comical diversity, these comments show once again the contradictory and even conflictual character o f political subjectivation. M ore than the expression o f a culture buried in the depths o f society, it is a perm anent and fluctuating process o f production, all the more disputed because initiative often comes from subordinate groups, such as freed slaves in the R om an Empire, ‘radical’ craftsmen and workers in England during the Industrial R evolution, ‘diggers’ o f diamonds in

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M o b u tu ’s Zaire, the proletarians in the Javanese port o f Surabaja or the low er castes o f India.105 Moreover, the repertoires o f subjectivation, as draped as they are in the mantle o f ‘tradition’ and ‘culture’, are fundamentally ambivalent, and this ambivalence is merely the flipside o f their transience. T he javam nard in Teheran— beginning w ith the city’s form er mayor Gholam-Hossein Karbastchi— are both respected as public benefactors and feared as ‘thick necks’, and this style is acted out in extremely subde ways.106 In the Javanese ludruk the illicit role par excellence, that o f the transvestite, incarnates the traditional code o f civility and refinement (alus) that proletarians in Surabaya, w ho are attached to picaresque and virile values (kasar), scorn to some extent, but to w hich they want the young people in their neighbourhood to con­ form in their relationships w ith their elders.107 Similarly, the ethos o f discipline, sobriety, and m utual aid prom oted by M ethodism and by working-class radicalism’s ‘rites o f m utu­ ality’ was not unanimously adopted by English workers; the craftsmen had m ore ‘aristocratic’ aspirations, and debauchery, intemperance, and criminality offered other moral reference points.108 As J. Pitt-R ivers’ classic studies have shown, the am­ bivalence o f ethical qualities results from the fact that they are often presented as essentially religious, while at the same time being based on the interaction o f social partners: the boss’s honour proceeds primarily from the clients that honour him. Thus the M erina’s hasina — the strength, vigour, fertility, and even saintliness that constitute the ‘virtue’ o f the hero-kings— is less a state than the result o f practices o f subjects and o f a cultural subterfuge: ‘W hat proceeds from the ambiguity con­ tained in the term hasina is the possibility o f representing it as a natural quality possessed by superiors and an advantage that benefits inferiors; in fact, this illusion is created by an inverse act: the gift ... made by the inferior to the superior.’109 These processes o f subjectivism are woven through the fabric o f society, all the m ore because they often invoke the redefinition, or even the refoundation o f the polis and its

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subjects. T hey tend to set in m otion representations that claim to be primordial, appealing to blood, sperm, land, identity, or authenticity. Insofar as they are procedures o f subjectivation, the interweaving o f tradition, on w hich identity-based poli­ tical strategies are founded, becom e so passionate, and even phantasmal and phobic, that they end up becom ing sinister imaginaires o f purity. T he O ther is then seen as polluting the integrity o f the comm unity, the race, the nation, the caste or the faith. This threat is felt in the arcana o f sexuality as well as in those o f death. The futile quest for pure identity is always pursued in specific, complex social contexts. But it can be reduced to a tragically simplifying equation that shows the superiority and integrity o f the Self through the physical deg­ radation and symbolic destruction o f the O ther. This is, in particular, the meaning o f the m odem form o f torture that no longer seeks to obtain information or confessions, but to create the Enemy, to purify the social body o f its soiled elements, to deconstruct the humanity o f the subversive.110 It is at these extreme limits o f identity politics that we can better understand how actors situate themselves in an imagi­ naire that is ‘a factor o f social life that has gained autonom y’.111 Too often, the accent is put on the instrumentalisation o f the imaginaire by rational operators. But the idea, for example, of the ‘management o f political passions’, developed by Pierre Ansart, is restrictive. It is not enough to enquire into the ‘pro­ duction o f emotive signs seeking to capture conform ing feel­ ings’, or to show how power maintains itself ‘by maintaining conform ing passions’.112 This aspect o f things is o f course not negligible. European absolute monarchies and twentieth-century totalitarianism have flattered and often manipulated political affects in order to strengthen their bases. And in France JeanMarie Le Pen appointed a subordinate to be ‘in charge o f large demonstrations, responsible for setting the scene and aesthe­ tics’, w hich modified the style o f the Front N ational’s public meetings, taking its inspiration from the technique o f A m er­ ican televangelists by flying the flags o f the thirty-eight form er

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provinces o f the Ancien R egim e as a ‘symbol o f rootedness in contrast to the purely arbitrary division o f the current regions’, by seating military veterans in the front rows ‘in homage to those w ho fought for France and to refute the view that sees us as the party o f collaboration’, and by playing Handel, B eetho­ ven and Verdi at high volum e in the hall. ‘There is a sacred dimension to politics that other parties have forgotten. W e are trying to return to this solemnity. W hence our use o f white, the image o f purity. People need it. W e have to restore the dream to politics.’113 O ne couldn’t put it better. M oreover, the strategies adopted by other political groups proceed in the same way, recruiting their ow n image consultants, w ho might be less talented, or m ore scrupulous, regarding the passions, feelings, and political symbols they use. Be that as it may, it does not explain why subjects, voters, or militants adopt the political affects thus suggested to them. In addition, political leaders and their experts are themselves involved in the imaginaire they are trying to use to legitimise themselves. Were not the leaders w ho made ‘n o ’ votes red and ‘yes’ votes black— Hussein’s colour— in Iran’s constitutional referendum o f 1979 themselves following the m odel o f Karbala? Were they cynical and stupid to the point o f thinking that people w ho had just carried out one o f the most aston­ ishing revolutions in history would let themselves be led in such a crude way? It is more likely that the red colour o f the opposition seemed obvious to them. Here we re-encounter a debate we already set forth in connection w ith primordial identities, and particularly communalism in India. It is unde­ niable that India’s nationalist leaders deliberately fabricated M uslim and H indu consciousnesses in order to increase sup­ port w hen universal suffrage was introduced. Even then, their constituencies had to follow them. Marc Bloch adroitly side­ steps this dilemma by studying the origins o f the ‘king’s touch’ (thought to cure scrofula) in France and England: ‘In order for an institution intended to serve specific ends marked by an individual will to impose itself upon a w hole people, it still has

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to be supported by deep currents in the collective conscious­ ness; and perhaps, reciprocally, in order for a som ewhat vague belief to take concrete form in a regular rite, it is not insig­ nificant that a few clear intentions help shape it.’114 Thus it is im portant to ‘account for passionate states in themselves’.115 It is im portant to understand why and how, in Rwanda, good people, good Christians and good neighbours, followed the muffled orders broadcast by R adio Mille C ollines; went to ‘w ork’, to use the singular expression that the backers o f the genocide employed, and w hich everyone ap­ parently found intelligible; used machetes to dismember their acquaintances and colleagues in an unprecedented orgy of cruelty, or offered them a ‘luxurious’ death by shooting, if their victims could afford it; threw bodies, sometimes still alive, into latrines or left them to be eaten by dogs. For that is w hat the political imaginaire in the Great Lakes is, and it goes beyond the intentions o f the new masters in Kigali, the (perhaps) tem ­ porary defeat o f ‘H utu Power’ or the sympathetic souls o f the humanitarian N GO s: dogs gorging on hum an flesh, neigh­ bours in whose homes are seen (or thought to be seen) the property o f one’s massacred relatives, survivors w ho will always suspect or be suspected, victors dazed with grief w ho drive their trucks drunk, orphans o f a very special kind.116 In short, there are many passions to be managed, certainly, but some­ thing a little m ore as well. W hat demands our attention here is ultimately not that on February 2, 1991 Saddam Hussein, for example, praised Iraq’s ‘spiritual victory’ and had his propagandists claim that the ‘R e ­ publican Guard broke the aggressors’ spinal colum n and drove them back beyond the border’.117 N o r is it that, properly speaking, the Iraqis believed these claims, for after all some were not satisfied and revolted. It is rather the Iraqis w ho maintained their support, if not for Saddam Hussein, at least for his regime, and w ho accepted Saddam’s emotional discourse while at the same time being well aware that their country had in fact been defeated in the cruellest way as a result o f a crazy gamble.

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Pretending to ask if the Greeks believed in their myths, Paul Veyne has showed that this is not even a pertinent question since ‘culture, w ithout being false, is not true, either’.118 The twelve-year-old child w ho played the role o f George Bush in Dacca, and w ho was felled by a stone throw n by his playmate identifying w ith Saddam Hussein, certainly knew that he was not G eorge Bush. T he same goes for the adults w ho were w atching the scene, and w ho no doubt accompanied it with their shouts. Nonetheless, the child died.119 T he imaginaire has to do w ith this grey area betw een the true and the false, w hich is revealed in particular by the ‘twofold act’ (Marc Bloch) o f instrumentalisation and adhesion. In other words, it is a prin­ ciple o f ambivalence, w hich political operators sometimes cul­ tivate. T he N ational Front’s wily dramaturge protests:120 ‘We are compared to Nazis because we put burning urns on our platforms. T h at’s stupid: do people say the same thing about the Olym pic Games?’ T h e im aginaire, a principle o f am bivalence

Let us return to these points, for they are key to our argument. As the seat o f passions, o f aesthetics, o f symbolic activity, the imaginaire is by definition both a domain o f ambivalence and a dom ain ofim m ediation. As soon as we acknowledge its central place in political practices, we see that the latter are, also by definition, ambivalent. This property o f politics is largely unrecognised, not only by the principal actors— they usually pretend to be motivated by an ideal, even if it is rationalist and utilitarian— but also by political science, w hich is itself deeply positivist and utili­ tarian.121 Voters w ho ridicule the opportunism o f their leaders and are outraged by their corruption are no more lucid, be­ cause they expect from the latter complete purity, despite all the evidence to the contrary. In fact, the main epics o f the m odern world are so confused that our contem poraries have willingly got lost in them. In Europe, Japan and the U nited

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States, the painful debates over responsibility for crimes against humanity during the Second W orld W ar testify to this fact. But the anti-colonial struggles in Asia and Africa were no clearer. The natives’ resistance did not preclude their collabo­ ration, certain individuals or societies passing quickly from one register to the other. As we have seen, at the everyday level the colonial regime was based on these kinds o f ‘w orking m isun­ derstandings’, w hich gave rise to a ‘negotiated version o f real­ ity’ worked out between administrators (or missionaries) and the native populations.122 In this way, both realised their own imagiuaires, usually through a tacit celebration o f a compromise, but sometimes at the price o f a confrontation that could lead to a genuine, prolonged struggle. We have also observed that these everyday interactions gave rise to imagiuaires that were at least partially shared— those o f development, o f tradition, or of nationalism— even though colonial misunderstandings had degenerated into bitter fighting. Thus historical m em ory con­ tinues to haunt France’s relations w ith Algeria and Vietnam several decades after the proclamation o f independence. This is because, ultimately, the nationalist demand was just as ambi­ valent as colonisation: it was simultaneously a quest for free­ dom and dignity, a desire for wealth and social prom otion, the reconstitution o f a system of inequality and injustice, and even the adoption o f an imperialist project inherited from the colo­ nising country, to the detrim ent o f neighbouring countries. In Africa, the historical m ovem ent that collaborated w ith the occupying power gradually eroded the latter’s influence from the period between the two world wars onward, and finally supplanted it, diverting to its own advantage the econom y’s resources, at first in the name o f statist nationalism, and then via the economic liberalisation and privatisation policies de­ manded by the World Bank and other international m oney­ lenders. In many situations, the remarkable stability o f elites testifies to this continuity betw een different phases o f state form ation.123 Even the struggle against apartheid did not boil down to a racist H ollywood Western that right-m inded

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literature portrayed it to be. In an incisive essay, Shula Marks analysed ‘the ambiguities o f dependency’ in South Africa: the ambiguity o f the state, the ambiguity o f nationalism, the am­ biguity o f classes and class consciousnesses, w hich the ‘tight­ rope policy’ followed by C hief Buthelezi transformed into a dangerous synthesis.124 Almost everywhere south o f the Sahara this confused passage from colonisation to the post-colonial period is vaguely felt.125 As for revolution, it is also a realm o f chiaroscuro, as borne out by the difficulty historians and political scientists have in dis­ tinguishing betw een the respective roles o f continuity and rupture. If we follow Tocqueville, the French R evolution was an avatar o f monarchical centralisation, and the same thing could be said about the Soviet regime in Russia, the People’s R epublic in China, the Islamic Republic in Iran, or Turkey’s Kemalist republic.126 In 1964 Congolese rebels, millenarian and subversive as they were, indulged w ith delight in the bureau­ cratic rituals o f the order they wanted to overthrow: Malembe, the head o f the ‘R evolutionary G overnm ent o f M aniem aK ivu’, w arned officials that he would receive them only if they ‘had a paper provided by their direct superior, w ith the ap­ proval o f the provincial secretary and that o f the secretarygeneral’, adding that ‘if these agents driven by their whims do not stop infringing the rights o f the hierarchy, they will be subject to painful measures’, clearly alluding to the coloniser’s shameful w hip.127 M ore generally, an analysis o f nationalism and Islamism has shown us that antagonism and rejection can be ways o f appropriating the adversary’s mental categories, values and institutions. Thus it is high time that we acknowledged ambivalence as an intrinsic characteristic o f politics. Ways o f thinking that are fashionable in W estern universities may not be o f m uch help to us in this regard. B ut certain cultural repertoires o f politics praise the very characteristic that we consider suspect. D uring a cruel initiation, the young Spartan had to learn ‘not to be seen, to move about furtively, to slip unnoticed into gardens

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and banquets, hide out during the day in order to attack at night, never let himself be caught, prefer to die rather than admit a theft, even if the theft is part o f an obligatory role.’ His accession to the status o f citizen paradoxically required him to endure an unrestrained application o f the w hip, a shameful punishment that was spared free men and was reserved for helots. The Spartan ephebes were whipped all the more fiercely w hen they were caught stealing: to punish them, not for their theft, but for letting themselves be caught.128 O n the m odel o f hunting or fishing techniques, in ancient Greece metis ‘pre­ sided over all activities in w hich a man had to learn how to manoeuvre hostile forces that were too powerful to be con­ trolled directly, but w hich could be used in spite o f them ­ selves, w ithout ever confronting them face to face, in order to realise in an unexpected way the goal one had in m ind’: In any situation o f confrontation or com petition ... success can be o b ­ tained in tw o ways. E ither by superiority in ‘pow er’ in the dom ain in w hich the battle takes place, the stronger w inning the victory, or by using p ro ­ cedures o f another order, w hose effect is precisely to falsify the results o f the trial and to cause to w in the one w h o m ight have been th o ught certain to be beaten. T h e success provided by metis thus takes on an am biguous m eaning: depending on the context, it can lead to contrary reactions. Som etim es it will be seen as the result o f fraud, the rules o f the gam e not having been followed. At other times, it will arouse adm iration, in pro­ portion to its unexpectedness, the weaker, against all likelihood, having found w ithin him sufficient resources to put the stronger at his mercy. In som e respects metis is o riented toward dishonest trickery, perfidious lying or treachery, despised weapons used by w om en and cowards. B ut in other respects it is a sort o f absolute w eapon, the only one that has the pow er to ensure in any situation, and no m atter w hat the conditions o f the battle m ight be, victory and dom ination over the o th er.129

Denise Paulme compares the Greek metis w ith the way the ‘trickster’ operates in folklore. T he latter’s role is central in African tales, even though his incarnations vary and take on different meanings depending on w hether he is the hare, the spider, or the clever child. This character is a paradoxical figure, an ‘awkward dem iurge’ w ho ‘accomplishes the “impossible

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task” only to fail at the last m inute’: ‘In the tales, at least, trick­ ery trium phs only w hen it has to save the innocent, unveil the guilty, or punish a crim e.’ T he trickster is defined by his ‘clev­ erness in taking advantage o f circumstances and especially by the procedure that consists in having him self replaced, turning the situation to his advantage’, through his ‘flexibility’, his ‘duplicity’, his ‘inversion’, his ‘trickery’. M uch beloved by the audience, he nonetheless arouses ‘complex feelings’ o f admi­ ration, irritation, and mistrust, as a result o f the frequently odious character o f his behaviour.130 T he political or economic actor in contem porary Africa— w hether he is a president, minister, prophet, trader, bandit, crook, drug trafficker, or migrant— frequently borrows these characteristics o f the trickster in order to reverse his alliances, deceive the adversary, fool the naive, set up schemes o f customs fraud, or cross borders.131 Similarly the Iranian bazaar m erchant’s ethos requires him to ‘have a heart’, to ‘know how to do things’, and to cultivate the elegance o f ambivalence: for how does a javanmard, a knight, act w hen he sees a man who, sword in hand, makes him pro­ mise not to say anything to his pursuers? H e goes somewhere else so that he can tell the pursuers that he hasn’t seen anyone ‘since he has been sitting here’.132 Moreover, Shiism allows the believer to conceal his faith w hen necessary: this is the famous taqiyah or ketm an that so concerned the secret agent we quoted at length at the beginning o f this book. Western diplomats and businessmen negotiating w ith the Asian or African coun­ terparts must get very entangled w ith their repertoires o f fairness and trust, w hich force them into hypocrisy, lying, and bad consciences. T heir partners have been brought up on trickery and transformation, and they see in them qualities or a style indispensable for the moral econom y o f business in the polis. Thus in Indonesia everyday language easily adopts the metaphors o f the puppet and the mask cherished by traditional Javanese drama (wayang) to describe the political game and the equitable character o f reversals that we should describe as be­ trayals or scandalous recantations.133 In classical Chinese thought

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blandness legitimises what we should call opportunism . ‘Let your heart move w ith blandness and detachm ent, unite your vital energy w ith the general lack o f differentiation. If you feel the spontaneous m ovem ent o f things, w ithout allowing your­ self an individual preference, the whole world will be at peace,’ counsels a Taoist apologue, and it is clear that this lesson in insipidity is also sage advice for the politician: ‘Thanks to his blandness, the wise man will be able to share in all the virtues w ithout becom ing bogged dow n in any o f them , and in pass­ ing through changes in political life, be always ready to face up— w ith serenity— to the demands of the time; like the Heavens, he may appear to change frequently, but he never veers off course.’134 W ith the help o f cultural inertia, Western diplomats and businessmen are quick to talk about the inscrutability o f yellow and black peoples. They quote the inevitable Book o f Ruses dear to those tricky Arabs, those dissimulating Persians. They might, however, turn to their own intellectual tradition: neo-Platonic philosophy praised ‘honest dissimulation’, and ‘duplicity’ has not always been condem ned in Europe.135 But the culturalist argument that we are criticising denies, precisely, that ambivalence is a constitutive property o f the political— except, o f course, w hen it is a question o f attributing it to certain ‘cultures’ that are more or less scorned (or fascinating). T he preceding chapters have shown how the cultural bases of politics proceed through metaphors. There are no strategies o f cultural extraversion, o f transfers of meaning, o f procedures of authentication, o f the formation o f primordial identities, and no polysemy o f the discursive genres o f politics w ithout a hefty dose o f ambivalence. T he latter is, so to speak, the fuel o f poli­ tical enunciation. In particular, ambivalence nourishes w hat at least appears to be the most universal political repertoire o f all: the enunciation o f power relationships in terms o f family relationships. In reality, this universality is a mere optical illusion, because family configurations are themselves irreducible to each other: ‘The

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term “family relationship” is therefore clearly fallacious and an erroneous criterion for comparing social facts. It designates neither a distinct class o f phenom ena nor a distinct type o f theory.’136 A fortiori, ideological and political elaborations of the social relationships that appeal to ‘family relationships’ are heterogeneous. W hat do the m ythology o f the state or o f the business firm as a family in Japan after the Meiji revolution have in com m on w ith Turkish representations o f the state as a good father or the terroir as a mother? O r the fiction o f family relationships in mercantile exchange in sub-Saharan Africa and the sublimation o f the family unit by direct marketing organisations in the U nited States? Probably not m uch, insofar as the parental roles to w hich these allegories refer vary from one society to another, as well as within a single society, from one group to another and from one era to another, since the family is em inently a site o f social change. In addition, a family consciousness o f politics is rarely found in a pure state, unm ixed w ith other discursive genres that com ­ pletely diversify this type o f utterance. W hen President Biya declared in C am eroon ‘I am the father o f the nation, I think about everyone, about all my children’, he was appropriating the image o f the head o f the household and at the same time giving it a Christian connotation in order to present himself impli­ citly as God the Father, in accord with an expression then current in the authoritarian regimes o f the region.137 W ith the help o f the notion o f ‘Asian values’, the paternalistic style o f leadership was all the rage in East Asia. But, apart from the fact that it draws on a different, supposedly neo-Confucian, store o f rep­ resentations, it is inevitably hybridised through interaction w ith other repertoires. Finally, since Freud we have know n that feelings between parents and children are mixed at best. It is thus quite possible that the same discursive genre o f politics may shape contra­ dictory orientations in a given situation, and nourish a genuine affective ambivalence w ith regard to those in power. N othing is more confused and volatile than the tales o f the ‘love’ between

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rulers and the ruled, and current reality is full o f sudden re­ versals in w hich people move from fervid expressions o f alle­ giance to the most violent kind o f rejection. Political affects are never simple, and they are clearly very difficult to ‘ma­ nage’!138 ‘A traveller w ithout a lamp has to walk alongside a man w ho has one. A child w ho obeys his father’s orders is always approved, helped, and supported insofar as possible,’ declared a Cam eroon notable in the 1950s, concerned to justify his collaboration w ith the French colonial authorities, at a time w hen the nationalist m ovem ent was faced w ith re­ pression.139 Similarly Jean-Bedel Bokassa presented the elimi­ nation, under horrible circumstances, o f his companion Colonel Banza as a simple family m atter that he had to deal w ith by weaning him, just as every true father does in such a situation, and w hen he was not having thieves publicly beaten, he liked to describe himself as Papa-Pelican: ‘T he military m an that I am is also a good Papa. [...] Children should tell their father everything, they have nothing to hide from him. [...] It’s normal for a father to give his children gifts and feed them .’140 Such remarks conceal a double ambivalence. First, the ambivalence o f the speaker-collaborator sincerely attached to the work o f colonialism, but w ho broods on all the hum ili­ ations it implies. O r o f the speaker-dictator w ho constantly kills and steals but w ho also hands out a certain num ber o f gifts, simultaneously playing on the two repertoires o f Tere, the peace leader, and Ngakola, the war leader. Second, the ambiv­ alence o f the receiver o f these messages: the colonial adminis­ tration that is pleased by the notables’ support while at the same time vaguely scorning them, if only for racial reasons, continuing to mistrust them on the political level, and some­ times abandoning them to the victory o f their com m on adver­ sary, as in Indochina and Algeria. O r the ambivalence o f the people o f the Central African Republic w ho shamed the pre­ datory emperor at the end o f his reign and marched through the streets shoulder to shoulder to overthrow him, but also granted him a diffuse indulgence once he had fallen and his successors had shown their greedy mediocrity.

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D ue to their ambivalence, such representations o f the poli­ tical necessarily go beyond the univocal use certain actors make o f them . T he most talented o f the latter play w ith brio on this range o f indeterminacy. W anting to assert his authority over the Front N ational’s newly elected mayors, but forced to admit their autonomy, Jean-M arie Le Pen presented himself as their ‘inspiration’, their ‘big brother’.141 ‘Papa is coming back!’ sang the Turkish masses to the tune o f an old popular song, thus w elcom ing Suleyman Dem irel to the meetings o f the True Path Party in 1991. This old political hand, w ho has no chil­ dren and defines him self as ‘the father o f all Turks’, followed the m odel o f Mustafa Kemal, whose most direct ideological heirs he nonetheless contests, insisting that the conduct o f the state must be ‘firm and loving’. Despite the fact that he was the political heir o f Adnan Menderes, w ho was executed by a military governm ent in 1961 and had himself been deprived o f his civil rights after the 1980 coup d’etat, he adheres in these comm ents to the conception o f the ‘state-Papa’ (.Devlet Baba) o f w hich the army claims to be the guarantor. His True Path Party— whose adopted name was very similar to that o f its earlier incarnation, the Justice Party, w hich was banned— is implicitly the party o f the N arrow Path along w hich the father o f the nation can lead you, but w hich also has a discreet Islamic flavour. All in half-tones, these messages designate less a rational ‘m anagem ent’ o f passions than a complex emotional field that no one can hope to master, and o f w hich those in power are themselves the captives. In Mali President Konare subtly proclaimed on the day o f his inauguration: ‘I am not a father o f the nation, but only a son am ong other sons, called upon to play the role o f elder brother.’ H e took care to distinguish him self from Moussa Traore’s dic­ tatorial style, w hile at the same time claiming a circumstantial seniority o f a democratic type. All the same, this repertoire of the elder brother is too rich in Africa for the newly elected president to be sure he could contain all the reverberations it awakened in his audience. After all, while the elder brother

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expects his younger brothers to obey him, he also has to aid and protect them. He likes to exploit the workforce and pays it back in the form o f various benefits. An unequal exchange, no doubt. But one way to obtain something from a powerful man is to award him the status o f an elder, and there are ostensible allegiances, in the name o f fictive relatives, that one could well do w ithout. All the m ore so as an elder brother w ho fails to m eet his obligations immediately puts him self in a position w here he is likely to be suspected o f witchcraft. A significant episode in Kenyan political life illustrates well the ability of the idiom o f family relationships to mediate power relationships, and to make itself a symbolic stake in the latter, thanks to its own logic. In 1981, O dinga Oginga, the form er leader o f the opposition, asserted that President arap M oi had invited him to jo in the governm ent in these terms: ‘C om e on, Baba,join me and let’s w ork together for this country.’ H e said he was prepared to take this step, for unlike Jom o Kenyatta, his predecessor, the head o f state was w orking for the benefit o f the wananchi, the children o f the country, and not for himself. Obviously arap M oi could not allow O dinga O ginga to put himself in a position o f seniority in this way. H e tartly replied that he had never called Odinga ‘Baba’, and that in any case the latter had no right to claim he was following him while at the same time criticising Kenyatta. The next day, a legislator entered the fray and demanded that the patriarch o f the opposition, w hom he considered as his ‘father in age and in politics’, to leave Kenyatta alone. T he dispute ended a week later w hen President arap M oi stated during a meeting, in Odinga O ginga’s presence: ‘I am the only “Father,” the only head o f the gov­ ernm ent o f this country.’142 In this allusive way, w hich is char­ acteristic o f Kenyan political life, more than thirty years o f personal rivalries, ideological divergences, ethnic and regional competition, and accumulated conflicts were stylised into a muffled duel around the image o f the Father. However, the latter and other figures w ith w hich it is associated arouse emotions or feeling that have their distinctive power, and that

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transcend the actors’ intentions: in a vague way, the allegory o f ‘Baba’ finds its meaning in the w hole ‘moral econom y’ whose contradictory definition has been one o f the main sites o f confrontations in Kenyan politics since the inter-war years.143 In fact the acquired autonom y o f the kinship idiom as an ambivalent political idiom raises a m uch more im portant question than that o f the ‘managem ent o f passions’, w hich re­ mains problematic: the problem o f the latent correspondences betw een transformations w ithin the family and changes in the political imaginaire, the ‘intertw ining o f private feelings and public policy’ that Lynn H unt, for instance, has analysed w ith regard to the French R evolution.144 Edm und Burke com ­ plained that the hum iliation o f the king and queen o f France in O ctober 1789 damaged ‘all the pleasant fictions that lighten authority and soften obedience, w hich guarantee the harm ony o f the different aspects o f life, and cause to reign in public life, by a gradual assimilation, the same feelings that embellish and sweeten private life.’145 Focusing on the familial imaginaire inherent in a political configuration should not simply consist in studying the poli­ tical use o f family models for the purposes o f legitimisation or political protest, nor in assessing the influence o f represen­ tations o f family relationships on political action, in the purest vein o f culturalism or psychologism. Instead it should involve unravelling the circulation o f emotional, symbolic, or cognitive schemas betw een the two spheres. O n one hand, the political imaginaire may nourish its familial equivalent, for example by contributing to a ‘democratisation’ o f the exercise o f parental authority. O n the other hand, the familial imaginaire may nourish the political imaginaire, especially by providing it w ith ‘the principles o f domestic confidence and fidelity that shape the duties and bonds o f social life’ (to adopt B urke’s language): Jacques Chirac, the citizen-president w ho claims to scorn flashing lights and police escorts, takes on something o f the simplicity o f the m odern father w ho takes his daughter to a M adonna concert.

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C om m on sense tells us that the interaction betw een the two spheres is not reducible to an isomorphic relationship. For ex­ ample, most economic reforms inspired by liberalism seem— at least till they have been inventoried— to result in a renego­ tiation o f relations between the public and the private sphere. But the latter is open, registers a certain state o f the forces present and opens a field o f social innovation that cannot be reduced to either the familial dimension, the political dim en­ sion o f society, or even exclusively to the interaction betw een the two. In China, the phenom enon o f bureaucrats’ offspring who take advantage o f economic liberalisation cannot be inter­ preted as a simple resurgence o f an original family structure that is supposed to have resisted comm unism and predisposes people to the private appropriation o f the res publica and to political obedience. M ore plausibly, it is a manifestation o f the remodelling o f the institution o f the family, at the intersection o f money and power w hich Jean-Luc D om enach and H ua Chang-m ing identified very early on,146 and w hich is now situated in a regional context o f strong economic growth, if not globalisation. Similarly, in Iran the family, o f w hich the Islamic Republic claims to be the protector and conservatives close to the bazaar say they are the zealous defenders, is in the midst o f transformation: the protection o f the moral order to w hich the regime is devoted and w hich no doubt constitutes, along with nationalism, its main source o f legitimacy, is not the maintenance o f the status quo.147 In this retroactive relationship between the sphere o f family relationships and that o f politics or economics, none o f these terms is particularly stable or has a single meaning; moreover, none o f them can be isolated from other factors w ith w hich it is connected. T he path for analysis is thus a narrow one. O n the one hand, we must take into account what Michel Foucault called ‘the heterogeneity o f pow er’, w hich ‘always emerges from some­ thing other than itself’.148 Asked about Iran, Foucault quoted Francois Furet’s Interpreting the French Revolution, adopting his ‘distinction betw een the totality o f the processes o f econom ic

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and social transformation, w hich began long before the revo­ lution o f 1789, and ended long afterward, on the one hand, and the specificity o f the revolutionary event, on the other’.149 T he political imaginaire borrows heavily from the other dimensions o f the social imaginaire: from the familial imaginaire, but also from those o f religious belief, the business world, sport­ ing com petition, the international environm ent, etc. O n the other hand, we should keep in m ind that each o f these sectors o f society has its own pace o f change and is peopled w ith images that are often contradictory, and in any case subject to various interpretations. Thus the circulation o f cognitive, emotional, or symbolic schemas from one domain to another is inevitably governed by the law o f ambivalence, and is purely contingent. Here Foucault suggests that the pheno­ m enon being studied must be ‘eventalised’, for this alone can lead to a salutary ‘breach o f self-evidence’: ‘W here there is a tem ptation to invoke a historical constant, an immediate anthropological trait or an obviousness that imposes itself uni­ formly on all (eventalisation) means making visible a singu­ larity’ M ore precisely, ‘eventalisation’ means locating the con­ nections, the intersections, the supports, the blockages, the interplay o f forces, the strategies, etc. that shaped, at a given m om ent, w hat will later seem self-evident, universal, necessary.’ T he ‘causal m ultiplication’ required to ‘eventalise’ the pheno­ m enon at hand, to understand its contingency, its uniqueness as a ‘rare knicknack’, to refer to Paul Veyne— consists in ‘analysing an event according to the multiple processes that constitute it ..., by constructing around the singular event analysed as process a “polygon” or rather a “polyhedron” o f intelligibility, the num ber o f whose faces is not given in advance and can never properly be taken as finite.’ In short, to accept a polymorphism that increases as the analysis proceeds.150 H ere we are once again very close to M ax W eber’s intel­ lectual project. Namely, he refused to see the capitalist imaginaires relationship to the R eform ation imaginaire as causal, and em­

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phasised the ‘enormous intertwining o f m utual influences among the economic bases, forms o f social and political organi­ sation, and the spiritual content o f the periods o f R efor­ m ation’.151 If psychoanalytic essays on the political imaginaire often prove disappointing, isn’t it precisely because they re­ strict such ‘intertwinings’ to a few stereotyped equations o f the unconscious? Isn’t it because they fail— paradoxically, if we refer to Freud— to reconstruct the radical ambivalence o f these ‘interconnections that are not isomorphisms?’152 The circulation o f cognitive, emotional, and symbolic sche­ mas from one domain o f society to another assumes that these schemas are reinterpreted by new actors, and in light o f the new contexts in which they are deployed, thanks to one o f the procedures o f cultural production we examined in the pre­ ceding chapter. It is precisely the ambivalence and polysemy o f these schemas that allows them to be reinterpreted and authorises a variety o f readings. But, conversely, reinterpreta­ tion produces ambivalence in turn. To be sure, it has its ‘limits’ (Um berto Eco); nevertheless, it is the foundation o f politics. Ultimately the latter is like ‘a theatre in w hich w hat counts are not merely people’s actions (and still less their intentions and principles), but the effects produced by their actions, the way in which they are understood, perceived, and interpreted’.153 This is all the more true because o f over-interpretation. This is a recurrent characteristic, for example, o f great massacres. Let’s kill them before they kill us! In the French tow n o f Romans, in 1580, the G uerin faction was w orried that the Carnival o f the Poor might demand that the wealthy return to the town property they had unfairly acquired: ‘T he poor want to take our property [...] and our w om en as well; they want to kill us, they even want to eat us.’ W hen Paumier, the leader o f the lower classes, dressed up as a Candlemas bear and tried to take a rank and a seat that were not due him, this was im m e­ diately seen not as an innocent carnival joke, but as a sign o f a threatening personal ambition, if not a Protestant conspiracy.

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W h en the St Blaise dancers carried brooms, flails, and ‘m or­ tuary robes’, this was seen as p ro o f o f the intention to drive out decent people, to beat them and bury them. T he fact that they also cried out ‘Christian flesh for sale for six deniers!’ requires no commentary. From then on, G uerin’s m en preferred to act first and to kill those w hom they were convinced were imperilling not only the established order but also their own existence.154 Eight years earlier, according to Denis Crouzet, the neo-Platonic pro­ ject o f establishing harm ony w ithin the kingdom, w hich C atherine de M edici and Charles IX had fom ented at the cost o f the ‘hum anistic’, selective and preventive murder o f Admiral Coligny and his entourage, was suddenly ‘deprogram m ed’ by the unleashing o f the Catholics’ eschatological fears, in a sit­ uation in w hich ‘a primordial obsession was predominant, namely the suspicion that always suggests another suspicion, and so on infinitely’: ‘Imaginaires o f murders and deaths, o f un­ derground, dissimulated actions seeking to weaken or destroy the presumed adversary, both in time o f peace and in time o f war, came and went, collided and crashed, were made and un­ made, w ithout any discontinuity.’155 In their phantasmal sources, contem porary strategies o f identity function in the same way. Thus after making a careful enquiry into violence in South African miners’ hostels, a team from the C entre for Conflict Analysis recom mended, as a priority, the establishment o f a ‘collective system o f limiting rum ours’.156 If it were feasible, this prescription would be just as valid for the Great Lakes region: in R w anda and B urundi the ethnic description o f political and social cleavages now operates as a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’, each o f the groups involved cal­ culating that its adversary has planned its exterm ination and acting accordingly.157 These are extreme situations. Nevertheless, they rem ind us that the phantasm o f conspiracy is a strong and universal form o f political imaginaire. T he allusions to Daniel C ohn-B endit’s

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Jewish origins made by R aym ond Marcellin, the French minister o f the Interior, during the events o f May 1968, show that the most stable democracies are not exem pt from such transgressions. In July 1995 Jacques Chirac accused the same C ohn-B endit o f organising the protest o f w hich he was the victim w ithin the European Parliament, in response to his decision to resume French nuclear testing! Nonetheless, we have to recognise that certain social imaginaires are haunted more than others by the fear o f conspiracies, w hether because o f their political nature— totalitarian regimes and revolutionary episodes often develop paranoid tenden­ cies— or because o f the cultural repertoires that history has crystallised within them. In Africa, as we have seen, the obses­ sion with witches’ nocturnal meetings gives a particular colour­ ing to authoritarian regimes’ denunciations of subversive plotting. As for Iran, it provides a textbook case. T he series o f foreign invasions, Russian and British attempts to divide the coun­ try between them , and the burden o f American tutelage all strengthened in public opinion the idea o f international m ach­ ination, o f w hich the trade embargo decreed by President Clinton in May 1995 and aggravated by the approval o f the D ’Amato bill in August 1996 was only one twist. This idea is all the more firmly anchored in popular belief that the external and the foreign are the source o f corruption in the framework o f the dichotomy between the principle o f interiority (baten) and that o f appearance (zaher ): Shaitan the tem pter has his seat in the order o f zaher, he penetrates the baten, and, according to pre-Islamic representations, evil resides outside the country or on the periphery o f civilisation. U nder these conditions, the battle against ‘cultural aggression’ launched by the Guide of the Revolution finds an echo in the social imaginaire, even if the majority o f Iranians shrug their shoulders w hen concrete measures are taken to restrain this aggression, and even if the West, the vector o f ‘corruption’, still remains a necessary detour for acceding to knowledge and ‘being m odern’.158 We also see

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that the identification o f the U nited States w ith the ‘Great Satan’ in 1978—9 took on a meaning richer than the puerile expression o f Islamic radicalism: it established itself at the intersection o f the Iranians’ historical consciousness and their ethical imaginaire.'159 To be completely convinced o f this, it is useful to refer to Freud’s analysis o f dreams, and more generally, o f the ‘creative pow er o f symbols’. Freud emphasises that ‘dreams do not allow alternatives, and w hen two hypotheses present themselves, it brings them both into the same association o f ideas’: ‘The con­ tradictory representations are almost always expressed in the dream by one and the same element. It seems that the word “n o ” is unknow n in dreams. T he opposition between two ideas, their antagonism, is expressed in dreams in a completely characteristic way: another elem ent is transformed, after the fact, as it were, into its contrary.’160 From this point o f view, oneiric activity is comparable to the logic o f certain ancient languages in w hich the same root can express opposing ideas. This results from the effects o f the dream-work: condensation, whereby ‘the content o f the manifest dream is smaller than that o f the latent dream, [...] and consequently represents a sort o f abridged translation o f the latter’; displacement, w hereby a latent elem ent is replaced, not by one o f its own constituent elements, but by ‘som ething more distant, there­ fore by an allusion’, or by w hich the ‘psychic accent is trans­ ferred from one im portant element to another, less im portant one, so that the dream receives a different centre and appears strange’; and finally, the transformation o f ideas into visual images.161 In many ways these effects through w hich the individual’s dream is elaborated are found in the elaboration o f social imagiuaires as well. W hence the ‘absurd’ character— in the Freudian sense o f the w ord— o f the latter. T he most im portant may be related to the condensation effect, through w hich cer­ tain latent elements are eliminated or conflated: the manifest political imaginaires that we have encountered in the preceding

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pages present themselves as arbitrary and often comical ‘abrid­ ged translations’ o f social imaginaires that are certainly more extensive, richer, and more complex. Seen in this perspective, political analysis is necessarily a herm eneutics whose pertinence ‘depends on the skill, the ex­ perience, and the intelligence’ o f the interpreter.162 B ut before claiming access to these deeper meanings, the interpreter has to recognise the peculiar logic o f the effects o f the elaboration o f manifest imaginaires, w hich will exacerbate a phenom enon that is ‘rationally’ anodyne, treating opposites in the same way as analogies or representing them by the same image. Thus we can provisionally say that ‘the imaginaire is the m otor o f hist­ ory’,163 whose mechanism is so often implacable. Recognising the role played by the ‘constitutive im agination’ in political life and the formation o f states must not, however, tem pt us to lapse into magical idealism.

4 THE MATERIALISATION OF THE POLITICAL IM A G IN A IR E T he ambivalence inherent in the world o f the imaginaire also resides in its relationship to materiality, w hich postm odern authors have greatly neglected.1 ‘N o event in history is produ­ ced by the imaginaire alone; m en and wom en always live in com ­ plex, intertw ining situations in w hich acts, gestures, practices and representations mix and mutually inform each other. Even if the sixteenth century was fearful, besieged by the idea o f divine punishm ent, it was also a tem poral century in w hich econom ic and political necessities, the problems o f power, and everyday realities and rivalries led each person toward specific actions,’ writes Arlette Farge, criticising Denis C rouzet’s analy­ sis o f the St B artholom ew ’s Day Massacre.2 ‘ A first limit on the interpretative power o f the imaginaire has to do w ith the materiality o f the facts themselves. This mate­ riality is not always easy to establish. ‘N o m atter how exaggera­ ted they may be [the posthum ous accusations levelled against Paum ier’s m em ory], they probably contain a grain o f truth. But w hat is it?’ asks Em m anuel Leroy Ladurie in his book Le Carnaval de R om ans.3 And actors and observers o f the tragedy in R w anda continue to debate w ho shot down President Habyarim ana’s aeroplane on April 6, 1994, and w hether the subsequent genocide was premeditated. In a way, these con­ cerns are out o f date: Paum ier died and his supporters were decimated; the Tutsi were massacred, along w ith H utus suspec­ ted o f ‘com plicity’, and then the R w andan Patriotic Front 181

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took power. True or false, the victor’s narrative will structure reality, even if those o f the vanquished remains at w ork in the interstices o f society.4 Nonetheless, the process o f interpreta­ tion or over-interpretation, following the logic o f the ‘selffulfilling prophecy’, has shaped the material o f facts: the nar­ rative elaboration would not have been the same had the facts been different. In addition, interpretation itself and, more generally, acts o f imagination are inseparable from a certain materiality. O ur conceptions o f time and space, for example, proceed in large part from technological innovations.5 W ith the development o f highway and railway systems, as well as high-speed trains (the famous TGVs), the representation o f France has changed. And the ‘time-space compression’ characteristic o f the imagi­ naire o f globalisation on the w orld-wide scale, is above all the product o f an industrial revolution that has completely trans­ formed transportation and communication. Similarly, the ‘imaginaire o f the Terror’ during the French R evolution was inseparable from the countless technical pro­ blems raised by the guillotine.6 By stipulating on June 3,1791, that ‘every person condem ned to death shall have his head cut off’, the Assembly made, through the selection o f a modus operandi, a symbolic choice: it set aside hanging, w hich was tra­ ditionally considered shaming for the family o f the condem ­ ned person, and in a very egalitarian way gave every citizen the right to have the honour o f going to the block. T he only re­ maining question was how to do so. Two years earlier D r Guil­ lotine had been ridiculed w hen he proposed that the prisoner be decapitated by means o f ‘a simple mechanism’: he had too crudely affronted social representations o f death. B ut using the sword— apart from the fact that it would have been expensive, since the instrum ent had to be o f the best quality— assumed that the condem ned would display a courage and dignity that could not be attributed, a priori, to comm oners. W hen it was further taken into account that the executioner had to be skilled and that often he was not, it was quickly seen that this

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m ethod o f decapitation in no way guaranteed that capital pun­ ishment, which was supposed henceforth to be equal for every­ one, w ould in practice be applied in exactly the same way in every case. Therefore it was necessary to return to the ‘simple m echanism ’ w hich, once the irony o f 1789 had dissipated, had the additional m erit o f corresponding to the vogue o f the M achine. T he guillotine soon came to incarnate another dream as well, that o f the Revolution, which required justice to be ‘quick as lightning’, and the ‘body politic’ to be subjected to ‘purifi­ cation’. Camille Desmoulins exclaimed: ‘T h e national representation is becom ing p urer every year. [...] Doubtless the fourth purifying election will produce in the Assembly a p erm anent and unchanging m ajority for the friends o f freedom and equality. [...] Vice was in the blood. P u rg in g the poison and driving it outside, through the em igration o f D u m o u rie z and his lieutenants, has already m ore than half saved the body politic; and the am putations o f the R evolutionary Tribunal ..., the vom iting up o f the Brissotins, rem oving th em from the C onvention, w ill com plete the process o f giving it a healthy constitution.’

Why, then, not develop ‘accelerating’ guillotines in order to speed up the ‘purging’, as ‘the people’ demanded? According to an engineer in Lons-le-Saunier, ‘in order to carry out this task m ore quickly, a water-powered guillotine should be con­ structed; he knew just the place, near the new bridge at the end o f the new street, w ith a well six feet deep to receive the blood.’7 Technically it was also feasible to construct a machine w ith multiple blades, so that several people could be decap­ itated at once; some zealots suggested as many as thirty! But this innovation did not seem legitimate in view o f the R ep u b ­ lican imaginaire. A guillotine w ith four blades constructed in Bordeaux was n o t approved by the city’s oversight committee, w hich found it ‘contrary to all revolutionary laws’, and ‘con­ flicted w ith the law o f justice and hum anity’ because it denied the individuality o f the condem ned. As Daniel Arasse points out, ‘By decapitating the condem ned one by one, by making them m ount the scaffold one by one, and by repeating for each

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individual all the phases o f the execution, the guillotine also shows that the enemy to be killed is none other than the indi­ vidual w ho has chosen to follow his ow n will to the detrim ent o f the general will.’8 The executioners now had only to show dexterity, and this they did not lack: in an early foretaste o f the ‘compression o f time and space’ and o f the celebration o f speed as a political quality, tw enty-one Girondins were ‘dealt w ith in twenty-six m inutes’. T he worship o f the sinister M achine during the Terror attests to the fact that the political imaginaire is also realised through material objects. For Benedict Anderson, the printing press and the ‘administrative pilgrimage’ were the vectors o f the ‘imagined com m unity’ o f the nation; and today, lacking ‘Little Irans’ or ‘Iran Towns’, the deterritorialised colonies o f Iranians living in the U nited States, establishes its existence in its diversity through the interm ediary o f its audio-visual pro­ duction.9 M ore precisely, an imaginaire has to w ork in order to survive, to reassure, to enchant. But this property depends at least partially on its relation to a given materiality. T he failure o f the ‘radiant future’ in the Soviet U nion or the dream o f ‘in­ dustrialising industry’ in Algeria were also, and perhaps espe­ cially, the results o f problems w ith overcrowded housing and taps running dry. There are even iniaginaires that are so cala­ mitous that they becom e clearly suicidal: in Cape Province, in 1856—7 the Xhosa slaughtered their flocks at the behest o f a prophetess, and in so doing greatly facilitated the seizure o f their land by British colonists, while in Albania Enver Hoxha squandered his country’s meagre resources building 500,000 bunkers that were supposed to stop a jo in t invasion by ‘im peri­ alists’ and ‘revisionists’.10 But if political dreams (or nightmares) have very material consequences, it is also true that phenom ena whose materiality is manifest occur to a decisive extent in the imaginaire, whatever the role o f the tangible flows on w hich they are based. These include the determ ination o f the value o f currency, globalisa­ tion, the formation o f a public sphere in pluralistic democracies,

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and, in some African countries, national integration and the establishment o f a m arket econom y by standardising the rep­ resentations o f the invisible from one region to another.11 The relationship that each individual entertains w ith his ow n body and his physiological functions is itself developed by resorting to the social processes o f subjectivation, w hich take into ac­ count the licit and the illicit, the distinguished and the vulgar. As a result the political ethos, along w ith its qualities, is often expressed through body language and material condensations whose very im portance prevents it from limiting the reper­ toires o f action to genres that are strictly discursive or con­ ceptual. T he analysis o f several practices— hair-styles, cuisine and clothing— will help us to explain this point. T h e p o litical sym b o lism o f hair

Since they are traditionally an object o f intense investment on the part o f individuals in most societies, the symbolism o f hair­ styles is closely related to practices o f the political imaginaire: ‘Beard, moustache, body hair, and head hair are unexpected actors on the social scene,’ writes Daniel R oche, w ho reminds us o f the relationship that till the sixteenth century connected, by opposition, long hair w ith a beardless face. Thus the beard w orn by Olivier, the president o f the Paris Parlement in the reign o f Francois I, shocked his colleagues, and the Church asked its bishops to shave.12 M ore recently, in the 1960s and 1970s, long hair divided French families,'who m ight have been consoled to learn that young Amish protestors cut their hair to defy the authority o f their church.13 Political history is full o f similar conflicts based on hairstyle and other legitimate problematics related to body hair. In Florence, the entry o f giovani into the militia, that is into the rank o f citizens, was marked by cutting their long hair, w hich was regarded as too feminine and as exposing them to the risk o f being raped in the event o f a defeat.14 In Russia, Peter the Great made m en o f religion cut off their beards; since they

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regarded their beards as emulating the image o f God, it seemed to them that Peter was reducing them to the status o f animals. But that was the price to be paid for cultural rapprochem ent w ith Europe.15 In 1912 Chinese w ho wanted to show their support for Sun Y at-sen’s republic cut off their braids, w hich the M anchu conquerors had made mandatory in the seven­ teenth century. And in Turkey the Kemalist revolution was also a hairstyle revolution that sacrificed the believer’s beard, but not w ithout establishing the trium ph o f the moustache. M oreover, since that time the shape o f the moustache has been a powerful emblem o f identity. In the late 1970s it allowed various terrorist groups— the ultra-nationalist ‘Grey W olves’, leftists and the alevi— to be immediately recognised, the better to kill each other.16 In 1993 Tansu Ciller’s accession to pow er led several members o f her party in the legislature to shave off their moustaches, and the editor o f Hiirriyet, praising this new fashion, henceforth signed his daily column w ith an image o f himself clean-shaven. For several years Istanbul intel­ lectuals, annoyed by the ‘invasion’ o f their city by hordes o f Anatolians, expressed their disapproval by sacrificing this virile attribute to distinguish themselves from the wealthy and osten­ tatious world o f the nouveaux riches: ‘T he magonda [stinker] o f the 1960s had a big moustache, a silk shirt unbuttoned dow n to his navel, showing a hairy chest ornam ented w ith a gold necklace, fringed boots, silk socks w orn under loose trousers, and in his hand an expensive tesbih [string o f beads],’ m ocked the caricaturist Gukhan Gurses.17 It goes w ithout saying that the Prosperity Party’s success in the municipal elections o f 1994 and the legislative elections o f 1995 changed the situation again, even though the new mayor o f Istanbul, M r Erdogan, cultivated an image as an energetic, clean-shaven manager. In fact, no contem porary political movem ent seems to have a better articulated hair-style than Islamism, to the point that militants are comm only called ‘the bearded ones’ and cari­ catured as such in the media. Nonetheless, a more qualified view o f this political repertoire is appropriate here as well. For

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example, Nabil B eyhum has noted the differences in hair-style that distinguished Christian militiamen from Islamist fighters in B eirut from 1976 to 1982. T he former, w ithout being shaven, had used razors to cut their hair very short, and usually slicked it dow n w ith gel; in addition, they w ore whiskers. T he latter also w ore short hair, but it was m ore unruly, and was not slicked down; and they w ore larger whiskers.18 D o the perm u­ tations o f political hair-styles found in Lebanon take on the same form elsewhere? This is far from clear, and the complex problem o f hair in Islamism merits m ore detailed analysis. Since I am neither an anthropologist nor a barber, I will confine myself to pointing out that this political genre, how­ ever it may be practised in specific cases, can becom e a funda­ mental dividing line in other situations. T he body then tends to incarnate the order o f politics, and especially political sub­ jectivity; as such, it becomes a central issue itself. In Iran, pro­ scribing ‘decadent’ hair-styles— probably the ‘rap’ style, short on the sides w ith a crest in the middle, adopted by some young urban youths— is equivalent to battling ‘cultural aggression’.19 In Algeria in 1990—1 letting one’s beard grow was a means o f showing support for the Islamic Salvation Front, w hich was the vehicle for an ethos o f individuation and emancipation w ith respect to patriarchal authority.20 In 1992 shaving off on e’s beard was a mark o f prudence, given the repression o f the state, whose forces were on the lookout for a certain kind o f face; but it was also to incur the condem nation o f some Islam­ ist preachers w ho fulminated against ‘those w ho have shaven their beards and are therefore m ore afraid o f policem en than o f G od’, or m ockery in one’s neighbourhood: ‘So, brother, you’ve been using Yaxa?’*21 Persisting in wearing a beard then took great courage, bearing witness to the attractions o f this lifestyle, w hich is now less that o f Islamic militancy than o f a fighter in the GIA, if we accept Luis M artinez’s analysis.22 In any case it corresponds to a genuine civic subjectivity: thus ‘A hm ed’ * A depilatory for women.

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continues to wear a little beard that causes him no end o f diffi­ culties at police barricades but represents for him an act o f ‘de­ fiance’ that symbolises the interiority o f his enrolm ent, both ethical and political, under the banner o f Islam.23 A hair-style’s ability to condense the political is well illus­ trated by a small Palestinian polemic. O ne day Hamas expres­ sed its outrage at the fact that the Palestinian A uthority’s police had shaved off the beards o f its im prisoned officials; in its view this was ‘a very serious matter, worse than beatings or torture’ (sic). General Moussa Arafat seemed to agree, since he hastened to deny the charge: ‘I am amazed to hear such rum ours; no one w ithin the A uthority is com m itting such horrors!’24 In the political oven: the culinary polis

Similarly, culinary practices can easily becom e independent systems o f political symbolism, through w hich the develop­ m ent o f a polis takes place. B ut they tend to be more inclusive and classificatory than conflictual. To be sure, food is a strong ‘em blem ’ o f identity. ‘Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you w ho you are,’ Brillat-Savarin wrote in his Physiology o f Taste. For example, the propensity o f a Muslim living in France to accept an invitation to dine w ith a non-M uslim family, and thus to run the risk o f being served ‘uncut’ meat, w hich is ritually forbidden, will be seen as an index o f his distance w ith respect to Islam; his categorical re­ fusal will be seen as a sign o f his adherence to Islam or perhaps o f his re-Islamisation: ‘Forget my culture, eat pork?— that I cannot do.’25 Thus culinary practices often serve to express the disqualification o f the O ther. T he English call the French ‘frogs’ on account o f their consum ption o f these amphibians, the French call English rosbifs and Italians macaronis, w hile in Iran the people o f the Plateau refer condescendingly to the Rasti in the north as ‘fish-head eaters’, fish-heads being a ‘cold’ (sard) food that dooms them to extreme sexual indolence.26 T he quantity or quality o f the food consum ed are recurrent

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elements o f social distinction. In addition, the degree o f a given cuisine’s differentiation reveals the overall organisation o f a society— the existence o f a great culinary tradition going hand in hand w ith the polarisation o f inequality and political centralisation27— and tastes define cultural areas: ‘H ow can we call Bali a H indu country since the use o f milk and dairy pro­ ducts was never adopted there?’ complains Denys Lombard.28 Nonetheless, if food marks off the O ther (and consoles the Self), it does not seem to be an identity-related repertoire that is as sensitive as that of, for example, the hair-style system, espe­ cially if we take into account food’s explosive potential in the dom ain o f social protest. Food riots are a classical elem ent o f that history: their spectre is now one o f the chief obstacles to the liberal econom ic reforms required by the IMF, and the thematics o f ‘food supplies’ similarly dom inated political life in Europe up till the middle o f the nineteenth century.29 Beer shortages can sometimes lead to serious popular unrest in a country like C ongo.30B ut dietary pogroms are rare, even w hen in India, for example, zealots throw dead pigs into mosques or mistreat cows in order to arouse comm unal riots. In Russia the role o f Jews in the vodka business was often a pretext for antiSemitic violence, and regulations regarding alcohol consum p­ tion have been a point at w hich the battle against racial segre­ gation in southern Africa has crystallised.31 O n the other hand, eating has a recognised integrating power. Fustel de Coulanges emphasises the role o f ‘public meals’ in the Greek polis’s worship: perform ing this rite to honour tute­ lary divinities was essential to salvation, and all citizens were expected to participate in it.32 Similarly, in the Cairo o f the Fatimid dynasty food was one o f the most effective ways o f transmitting the caliph’s baraka (charisma): at the N ew Year’s banquet the caliph offered food to his guests w ith his own hands, and during R am adan food served in the palace was dis­ tributed to the people.33 As a ritual o f integration, the meal, far from being a simple mechanism o f autom atic consensus, is an instance o f nego-

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tiation, and thus o f relative indetermination. It can function as a procedure o f mobilisation, allegiance, or reconciliation. In the latter case, it offers, o f course, a marvellous opportunity for treachery, and certain invitations are not accepted w ithout misgivings. But the very com ponent o f ambivalence that pro­ duces the varying behaviour o f the guests is inherent in dining, for a meal is polysemous and accepts divergent expectations: ‘Hunger, piety, a taste for pomp and ceremony, the pleasure o f being together under some pretext, concentrating in a short period the small excess at one’s disposal in order to draw from it the m axim um pleasure by using it all up at once’— this ex­ plains why, according to Paul Veyne, the philanthropic ban­ quet was in R o m e ‘a veritable institution, ready to enter into all kinds o f combinations’, and o f w hich religion was ‘some­ times the chief motive, and sometimes only a pretext’.34 Thus eating together is a recurrent means o f political partic­ ipation in all its dynamism, complexity, and even conflictuality. In France both the court society o f the Ancien R egim e and the Republic were largely structured along these lines, and the twists and turns o f the 1995 presidential campaign in France— from the dinners for legislators concurrently organised by Messrs Chirac and Balladur to the luncheon marking the rec­ onciliation o f M r Juppe and M r Sarkozy, by way o f the estab­ lishment o f the calf’s head as the symbol o f the reduction o f the ‘social fracture’— demonstrated the persistence and influ­ ence o f the culinary repertoire.35 In China as well, clientele bonds iguanxi) are made and unmade w ith the help o f ‘heavy meals and heavy drinking’ (dachi dahe), fundamental com po­ nents o f political life whose economic cost should not be underestimated.36 And in Turkey and Iran, socialising at the end o f fasting during Ramadan is a crucial point in factional and electoral battles. It allows the protagonists to position themselves thanks to a ‘climate o f piety that precludes suspi­ cion regarding the intentions o f those w ho lay out a tablecloth, cover it w ith various dishes, and welcome all those w ho belong to their entourage’.37

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T he im portant thing to understand is the performative efficacy o f such micro-procedures. W hen the vizier al-Afdal was killed in Cairo in 1121 after having usurped many o f the caliph’s prerogatives, the delicate problem o f transition was negotiated through the political stage o f the banquet. O n the one hand, the sovereign al-Amir, restored to full power, inten­ ded to assert his authority. O n the other hand, he had to ac­ com m odate al-Afdal’s sons and the troops they controlled. The feasts associated w ith the end Ram adan offered an opportunity to m eet both o f these contradictory requirements, even though one had to respect the proprieties o f the m ourning period that began the same day. T he caliph invited the deceased m an’s family to an initial private dinner, and shared a date w ith each o f the family mem bers present. H e then put on his m ourning clothes and presided over a second meal, at w hich the form er vizier’s brother served as his spokesman. T hen he distributed food to those present. T he symbolism o f the shared meal was crystal-clear: ‘T he family o f the deceased vizier, al-Afdal, by accepting food from the hand o f the caliph himself, relin­ quished any claim to a grievance concerning al-Afdal’s death; the caliph, on the other hand, by sharing his table w ith the m urdered vizier’s son and brother, assured them o f their own safety. T he other recipients o f food were both witnesses to this “transaction” and its beneficiaries. [...] Thus in the private banquet, the state was reconstituted; in the public banquet, this fact was announced.’38 T he political efficacy o f the ritual was in this case facilitated by the austere character of the meal fol­ lowing the end o f R am adan fasting at the court of the Fatimid princes, w ho were eager to draw parallels w ith the tradition of the Prophet w ho was satisfied w ith a date or a grape. W hile culinary practices thus attest to the role o f perform ­ ative mediations in political relationships, we should also assess their latent role in relation to long-term historical devel­ opments. D o n ’t they contribute, discreetly but decisively, to ‘holding together’ political societies and their ‘worlds of m eaning’? After all, the meal is a procedure carried out from

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one to three times a day; there are few as regular as that. Be­ longing for the most part to the private sphere, it is a primordial site at w hich relationships betw een the sexes are negotiated, and where the family is transformed. But it is also increasingly located in the public sphere, because o f the grow ing com ­ modification o f societies. In A u d e n Regim e France, the system o f regrat (reselling), w hich allowed a ‘trickle-dow n transfer from the good food eaten by the wealthy to the mediocre food eaten by the poor’ by buying left-overs from meals ser­ ved in noble and bourgeois households, and in convents and religious communities, and reselling them in low-class eating establishments,39 produced an extensive network o f restaurants. The latter was subsequently one o f the key institutions o f political socialising during the R evolution and all through the nineteenth century. Along w ith cookbooks it led to a certain unification o f table manners and principles o f taste. N o m atter how quiet they are, culinary revolutions help produce a certain cultural homogenisation that is not w ithout political effects. In the U nited States the requirements o f the war effort following the wo rid-wide food shortages o f 1916— 17, the experience o f mobilisation in Europe, and the role o f dieticians gradually reduced the culinary particularisms o f im ­ migrant communities and the southern states, and prom oted a diet that contained more meat and was better balanced, but to the disadvantage o f black and red pepper, w hich the propo­ nents o f culinary reform explicitly associated w ith dubious social practices such as robbery or revolutionary agitation. T he standardisation o f food, w hich also made possible the growing industrialisation o f production, was a crucial part o f the A m er­ ican melting pot. This logic o f unification was not, however, w ithout ambiguities: it was able to proceed by co-opting and making more widely popular certain dishes favoured by im m i­ grant communities, such as spaghetti w ith tom ato sauce, w hich dieticians and patriots both liked, since Italy had entered the war on the Allied side.40 Today the increasing num ber o f ‘ethnic’ restaurants provides a background accom panim ent to the demands for multiculturalism.

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Ultimately, the gastronomic sphere participates in the civic sphere, and contributes to the latter’s realisation. In Iran, rice, formerly the privilege o f indolent R asti because it was so ex­ pensive, is now becoming the emblematic national food, thanks to massive imports. And in this case as well, the hom ogeni­ sation o f the culinary landscape is occurring through the incor­ poration o f regional dishes (mahalle) such as Armenian sausage.41 In so far as these notions o f culinary citizenship and civic cuisine are pertinent, it is im portant to pay special attention to the globalisation o f certain habits that constitute a process that is perhaps m ore complex than those w ho attack Coca-C ola and other global corporations believe. Im ported models o f con­ sum ption are likely to prom ote the integration o f a national society, to repeat an observation made by Fariba Adelkhah regarding Iran: tea in M orocco, beer in black Africa, the potato in various European countries— all have become genuine sym­ bols o f belonging to the ‘im agined com m unity’, and it suffices to have heard, early in the m orning at the border station in Domodossola, an Italian stridently calling an itinerant coffee seller to realise that a recently adopted dish or drink can quickly becom e almost a national drug. M oreover the circulation of culinary customs facilitates, or at least indicates, cultural and later civic reconfigurations o f identity. Thus in Europe tourist ‘pil­ grimages’ (in the sense defined by Victor Turner and adopted by Benedict A nderson in discussing ‘administrative pilgrima­ ges’ in the N ew W orld42), the disappearance o f customs barriers, and the advent o f regulation by the European C om m unity have led to the popularisation, on the continental scale, o f habits w ith regional or national connotations, such as the baguette, pizza, espresso coffee, beer or feta cheese. T he production o f cam em bert in D enm ark is ultimately a case o f vice paying hom age to virtue that must w arm the heart o f any Frenchman w ho is a consistent supporter o f the Maastricht treaty. We should probably not push this line o f argument too far: their shared love o f slivovitz has not prevented Serbs, Croats

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and Bosnians from making war on each other and splintering the Yugoslav ‘imagined com m unity’. B ut the order o f food requires political respect, especially since it is closely linked to the process o f subjectivation (Michel Foucault) and to the def­ inition o f ‘lifestyles’ (Max W eber). In Europe, for instance, gastronomic creativity has been a fundamental aspect o f the ‘civilisation o f manners’, o f the gradual refinement o f social behaviour in growing segments o f the population, and o f mastery over the body through mastery over diet.43 T he con­ cept o f diet is often central to the concerns o f thinkers inter­ ested in ‘reform ing’ their fellows, even though there is a wide gap betw een the dietary preoccupations o f the ancients and those o f a Ceau§escu. In our ow n time it also characterises the reflexive project o f the Self prom oted by globalisation.44 W hen all is said and done, the interconnection o f the sphere o f politics and the sphere o f food is vigorous, and it is not w ithout reason that the novelist Lu Wenfu traces forty years o f Chinese comm unism through the tribulations o f a gourm et.45 In my view, the suggestive power o f this relationship betw een food and politics resides in the com bination o f four distinct properties. Feeding oneself is a necessary physiological act, w hich is at the same time an act o f intense pleasure whose sexualisation is clear, even in pre-Freudian societies. In this respect, it arouses passions and frustrations; it also crystallises moral qualities whose transgression can be a source o f scandal or dis­ approbation. In addition, this necessary, pleasant, and moral act is shared: it gives rise to privileged forms o f sociability and also represents an im portant stage in the socialisation o f children. Finally eating, the object o f an extreme investment, is at the same time a more banal act than, for example, the sexual one. These four characteristics o f necessity, pleasure, sharing and banality confer on the translation o f the culinary repertoire into political action its singular power becom ing itself a consti­ tutive principle o f the ‘politics o f the belly’, as in Africa, or at least a m etaphor and a preferred transaction, as in China.

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T h e p olitical sym b o lism o f clothing

Symbolism involving the body cannot be abstracted from its relationship to the material culture o f the society in w hich it functions. For example, there is no relationship to the body that is not simultaneously a relationship to clothing. For M ar­ shall Sahlins clothing ‘amounts to a very complex scheme of cultural categories’, w hich he is probably w rong in seeing as functioning ‘on a kind o f general syntax: a set o f rules for declining and com bining classes o f the clothing-form so as to formulate the cultural categories’: T h e clothing system in particular replicates for W estern society the func­ tions o f so-called totem ism . A sum ptuary m aterialisation o f the principal co-ordinates o f person and occasion, it becom es a vast schem e o f c o m m u ­ nication— such as to serve as a language o f everyday life am ong people w ho may well have n o p rio r intercourse or acquaintance. ‘M ere appearance’ m ust be one o f the m ost im p o rtan t form s o f symbolic statem ent in W estern civilization. For it is by appearance that civilization turns the basic contra­ diction o f its construction into a m iracle o f existence: a cohesive society o f perfect strangers. B u t in the event, its cohesion depends on a coherence o f a specific kind: on th e possibility o f apprehending others, their social co n ­ dition, and thereby their relation to o n e se lf‘on first glance’.46

O th er authors have shown that clothing codes are eminently contextual and relative: they are purveyors o f ambivalence b oth in the social dom ain and in the domain o f sexual identifi­ cation.47 Ultimately the expression ‘clothing system’ is mislead­ ing because it sums up under a single term both elusive and ambivalent practices. First o f all, clothing, like any cultural phe­ nom enon, involves both heritage and innovation: analysing it implies grasping ‘in a single m ovem ent stability and change in appearances’. M oreover, it consists in a ‘constitutive inter­ tw ining o f the real and the im aginary’, being ‘a way o f con­ ceiving o f the sensible’, in w hich ‘the spiritual and the material com bine w ith special force’: ‘There, the mental becomes bodily, the individualised body exposes the fugitive transcrip­ tions o f the person, clothing brings out the underground correspondences betw een m atter and spirit.’48 T he versatility

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o f clothing makes it a preferred means for constructing and negotiating identities: not only individual identities (just think o f a teenager’s anxieties w hen choosing clothes!), but also col­ lective ones. Clothes make the man, and political actors are well aware o f this. In India they convey saintliness, purity, or pollution, at the same time as it defines status.49 In the Middle Ages it ‘designated each social category’ and was a ‘veritable uniform ’: ‘W earing the clothing o f a class different from on e’s own amounts to com m itting the major sin o f ambition or de­ generating to a low er level.’50 In 1471 Lorenzo the M agni­ ficent was still being advised to change his dress in order to distance himself from the giovani age group and thus convince the Holy See o f his ‘seriousness’.51 As for the military dictators o f the tw entieth century, they often thought that it sufficed to appear on television in a three-piece suit in order to civilise their regimes and reassure public opinion. O ne m ight say, again parodying the French title o f J.L. A ustin’s book H o w to D o Things with Words, ‘Dressing is doing.’ T he performative nature o f clothing is often taken literally by religious reformers, revolutionaries, and even traditionalists. Thus, even in industrial societies, initiation rites generally include a symbolism o f clothing. In Japan students start wear­ ing a ‘recruitm ent suit’— invariably grey, w orn w ith a red-andwhite striped tie— as soon as they are hired, and not long ago in France the switch from short pants to long trousers marked boys’ yearned-for exit from childhood. Ultimately the ini­ tiatory quest merges w ith the clothing quest: for example, ‘sapenrs’* in the C ongo head off on ‘an adventure’ to Paris to buy luxury clothing, return hom e and parade around Brazza­ ville as ‘Parisians’, and, after having conducted a few successful raids, acquire the status o f ‘Greats’ ( Yaya).52 * Translator’s note Tropical dandies; sape is slang for ‘clothing’. By punning on sapeur (sapper, demolitions expert) and on sapeur-pompicr (fireman), the expression also invokes the imaguiaircs of the colonial military bureaucracy and subversion (to sap or undermine morale, to sap the regime).

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In the political arena the construction o f the new man sim­ ilarly requires that he dress in an appropriate way. D uring the French R evolution the C om m ittee o f Public Safety asked the painter Jacques-Louis David to design a national civilian uni­ form, an idea that was quickly abandoned after the fall o f Robespierre, but w hich did not exempt the Convention from considering w hat kind o f republican dress should be assigned to authorities, and from adopting a decree to this effect on the basis o f a report by Abbe Gregoire: ‘T he language o f signs has a peculiar eloquence: distinctive costumes are part o f this idiom; they awaken ideas and sentiments analogous to their object, especially w hen they grip the imagination by their striking character.’53 N o t being able to impose a national uniform , rev­ olutionary societies made the wearing o f the Phrygian cap and the tricolor cockade almost obligatory: at Largentiere, in the Ardeche, w om en had to wear the cockade ‘over the most sen­ sitive spot, w hich is the heart’, and the neighbouring tow n o f Joyeuse threatened to throw into prison any woman w ho failed to wear ‘this emblem o f liberty’ (sic).54 Dressing in conform ity w ith revolutionary norm s was proof o f republican virtue, even though the repertoire tended to diversify after the end o f the Terror, and acquired a redoubtable semiotic complexity under the Directory. N o matter, since, in the Republicans’view, ‘dress was not so m uch the measure o f the man as the maker o f the m an’.55 Similarly, Mustafa Kemal completed the abolition o f the caliphate by making it illegal to wear a fez: ‘Gentlem en, it was necessary to abolish the fez, w hich sat enthroned on the heads o f the nation as an emblem o f ignorance, negligence, fanaticism, and hatred o f progress and civilisation, and to accept in its place the hat, an article o f headgear in use throughout the civilised world; in this way, we shall show that the Turkish nation, in its m entality as in other respects, in no way deviates from civilised social life.’56 In China the imposition o f Maoist blue overalls reflected the same belief in the magical power o f fabrics. .

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As a constitutive element in processes o f identification, clo­ thing is quick to unleash passions. It is an issue not only in romantic relationships, but also in conflicts betw een parents and children, and between adults and young people. A m ong the W olofin Senegal, ‘to have a father is to be dressed by h im ’: ‘The child feels himself to be empowered by his father, to be beloved by his father, w hen he is well-dressed, w hen he ima­ gines other people seeing him well-dressed’, the Ortigues note; many o f their young patients suffered precisely from being ‘badly dressed’ by their progenitors. T he symbolic pow er o f fabric is such that a proverb says: ‘Some words w hich, if they were new pagnes *, we would wear.’57 In France too practices o f dress in families crystallise the inter-generational discords that shape the personalities o f children and adolescents: wearing a mini-skirt or, among boys, the initiatory transition from short pants to long pants has given rise to desires, prohibitions, frus­ trations, bitterness, negotiations, and tensions. Today in the West ‘training shoes are synonymous with independence and freedom; they prove that one is freeing oneself from family supervision; and they are also a symbol o f mobility, the confirm ation that one can escape one’s social milieu.’58 Young Londoners’ fasci­ nation with and desire to acquire nam e-brand trainers have led to muggings, while in Philadelphia fifteen-year-old Chris Demby was stabbed by a gang o f youths for his R eeboks.59 Clothing also materialises individuals’ sexual desire through various cultural or social repertoires and their own biogra­ phical itinerary. Occasionally it gives rise to fetishism.60 B ut this does not mean that it loses its polysemy, and this ambivalence adds to its emotive content. Shorts, a symbol o f the child’s de­ pendent status, can become a source o f pleasure in a young adult homosexual w ho wants to be ‘liberated’: ‘Handsome, loving prince, 28, dreams o f a cute little brother, 18-20, girlish face, beardless, sensual, childish, like a little boy. [...] Boy scout wel­ come. Enclose photo (in shorts if possible).’61 Nonetheless, in * Transactor’s note Colourful wax-printed fabrics, originally from Indonesia.

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the W est shorts have lost most o f their erotic connotation and as an emblem o f childhood they have been supplanted because they are widely w orn by adults due to the popularity o f sports­ wear— even if advertising continues to speak o f cheese for ‘gourmets in short pants’, Philippe Seguin m ocked the ‘bunch o f kids in short pants’ in Alain Juppe’s governm ent, and Alain T ouraine urged the Socialist Party to don ‘long trousers’: ‘The Socialist Party is facing a difficult decision that cannot be made in a few months. As the Chileans say, they have to put on “long trousers” instead o f shorts, and they have to have the courage to speak and act independently ,.. . ’62 O n the other hand, shorts are still deem ed scandalous in most M uslim socie­ ties, w here they are associated w ith ‘corruption’ (fesad). Thus Algerian Islamic fundamentalists attacked Hassiba Boulmerka, the w inner o f an Olym pic gold medal in the w om en’s 1,500 metres, for ‘running in shorts in front o f thousands o f m en’.63 T hey echoed the polemic that was unleashed for the same rea­ sons against Turkish w om en athletes during the inter-w ar pe­ riod.64 A nd in 1936 many parents in the holy city o f Q om , w ho were already upset about the prohibition on wearing the veil issued the preceding year, w ithdrew their boys from school because the new school uniform included ‘indecent’ short pants.65 But we should not smirk too readily at such prudishness and w hat it reveals o f the magical thinking o f those w ho are affected by it. In the late sixteenth century some Englishmen could not bear actors wearing w om en’s garments on stage: cross-dressing affected their virility and even the idea o f mas­ culinity.66 Similarly the very Cartesian, secular French republic is certain that wearing a hejab represents the subjection o f w om en to m en and a rejection o f the law. ‘In wearing the scarf, som ething m ore is involved than in wearing a cross or the kippa. T he scarf is more than a religious symbol. It includes the assertion that one must not mix, that for a M uslim secular law does not count; the only law that counts is Islamic law. But hum an rights often begin w ith w om en’s rights. These are two

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major dangers that are in contradiction both w ith the French national pact and w ith our republican pact’, averred Francois Bayrou, the minister o f education.67 This conception was wisely rejected by the Council o f State: In itself the scarf expresses nothing, unlike signs that are by themselves or by their historical use an incitem ent to hatred or violence. [...] T h e scarf is felt to be an attack on w o m en ’s dignity only by way o f a w hole reconstruct on the basis o f w hat one know s about Islamic religion or civilisation. It seems clear, how ever ... that neither the adm inistration n o r the ju d g e can get involved in such considerations.68

For several years political debate, academic or professional con­ flicts, and legal proceedings on this issue have been all the rage in France, revealing that the imaginaire o f clothing can elicit passions, even in an industrial society that is supposed to be ‘disenchanted’. Nevertheless, dress not only awakens issues o f power or status, but also participates in the pleasure that results from self­ realisation, w hen the latter is satisfying and always refers to positive norms. The commercial value o f clothing proceeds in part from the imaginary repertoires o f subjectivation and col­ lective mobilisation that create fashions, and often make them extremely volatile: in Mogadishu, for example, fashion follows a weekly cycle, and the price o f fabrics sold in the market on Thursday drops every day till the following Thursday; similarly, in Cote d’Ivoire commemorative pagnes are the object o f fever­ ish speculation.69 Practices o f dress are rites o f everyday life, both material and symbolic, through w hich the individual situates himself in society, and through which society is, ultima­ tely, established. In this way, they also constitute a formidable economic stake in both state-formation and nation-building. Clothing, like the entire cultural repertoire, is instrum entalised by political actors w ho use it to transmit messages o f authority, proximity, or protest, or again to refine their style. If Lorenzo the M agnificent’s concern was to make him self seem older and more ‘serious’, that o f Valery Giscard d ’Estaing was to seem young and m odern: thus in the 1960s he appeared on

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television wearing a sweater. In Japan M orihiro Hosokawa also cultivated an ‘unconventional’ style, for instance in the way he knotted his tie. A reader o f the weekly Aera wrote: ‘W hen I saw Hosokawa on television w ith other heads o f state, I was struck by the way he w ore his muffler, like a young man. I had never seen a prime minister dressed in this way. H e impressed m e very m uch.’ Zargana, a Burmese actor-political gadfly, w ent for a walk one day wearing a stylish shirt and a ragged longyi; everyone understood that he was m ocking the gap betw een the military regime and the people.70 In China students in Tiananm en Square set up a tw elve-m etre-high portrait o f their hero, H u Yaobang, wearing a suit and tie, opposite the official image o f M ao in his eponymous jacket: the clothing duel betw een the tw o dead leaders summed up the program o f the democrats. And in D ecem ber 1995, w hen the head o f state Jiang Zem in w anted to give Taiwan a milit­ ary warning, he presided over a m eeting o f C hina’s leaders in a drab olive-green shirt that he liked to w ear w hen inspecting the troops, rather than in a suit or the Com m unist official's jacket.71 As for the w om en students at the University o f T ehe­ ran w ho opposed the Pahlavi, even before the demand for an ‘Islamic R epublic’ began to spread, they wore veils to show their rejection o f a regime that had tried to prohibit the hejab in 1936 and had finally decided to tolerate it, but continued to regard it as a symbol o f traditionalism and backwardness.72 In the end, as we have seen, the building o f a governmental space tends to merge w ith the inculcation (or prohibition) o f a statem ent in terms o f clothing. As early as the first half o f the seventeenth century, long before French, Turkish, Chinese or Iranian revolutionaries, King Friedrich Wilhelm I o f Prussia understood the advantages to be gained from this kind o f sym­ bolism as a means o f centralising and modernising his country around a bureaucratic, parsimonious ethos. At court he wore only the uniform o f a simple regimental com m ander in order to express his attachm ent to the army. H e standardised and simplified the latter’s uniforms, reducing by almost half the

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quantity o f material required to make them by giving military dress an angular style that conform ed w ith his idea o f dis­ cipline. As for the rest, the Sergeant-King w ore only modest Prussian-made clothes as a way o f prom oting his protectionist program, which helped Prussia’s economy to ‘take off in a spectacular fashion.73 However, these voluntaristic measures, w hich seek to unify a political society through the m ediation o f a kind o f national dress, soon collide w ith the harsh realities o f the ‘form ation’ o f the state. In Zaire, for instance, the designation o f the abacost as ‘authentic’ clothing misfired, if only because the m an in the street could never afford to buy it: tailored in Europe by Arsoni, Fabrice or Charly, it quickly became the identity-related pre­ rogative o f the regim e’s nomenklatura.74 That does not mean that attempts to unify clothing, no m atter how incomplete, are w ithout importance; however, they are rarely carried out in a vacuum, entirely w ithout connection to the subterranean processes o f ‘form ing’ the imaginaire o f clothing, and w ithout having an effect on the latter. Thus the abacost has its origins not only in the M ao jacket that dazzled President M obutu during his visit to Beijing in 1973, but also in the style o f clothing w orn in the 1960s by West Africans living in the neighbourhoods o f Barum bu and Lingwala, in Kinshasa, in the ‘African’ dress w orn by Kwame N krum ah, in the sango o f his rival Felix Houphouet-Boigny, or in the ‘ministerial attire’ o f the Congolese political elite w ho came to power in Brazzaville after the 1963 revolution.75 Finally, a quick glance is all it takes to spot the abacost’s relationship to the safari jacket w orn by colonial administrators and w ith the comparable outfits w orn by their assistants and other catechists. If further evidence o f the political continuity from the colonial era to the post-colo­ nial state were required, we could provide it. And it is amusing to see the proponents o f authenticity parading around in the vaguely ‘tropicalised’ gear w orn by their form er masters, w hen they are so quick to criticise the cultural alienation o f ‘W hite

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N egroes’, even though at that time— and we shall return to this— w earing a suit and tie represented a symbolic revolution w ith regard to the detested era o f European colonialism. State building and state form ation through the repertoire o f clothing thus go hand in hand. T he global process o f ‘rational­ ising’ societies is partly mediated by practices o f dress. The birth o f the uniform in eighteenth-century Europe gave con­ crete form to several fundamental changes w ithin the Ancien Regime: the institutionalisation o f standing armies that equip­ ped foot soldiers w ith firearms and acquired m odern artillery; the consolidation o f the absolute monarchies, w hich defini­ tively liberated themselves from the feudal nobility and raised and paid their troops themselves; the search for a new con­ nection betw een civil society and military activity; the devel­ opm ent o f collective hygiene; and the creation o f a place in w hich m en perm anently took over functions that had been symbolically assigned to w om en.76 Friedrich W ilhelm Is devotion to the uniform should be seen in light o f these various transformations; it was not a simple epiphenom enon o f the enterprise o f modernisation undertaken by the Hohenzollerns, w hich culminated in the bloody ritual o f the First World War.77 O f course the new military dress did not precipitate so many changes. But con­ versely, we can hardly imagine the m odern state w ithout the uniforms that were, as Daniel R oche has w ritten, ‘a way o f domesticating violence, a tool for progress’.78 Granted, and W eber showed that democracy itself was the child o f the infantry and o f military discipline— o f the uniform .79 We should nonetheless be m ore thorough, and less optimistic. The uniform provided the symbolic framework for a general bureaucratisation that is m aking itself felt in the economic domain— certain enterprises supply their employees w ith spe­ cific clothing, their managers usually comply w ith an implicit dress code, and for a time labourers wore caps as a sign o f their mem bership in the w orking class.80 It is also apparent in the dom ain o f administration and public service, as well as in that

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o f mass destruction: the tw o world wars were fought in uni­ form, and it was uniformed SS m en w ho exterm inated the Jews, who themselves wore uniforms. In the final analysis, the clothing ritual incarnates a genuine Weltanschauung. Traditionalists were not w rong in vigorously opposing the introduction o f Western clothing into the armies o f Persia and the O ttom an empire at the beginning o f the nineteenth century: didn’t wearing farengi boots and scan­ dalously short garments violate the com m andments o f the Prophet, and suggest a coming conversion to Christianity?81 The political and economic revolutions that marked the nine­ teenth and twentieth centuries were inseparable from revo­ lutions in clothing, and were often experienced as such by actors. T he growing symbolic autonom y o f the clothing re­ gister provided a privileged stage on w hich the conflicts, com ­ promises, and alliances between the parties involved in social change were woven. It constituted one o f the ‘concrete gene­ tic relationships that inevitably take on their own individual character’82 and became matrices o f the formation o f the state. From this point o f view, it has often consisted in a pure and simple invention o f tradition. The clothing-related ethnogenesis o f Scottish identity in the Highlands provides a first example. As everyone knows, genuine Scots wear kilts and play bagpipes. However, the tradi­ tional garb o f the Highlanders evolved only ‘after, and some­ times long after, the U nion w ith England, against w hich it is, in a sense, a protest’.83 In both hum an and cultural terms, western Scotland was a colony o f Ulster, to w hich it remained con­ nected till the mid eighteenth century. It did not have its own traditions, and was part o f the Celtic cultural sphere, from w hich it freed itself only in the late eighteenth century, thanks to an extensive re-w riting o f history. In a second phase Lowland Scotland, w hich was populated by Piets, Saxons and Normans, adopted this new identity-related ideology. W earing kilts was an innovation that occurred fortuitously in the 1730s against this background: ‘T he kilt is a purely m odern costume,

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designed and first w orn by an English Q uaker industrialist w ho bestowed it upon the Highlanders not to preserve their traditional way o f life but to ease its transformation: to bring them out o f the heather and into the factory.’84 Like all other distinctive signs o f regional identity, the governm ent in Lon­ don prohibited it after the Jacobite rebellion o f 1745. W hen the ban was lifted thirty-five years later, the wearing o f the kilt spread again, not among the low er classes for w hom it was originally intended but am ong the gentry and the bourgeoi­ sie, thanks to the R om antic m ovem ent w hich was sweeping through E urope and rehabilitating the lost innocence o f the Savage and the peasant. Above all, the Highland regiments of the British Army, w hich had been created by William Pitt the Elder immediately after the 1745 rebellion, and which had been exem pted from the ban on distinctive clothing, gradually adop­ ted the kilt. T he Scots probably also owe to the Highland reg­ iments the differentiation o f the motifs and colours that were eventually associated with the various clans as the Romantic sensi­ bility brought them back into fashion during the nineteenth century. After the prohibition on distinctive clothing was lifted in 1782, the kilt em erged as the symbol o f a particularism that threatened to becom e national, though not w ithout protests by certain scholars w ho were aware that this was fraudulent. The military continued to play a crucial role in its diffusion, partic­ ularly after the battle o f Waterloo in w hich the Highland reg­ iments distinguished themselves. Sir Walter Scott’s novels, which prepared the way for George IV’s visit to Edinburgh in 1822, did the rest, and the definition o f the Scottish ‘imagined com­ m unity’ henceforth passed through the filter o f the Celtic m ino­ rity, w hich had long been considered ‘barbarian’, and whose identity was now embodied in a strange garment, designed more than a century earlier by an English Quaker. Sir Walter Scott’s son-in-law went so far as to speak o f a collective ‘hallucination’. But, as we have amply seen, it is always at the cost o f such illusions that cultures and identities crystallise. W hat is inter-

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esting in the case o f Scotland is that the ‘hallucination’ was related to clothing, and that it allowed a restive province to forge a political consciousness at the same time that it was re­ negotiating its relationship to the centre o f the kingdom. From this point o f view, regional costume served simultaneously to condense conflicts and to precipitate compromises. T he abo­ lition o f the legislation regarding distinctive dress in 1782 was celebrated in Scotland as a victory o f the Celtic tartan over Saxon trousers. But this success was made possible only through the British army, and it was systematised by the m odem textile industry, w hich marketed the kilt w ith the cultural guarantee o f the Highland Society o f London and the political approval o f Q ueen Victoria.85 In its ambivalence the history o f the kilt is symbolic. It is also the history o f the N orth African fez, w hich the Sublime Porte imposed on its army in 1828, despite traditionalists’ reserva­ tions, and w hich in a few decades became the hated or beloved symbol o f the very tradition that Mustafa Kemal attacked.86 Similarly, in Java, the rulers and the new elites wavered between the autochthonous style (earn fa w i) and the D utch style (cara Walandt), and this hesitation became one o f the matrices o f the idea o f an Indonesian nation from the nineteenth century on, by reifying a local tradition and appropriating elements o f European m odernity; in other words, it was one o f the ways in w hich the colonial nationalism discussed by A nderson was imagined.87 The political autonomisation o f clothing as a point where political battles crystallise, as a site where compromises between the protagonists in these battles are negotiated, and as a major locus o f social innovation, cannot be understood unless we keep in m ind its close relationship w ith the process o f subjectivation. Clothing materialises the more or less conscious claim to a lifestyle, w ith its aesthetics, its values, its normative idea o f the polish moral economy, and thus, in short, its relationship to politics. T he sartorial im agination then frees itself in turn and becomes an issue in its own right in confrontations or

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conciliations: the ‘social drama’ becomes a clothing drama. A similar reduction occurs even m ore easily if it is based on a unique history or econom y that emphasises the role o f cloth­ ing in society. This was the case in India, whose textile industry was one o f the most flourishing in the world, where clothing systems were at the heart o f the caste system, and where a ‘controlled diver­ sity o f styles’, rather than the prom otion o f uniforms showed the grandeur o f the M ughal empire.88 W ith the help o f colo­ nisation and the industrial revolution, British firms established themselves in the Indian market, and the cause o f indigenous producers ruined by imports became the nationalists’ key theme from the turn o f the century onward. T he process was m uch m ore complex, however, than official historiography makes it seem. Indian consum ers’ fascination w ith foreign textiles was initially a recognition o f their convenience and quality, even w ith regard to certain autochthonous values— they were re­ puted to be easier to take care of, ‘purer’— and it also reg­ istered an equivocal form o f adhesion to the new Raj, w hich was also found in other domains, for example in the course o f the transform ation o f religious philanthropy into charitable w ork in the Victorian m anner.89 In fact, the princely rulers o f the sub-continent had adopted Western dress in the early eighteenth century, w ithout, however, neglecting the alter­ natives on offer in other Asian courts or the Sublime Porte: extroversion in clothing provided them w ith precious sources o f prestige. Later, European or neo-European clothing con­ tinued to offer the R a j’s elites a w hole range o f accessories that conferred a specific appearance on their strategies and social practices: drinkers and meat-eaters wore trousers, lawyers and journalists adopted English clothing rituals, m odernist Sunni Muslims tem pered their W estern dress by sporting Turkish headgear, while their Shia counterparts wore hats like those favoured by Persian reformers. W hen Bengali nationalists made the defence o f local industry their chief objective during the Swadeshi (lit. ‘o f our

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ow n country’) campaign o f 1905—8, they situated themselves on this terrain o f subjectivation and sought to invert the imaginary register that had gradually legitimised im ported textiles. Domestic weaving was praised as a symbol o f the spiritual and moral rebirth o f India: ‘W e must be swadeshi in all things, in our thoughts, and in our educational m ethods and developm ent.’90 Boycotts and campaigns to destroy im ported cloth were launched, especially in Bengal, during the protest m ovem ent against the partition o f the province; the protesters bathed in the Ganges, put on Indian clothes, and tied around the wrists o f other protesters bracelets traditionally symbolis­ ing the ties betw een siblings, and that were now supposed to represent national brotherhood. Because it cost more, locally made clothing was associated by figures like Sri A urobindo w ith a regenerative sacrifice on the part o f both the individual and the nation. Singers, actors and preachers w orked to combat the prejudices, suggesting that im ported textiles were purer than local products, and village artists sought to associate the latter with images o f maternity. It is well know n that Gandhi did a great deal to resituate wearing Indian garments in the repertoire o f purity, seeing in hom e weaving a veritable prayer (mantra), w ithout bothering himself w ith the econom ic con­ tradictions involved in this view. In a very different historical and cultural context, clothing practices in sub-Saharan Africa illustrate well the same ability to condense the subtle interplay o f conflict and compromise between social actors, and to embody the process o f subjectivating them and o f being a major purveyor o f modernity. As in India, the symbolisms o f clothing (but also those o f nudity) played a crucial role in delimiting power and dependency. The ostentatious display o f rare goods, and especially o f jewellry, was a ‘barom eter o f success and influence’91 that manifested the status o f the great. In this respect, clothing could also be per­ ceived as a representation and an extension o f the person whose achievements it expressed.92 C ontrary to a com m on view, it was thus the object o f clearly individual practices and creations that were docum ented in late nineteenth- and early tw entieth-

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century photographs.93 Because o f its value, clothing might also serve as a currency o f exchange.94 But— in fundamental contrast w ith respect to India, w hich was, in the late seventeenth century, the w orld’s leading ex­ porter o f textiles— production by African craftsmen was limited and vulnerable, irrespective o f its aesthetic merits. In the Congo basin, for instance, notables seem to have abandoned raffia for European or Indian fabrics as early as the mid eighteenth century, and imports rapidly increased.95 Even more than in Asia, perhaps, clothing extraversion was a crucial resource in autochthonous political battles, in accord w ith the logic o f the reinvention o f difference inherent in globalisation: ‘patterns from w ithout, meaning from w ithin’, as Christraud Geary sums it up in speaking about the adoption, and later abandonm ent, o f G erm an military style by the king o f Bam um (in western Kamerun, then under Germ an control) in the early tw entieth century.96 T he most spectacular expres­ sion o f the repertoire o f ostentatious rivalry to w hich the powerful became addicted was the multiplication o f cere­ monial rituals that aroused astonishment and condescension in European observers. At the end o f the nineteenth century the Marquis de Com piegne described precisely the refinement o f dress o f the M pongw e grand moude (high society) along the coast o f Gabon, and recalled what Griffon du Bellay had w ritten: ‘Every day for almost six weeks [King Denis] was able to appear to his amazed subjects in a different costume, each m ore brilliant than the last: one day dressed as a French general, the next as a marquis in Moliere, and then as an English admiral, and always wearing a wig.’97 Similarly, in Madagascar the M erina court and high society developed an extraordinarily sophis­ ticated and controlled ‘theatre o f pow er’,98 during which corteges and masked balls dramatised the issues involved in the m odernisation and Christianisation o f the kingdom, using numerous Western, Creole, and Arab disguises: A n u m b er o f m eanings are invested in such displays: they are defiant displays directed tow ard foreigners, and intended to show that Malagasy

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p ow er is capable o f assimilating the decorum on w hich they pride th em ­ selves and integrating it into its ow n decorum . T h ey are also com petitive displays on the part o f the tw o great rival families (hova), flaunting their wealth, and exhibiting the latest gifts m ade them by the king. Finally, they are ail outlet for the im agination o f a high society restricted by all sorts o f interdictions and constantly subject to royal w him s, w hich are sources o f both life and death. K ept on a leash, but incited to engage in the game, the urban bourgeoisie invests and dissipates in the diversions o f disguise its concern w ith regard to the political situation and its implicit wish to see the w hole society ch an g e."

Thus it was that the dress o f pages and royal favourites in the European Middle Ages was used to conceive m odernity in the Indian Ocean!100 Viewed in this way, the presentation o f Lohengrin’s helmet to the Chagga chief takes on a significantly richer m eaning than might at first have been supposed. In itself, it symbolises the immense labour o f recom position that was carried out during colonialism under the cover o f clothing practices. This inevitably involved numerous conflicts over the order o f clothing that set not only the colonised against the colonisers, but also the colonised against each other, in relation to their aspirations, interests and values. T he attitude o f the Europeans was itself quite confused, in addition to the fact that their views varied from the administrators to the missionaries and from one colonial or evangelising tradition to another. T heir ultimate objective was to ‘civilise’ African societies, and this involved, in one way or another, making them wear ‘re­ spectable’ Western clothes. It was also im portant to preserve their ‘culture’, if only in order to keep the natives in their place. The register o f clothing was admirably suited to such vari­ ations in ambivalence, it being understood that Africans did not lag behind from this point o f view, and continued to adhere to the cultural codes o f those against w hom they were fighting w ith increasing alacrity. Thus wearing trousers or a pagne came to stylise the tri­ angular relationship among the necessities o f ‘colonial devel­ opm ent’, the new autochthonous elites’ strategies o f social emancipation and the conservatism o f the native establishment.

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As usual, B ruce Berman and John Lonsdale have offered a good account o f the terms o f the debate as it occurred in Kenya: ‘T he role o f the administration was to guide the Afri­ can along the road to a higher civilisation, while preserving the organic integrity o f society. [...] T he African politicians, the m en in trousers, interposed themselves betw een the administrator and “his people”, the m en in pagnes.’m B ut the ‘m en in trousers’, w hether officials o f associations or simple migrant workers, w ere well aware that in their native villages they had to w ear blankets appropriate to com m on people if they w anted to avoid open confrontation w ith their nota­ bles.102 These tensions w ere particularly strong in the Christian churches. At a very early stage converts were designated as ‘clothing people’ because they adopted European modes of dress. B ut the missionaries themselves generally opposed the craze for W estern fashions, lam enting that ‘our religion should consist in large part in wearing a pair o f trousers’.103 In Freretow n, Kenya, the C hurch Missionary Society discouraged the w earing o f trousers.104 A nd in Tanganyika the Universities Mission to C entral Africa’s battle against the Beni dance m ovem ent, w hich began to spread from the Swahili-speaking coast to the interior in the 1890s, was focused on this issue. According to the missionaries, w ho sought to prom ote a nativist pastoral vision, it was the same ‘inferiority com plex’ that drove Africans to adopt the customs o f the Swahili-speaking coast and colonising powers, w hether in the form o f dance steps or long trousers. T he latter, according to the bishop o f Masasi, V incent Lucas, were nothing less than a forerunner o f Bolshevism. According to testimony collected by Terence R anger in this diocese, the dance society had nothing to do w ith any C om m unist organisation, o f course, and its prohi­ bition by Lucas is to be explained simply by the fact that ‘the priests did not w ant the m en to w ear trousers’.105 Even shorts w ere disapproved o f by the missionaries, although they were com m only w orn on the plantations and places o f work, and w ere eventually adopted in schools, albeit reluctantly, as late as

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the 1930s, students in Chidya, Tanganyika, still had to threaten to rebel to get Vincent' Lucas to allow them to wear trousers rather than the old-fashioned shuka, w hich was supposed to express their Africanness.106 In these battles, which they could not win, churchm en received a sympathetic hearing from autochthonous notables w ho linked lack o f discipline and even depravity am ong young men and w om en w ith their new ways o f dressing.107 Thus it is hardly surprising that these symbolic systems later became one o f the dividing lines between nationalist movements and col­ laboration w ith the colonial powers. If in 1940 the activism o f a small group o f Portuguese and m estizo students at the sec­ ondary school in Nova Lisboa was described as a ‘rebellion o f the short pants’ in order to minimise its importance, the mere fact o f being calcinhas* that is dressed in the European style, led a num ber o f Angolans to be killed in Malanga tw enty-one years later during the repression o f the revolt o f April 1961.108 In French Equatorial Africa, there was similar suspicion re­ garding ‘advanced’ people, some o f w hom were supposed to be ‘crazy about terylene trousers’.109 In 1939, in Cam eroon, Paul Soppo Prisot caused a scandal by trying to jo in the army to fight against Hitler, ‘wearing the colonists’ combat boots and helmet, and not the native colonial infantrym en’s uniform ’.110 Wearing shoes provided another bone of contention between the new African elites and the coloniser. In Kenya, for instance, wearing shoes was long prohibited inside missionary buildings, and in Congo-Brazzaville servants, night watchm en and also native colonial infantrymen and policemen had to go barefoot. In 1936 a bitter controversy even arose betw een African foot­ ball teams and the French administration, w hich wanted to continue to ban the wearing o f football boots.111 Grafting itself on to already overloaded clothing imagitiaires, this kind o f dis* From cal(ao, trouser. t A Duala notable who became president of the Territorial Assembly after the Second World War.

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crim ination probably helped make wearing European clo­ thing even m ore desirable. M oreover, far from forbidding the adoption o f European clothing, in some ways colonisation made it easier while simultaneously implementing a Malthusian culturalism that was opposed to Africans wearing such clothing. In any event, the facts are clear: the constant increase in imports, even if they consisted o f second-hand clothing, m ul­ tiplied the possibilities o f extraversion in this domain and Afri­ cans became massively involved in clothing, as borne out by the often high proportion o f the family budget devoted to this expense.112 It is also indicated by the recurrence o f social move­ ments that emphasised dress, in particular in the club scene. T he ‘Societe des ambianceurs et de personnes elegantes’ (SAPE) in the Bakongo quarter o f Brazzaville (see Justin-Daniel Gandoulou’s fine study o f this group) is not an isolated case. M ore­ over, in the C ongo itself it was preceded by clubs— the Existos, Cabaret, Simple and Good, the Club o f Six— that were also w orshipping elegance during the 1960s, once again to the great dismay o f the Catholic C hurch.113 M ore or less every­ w here on the continent, many associations were devoted for social reasons to dressing well or wearing a certain category o f clothing— in Leopoldville, for instance, members o f the May Gul club m et on Saturdays, drinking beer, wearing shirts over their trousers, w ithout ties and barefoot. O r they pursued activities directly connected w ith these practices, on the model o f Beni dance groups in East Africa, Kalela dance groups in northern Rhodesia, Tchiloli theatre in Sao Tome, or Hawka possession cults in Niger, w hich adopted the repertoire o f the uniforms w orn by the colonial army and administration.114 Above all, and in a m ore diffuse way, the concern for elegance characterised most o f the W estern-type social relationships that gradually spread (including those w ith religious pretexts— church services were a significant occasion for sartorial display).115 These m ight consist o f simply walking around, as in the case o f turn-of-the-century Brazzaville, described by Gaston B outellier, w hich was subsequently systematised by ‘sapeurs’.Ub

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‘Clothes do not make the man,’ comm itted, dejected intel­ lectuals complained, dismayed to witness such excessive and unproductive expense, echoing the Catholic press and the colonial administration, although for different reasons. They also saw in this development a sort o f escapism detrim ental to social solidarity, to the emancipation o f Africans and eventually to the nationalist struggle.117 In doing so, they were doubly mistaken: clothes do make the man, and it is w orth noting that some initiation rituals have adopted Western clothing reper­ toires. A m ong the Luo o f Kenya, during the ‘festival o f new clothes’ that marked the symbolic transformation o f the child into an adult, as early as the 1930s, children were no longer given an animal skin but rather a shirt and a pair o f shorts or trousers. Similarly, among the Soninke in Mali, a ‘cerem ony o f putting on trousers’ theoretically put the adolescent on an equal footing w ith his father.118 It must be acknowledged that European dress is often con­ ceived as a way o f achieving plenitude. Overtly borrow ing Western genres, it confers social respect on the wearer, is a condition o f entrance into the public sphere, and provides intense satisfaction. ‘I feel so good w hen I’ve got on top-ofthe-range clothes that nothing else exists for me. I’m on cloud nine. T hen I can go places where I don’t usually go. I can walk a very long way, just to be seen. It’s as if I were soaring above the whole universe. In general I go to public places because I want to please, to be seen: bars w here there is dancing, cafes, the main avenues and intersections etc.,’ confesses a sapeur w ithout concealing the fact that his clothing guarantees that girls will be attracted to him as bees to honey.119 In Abidjan a boy’s family begins to train him in ‘elegance’ at a very young age, and later the teenager interiorises ‘elegance’ as ‘an imperative practice’ that ‘appears to him in the form o f requirements’.120 A young declasse in secondary school reports that if a student does not acquire new clothes, other students ‘will gradually exclude him from the group. T hey form groups in relation to taste. For example, there is a group that likes to go

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dancing; they dance well, in great clothes. T o get into this group, even if you live in the neighbourhood, you have to dance well and you have to dress well. There are other groups that like to talk, and then clothes are also involved. Each group has a certain idea about clothes.’ R eady-to-w ear cloth­ ing is more valuable than tailored, and should be bought abroad if possible. Even w hen imitated by local tailors, the style is un­ mistakably W estern: ‘Am erican’, ‘Italian’, ‘disco’ or ‘reggae’. ‘Dressing w ell’ (bien friuguer) is particularly indispensable for the great priority o f social life, seducing w om en: ‘In C ote d ’Ivoire, it is very rare for a girl to fall in love w ith a boy if he has neither m oney nor elegance,’ another boy notes. T here is also a place for m ore sentimental relationships. C urrent voca­ bulary distinguishes betw een tw o roles for male lovers: the grotau, w ho seduces by means o f his social position, and the genitau, the ‘soul m ate’. But elegance is required o f ‘little char­ m ers’ as well as o f ‘big guys’. Elegance is a classic marker o f social status that makes it possible to know immediately w ho is who: ‘W e ourselves create classes by means of our gear,’ points out a young resident o f Abidjan. But since a class is a ‘com ­ m unity’,121 clothing is at the same time a principle ofsubjectivation, a producer o f a lifestyle, that is, an ethos. O n the other hand, however, it is not clear that these kinds o f sartorial practices lead us as far from politics as some com ­ m itted intellectuals or conservative intellectuals fear. After all, in Congo-Brazzaville the Jeunesse du m ouvem ent national de la revolution (J M N R , a youth organisation connected w ith the new regime that emerged from the 1963 revolution), mobilised against lineage and the post-colonial state ‘virtually all’ young people betw een the ages o f fourteen and thirty, fighting as well on the sartorial front.122 In some ways the m ovem ent inserted itself into the range o f clothing-related mobilisations that stretches from the N ew Year’s Day parade described by Gaston Boutellier to the Existos and ‘sapeurs\ A nd we must not forget also the pronounced taste for various trinkets o f W estern m odernity manifested by young fighters in

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Somalia, Liberia and Sierra Leone: their wars are to some extent a kind o f aggressive form o f rural exodus whose style is determined not only by Kalashnikovs and ‘technicals’ (pick­ up trucks m ounted w ith large-calibre m achine-guns or anti­ aircraft guns) but also by w om en’s wigs and sunglasses.123 This is not the place to discuss at length the hidden political meanings o f these practices, as some people have sought to do for the sapeurs. Thankfully, the playful portion o f aesthetics and pleasure that constitutes their specificity seems irreducible. But since for a long time the moral authorities o f traditional societies, colonial regimes and Christian churches allowed young people and w om en to engage in such practices in only a very limited way, in themselves they were and remain an im portant political issue. In a historical and cultural situation in w hich the art o f dress and ornam entation was equalled only by the control over it by those w ho held power, and in w hich it represented a symbolic resource o f great importance, the colo­ nial encounter implied an immense revolution in clothing that allowed those in inferior positions— young people, w om en— to elude a num ber o f prohibitions and to appropriate for their own advantage the culture o f extraversion. This was one o f the ways in w hich the European occupation was legitimised. It goes w ithout saying that the traditional elites did not remain passive w ith regard to this threat o f a symbolic deregulation that they had been facing for at least a century: their prosperity allowed them to maintain, here and there, at least for a time, their m onopoly on chic, as was the case for the Creoles in Sierra Leone and the Americo-Liberians. N o r should we forget the regions o f sub-Saharan Africa on w hich Islam im ­ posed different clothing-related political problematics. These involved either another textile genre o f social ascent or by providing the colonising power w ith ready-to-w ear clothing intended for the docile, collaborating native: thus we have the Zanzibar style beloved by the missions and the British adm in­ istration in East Africa.124 But, on the whole, we can say that the novi homines w ho directly benefited from the ‘second

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colonial occupation’ in the 1930s, led the nationalist m ove­ ments in the 1950s, and eventually took pow er w hen their countries gained independence, pursued this brilliant political itinerary in trousers, and then in neo-Safari jackets, and finally in a suit and tie, only to be supplanted in some cases by milit­ ary m en in richly coloured and brocaded uniforms. T he ‘im ported state’125 was grafted onto black Africa largely through the m ediation o f clothing styles. However, this par­ ticular manifestation o f globalisation, as one might expect, continues to be accompanied by the reinvention o f difference: it is also through the m ediation o f clothing that Africans have negotiated on a day-to-day basis their relationship w ith the West. In fact, matters have not always been as distinct as the Kenyan conflict betw een trousers and pagnes suggests. M ost people refused to choose so categorically betw een the two ‘looks’, and com bined them as they saw fit.126 T he fertile line o f the colonial administration’s neo-safari jackets, right down to its ‘tropicalised’ offspring, the abacost, is the direct result o f such a creative synthesis. Thus the ‘outfit’ (complet) favoured by the ‘big m en in C ote d ’Ivoire: [This outfit] consists o f a shirt and trousers, bo th cut to m easure from the same light cloth o f a neutral colour (tobacco, blue, som etim es grey). T he straight, n o n -fitted, short-sleeved shirt falls below the waist; the buttons do n o t look exactly like those o f an ordinary shirt: there are fewer o f them , and they are larger in diam eter; the form o f the lapel, the possible addition o f square outside pockets and the choice o f a gabardine fabric m ake it look even m ore like a shirt-jacket. A n outfit that remains foreign to rapid chan­ ges in fashion, and com m only w o rn by salaried employees (especially in offices), this ‘o u tfit’ is w o rn w ith n either tie n o r coat. O n e m ight think that such a un ifo rm m ig h t lead em inent governm ent figures to be confused w ith subordinate officials? In reality, the austere sim plicity o f the m odel makes possible a set o f distinctions through the quality o f the cut, the style, and the m aterials; as always in C o te d ’Ivoire, social disproportions are n e ith e r dissimulated n o r treated euphemistically. W hatever the indices that distinguish the ‘o u tfit’ o f a ‘big guy’, this city-dw eller’s clothing is African, and it is virtually the only African article o f clothing w o rn in public by the d om inant groups; in fact, there are very few occasions (funerals, various rituals) rep o rted in the press and on television on w h ich the political class adopts traditional dress.127

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To analyse the subtle equilibriums w hich are at the heart o f the political system in C ote d’Ivoire, Em m anuel Terray has used the allegory o f the veranda and air-conditioning.128 To the ex­ tent that these two poles correspond in theory to traditional dress and the suit and tie, the ‘outfit’ provides a symbolic mediation betw een the two. Moreover, in the middle classes it coexists w ith other styles that apportion the dose o f Africanness differently: the bubus that copy or modernise traditional forms while ‘detribalising’ or ‘deconfessionalising’ them , and the ‘ensembles’ composed o f trousers and an ample tunic, in bright colours and made to order in grasscloth, batik, indigo, or English embroidery.129 The fact that clothing practices have been central to Afri­ cans’ appropriation o f the state as well as to the— at least symbolic— social revolution that they have been undergoing for more than a century and the ways in w hich they are nego­ tiating the broad curve o f globalisation, together explain the persistent bitterness o f political conflicts in the domain o f dress. These are usually limited and anecdotal clashes that nonetheess remind us o f the emotive content o f this register. O ne sub­ prefect, a recent graduate in administration, undertook the Sisyphean task o f disciplining the peasants and m aking them observe elementary rules o f modesty: INTERNAL MEMO to all neighbourhood heads a n d officials o f neighbourhood watch com m ittees in L o u m

It has com e to my attention that m any individuals, both m en and w om en, have acquired the deplorable habit o f bathing un d er the open skies in certain areas o f the marshlands frequented by the public, w ith o u t taking care to cover themselves w ith a bathing suit or even a simple pair o f u n d e r­ shorts. A m ong those w h o have often been seen naked are m arried w om en bathing at the same tim e as unknow n young people from various neigh­ bourhoods, thus shamelessly exposing their nudity to every passer-by. T his practice, w hich seems to be a very old one in the district, n o t only has unfortunate repercussions on the h o n o u r o f certain respectable m arried

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w o m e n o f L O U M , b u t in addition dangerously corrupts o u r young people, w h o m it introduces at an early age to debauchery. For this reason, it is strictly forbidden th ro u g h o u t the area o f L O U M to bath in public w ith o u t a bathing suit or undershorts. Violators o f this rule will im m ediately receive a sum m ons to present themselves to be sanc­ tioned in accord w ith the provisions o f article 263 o f the Federal Penal C o d e regarding offences against public m odesty. All n eig h b o u rh o o d heads and all officials o f n eighbourhood w atch com ­ m ittees are therefore requested to see to it that this m em o is w idely dis­ tributed, and n o t to hesitate to report violators should the occasion arise. Police brigade com m anders in L O U M and N Y O B E are entrusted, each in his o w n area, w ith the strict application o f the present internal m e m o .130

In Natal Inkatha militiamen killed w om en w ho wore trousers and boys w earing training shoes because ‘these are symbols o f modernity and anything modern is associated with the A N C ’.131 Soldiers in C had attacked a trader, asking him ‘w hether I was unaware that throughout the world, only the authorities wore trousers and headgear, and that com m on people didn’t have the right to do so’.132 President M obutu, w ho wanted to halt the social advancement o f w om en, put it this way: ‘This inclusion o f w om en, we w ant it at all levels [...]. W e w ant to re­ cognise that the Z airian m am a has the rights that are conferred on h e r as an equal partn er w ith m en. B ut o f course w hen all is said and done in every family there will always be a boss. A nd lacking evidence to the contrary, the boss, in o u r society, is the one w h o wears the pants. O u r w om en citizens have to understand that, and accept it w ith a smile and revolutionary submission.’133

Sartorial confrontations can gather great m om entum , becom ­ ing a ‘total social phenom enon’ (Marcel Mauss). We will give only one example, but a famous one: that o f Zaire. W hen in 1990 President M obutu had to resign him self to the estab­ lishm ent o f a m ulti-party system, he understood that merely lifting the de facto prohibition on wearing a suit and tie would make his thaw seem more credible: ‘In the political context previously described, we have established a national costum e such as exists in m any o th er countries. In o u r society, this is called the abacost. H ow ever, although it will continue to be the national costum e, I

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believe that in this dom ain as well each Zairean can exercise his o w n free choice. Exercising m ine, I should explain that you will not see m e in a tie; I m ade m y choice in February 1972. I am very com fortable being a Z ai­ rean nationalist.’

For a decade, the militants in the opposition party, T he U nion for Democracy and Social Progress, defied the regime by occa­ sionally wearing ties or European suits.134 But M o b u tu ’s April 24 speech was followed by an unprecedented clothing m obili­ sation that gave the masses in the country’s principal cities a rather surrealistic outdated look: everyone dug out old, w orn clothes from the 1960s to celebrate the return o f democracy, or at least the end o f the dictatorship. The latter, however, quickly recovered. Its henchm en, w hen they w eren’t ransacking the offices o f opposition newspapers, attacked people in the street wearing suits, w ho were immediately assumed to be connec­ ted with the hated UDPS. M oreover television presenters at Tele-Zaire were forbidden to wear a tie on screen, even though one o f the president’s men, a form er head o f the secret service, tried to be reassuring: ‘I sometimes wear a tie because I want to show that the president’s decision is sincere and must first be given concrete form by his associates. T he tie is not a symbol that belongs to the opposition, after all!’135 T he Kasaians o f the Shaba region understood: to m ock Nguza Karl i Bond, w ho had once again betrayed the opposition, they put ties on dogs, called them by his name, and walked them about.136 In O cto ­ ber 1994, the country was rocked to its heels w hen, for the first time in twenty years, President M obutu appeared on television wearing, instead o f an abacost, an open-collared shirt w ith a scarf.137 The ambivalence o f the ‘democratic transition’ in Zaire was clothing-related. The French R evolution ended in similar confusion produced by the desire for revenge felt by the incroyables and the muscadins, the dandies w ho w ent about the streets o f Paris after the fall o f Robespierre, shouting ‘P ut your knee-breeches back on!’, and also by the quarrel betw een the proponents o f trousers and o f knee-breeches at the turn o f the nineteenth century.

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As a final example o f the symbolic power o f clothing as an ‘abridged translation’ (Freud) o f politics, we may cite a case in w hich social drama tends to merge w ith a drama o f clothing: namely in the Islamic world. T he main thread o f the plot is, o f course, w om en w earing the veil, although m en wearing shorts, a kainis (shirt) or a tie also constitute significant themes. This is a complicated plot full o f dramatic reversals, for not all the characters in the play agree on how it should end. B ut ‘Islamic culture’ will not w rite the script. Consider the following. For Ali Shariati ‘the veil is a chain that holds our w om en prisoner and humiliates them ’. However, for another inspirer o f the Iranian revolution, Nawab-Safavi, the libido is ‘the primary m otor o f psychic life’; the frenetic search for satisfaction weak­ ens the m an’s nervous system; the sexually exciting parts o f the w om an’s body distract him, keep his intellect from functioning properly, and hinder him from fulfilling his social responsi­ bilities: thus the veil is necessary, and should expose to others only the face; a w om an w ithout a veil is as if naked, she is syn­ onymous w ith ‘moral perversion’ and ‘social degeneracy’.138 Thus two em inent thinkers w ith contrary opinions both appeal to Islam, and a single principle— encouraged or rejec­ ted— is interpreted in various ways: ‘U nanim ity concerning the principle o f “the face and the hands”* does not prevent there from being [...] a real multiplicity o f forms o f the hejdb. These forms are w om en’s responsibility, and [...] they must see to it themselves that the principle is applied, on the basis o f their ow n interpretation o f the verses in the Koran and their ideological demands,’ writes Fariba Adelkhah concerning Iran, emphasising that ‘this variety o f the forms o f the hejab’ is based ‘on relatively diverse opinions’.139 * Some members o f the clergy insisted that women must cover their faces and hands, as well as their bodies and hair. This debate was largely settled in Iran in the nineteenth century by Ayatollah Ansari, Ayatollah Khomeini s official mentor, who decreed the ‘principle of vajh-o kaffeyn’ (literally, ‘the face and the hands’), implying that the face and hands could remain uncovered.

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W omen, and especially militant Islamic w omen, thus have to choose between the traditional chador (a piece o f cloth, gen­ erally black, that covers the body from head to foot, open in the front, and that has to be held closed w ith the hands), the rnaqna’eh, a sort o f cowl that falls over the shoulders as far as the elbow, and that is now recognised as correct attire in gov­ ernm ent offices, or the Islamic mantle, a long garm ent w orn over pants and accompanied by a scarf o f varying colour. W omen make their choices in relation not only to their tastes and convictions, but also to circumstances. For example, a woman may don a black chador to enter a sanctuary, a coloured chador to move about inside, or a m aqna’eh to drive in town, carry a child or do errands. Moreover, the form o f the hejab has changed over the years o f the Islamic R epublic’s existence: in the early days o f the revolution, it often consisted o f a scarf that was knotted under the chin and did not hide the shoulders, a loose blouse that fell over a skirt or pants w ithout hiding the figure, and heavy tights— an outfit that would later be con­ sidered unacceptable. In other words, the principle o f the veil, in its material expression, has been continually adapted at the level o f individual wearers as well as at that o f society at large; many Islamic w om en are abandoning the chador, considered too traditional to bear witness to their com m itm ent, or too inconvenient to be compatible with an active life, or too easily soiled. And in large cities, how strictly the hejab is arranged is a good indication of the political pressure exerted at a given m om ent by the Iranian government, through the m edium o f the police. T he plural interpretation o f the veil gives rise to conflicts ' and has provided a focal point for political contradictions w ithin Muslim societies. W earing it or prohibiting it in schools and universities has led to intense administrative and judicial battles in Turkey; in Algeria a professor o f theology was killed by the GIA to punish her for ‘her views regarding the veil’; while Islamist militants in Kuwait protested against the ban on driving while wearing a niqqab, a cloth that hides the whole

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face and thus, according to the hom e minister, restricts the driver’s field o f vision.140 Still more tragically, the hejab emerged as a powerful divi­ ding line in the Algerian crisis, in w hich Islam is not as im­ portant a factor as it is often thought to be: the civil war was less religious than social in nature, and history and traditional terroirs played a m ore obvious role in the violence than did the K oran.141 A lthough w om en perhaps did not suffer as much, objectively, as have other sectors o f the Algerian population in the crisis, the veil became one o f the chief emblems that sym­ bolically em bodied these struggles and gave them a kind o f intelligibility, albeit an erroneous one. W om en were killed for choosing not to wear the veil, and the Organisation o f Young Algerians responded: ‘If unfortunately a w oman is attacked because she is not w earing the chador, the organisation promises to avenge her by simply and purely liquidating twenty w om en w earing the hijab and twenty bearded fundamentalists.’142 C itydwellers have thus had to get used to a ‘variable geom etry’, or rather a ‘variable geography’, regarding their dress, in accord w ith the formula adopted by the weekly La N ation, changing appearance depending on the area to be traversed or the road­ blocks to be crossed: ‘I walk very quickly and I have a scarf around my neck that I use to cover my head from time to time w hen I see some shady-looking guy coming along’, a young w om an from Blida says.143 In Algeria’s liberation struggle the guerrillas o f the FLN (National Liberation Front) had already dealt w ith such dangerous dilemmas in order to underm ine the vigilance o f French soldiers: ‘T he soldiers asked veiled w om en for their papers, and sometimes searched them w hen there were roadblocks, and on several occasions I was stopped and questioned w hen I was veiled. Whereas w ithout a veil, I got through, I was young, I smiled and I w ent on through. T he first time I felt as if I were naked, and then afterward it didn’t bother m e any longer.’144 O ver time, the war in Algeria became a war for or against the hejab, for or against the emanci­ pation o f w om en, between Islamists and secularists. The illusion

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involved is, o f course, enormous, the conflict is reconstructed in a phantasmal m ode that can easily be dispelled, at least in theory. W ithout even dissecting the allegedly progressive vir­ tues o f the very secular Algerian military security force, we should immediately abandon ‘the sterile debate over the hejab’, as Fariba Adelkhah urged us to do,145 while rem inding us that in this arena nothing is straightforward. First, because Islam does not require the veil, and because a Muslim believer can obviously conceive o f his faith outside o f or even against the wearing o f this garment: Ali Isik, tw enty-three, the im am o f the village o f Kapakli in Turkey, asked for a divorce because his wife insisted on covering her head, and refused to dress ‘like a civilised w om an’.146 Second, because the use o f the hejab matters only in relation to the context in w hich it is practised, and historically it is often accompanied by a rationalist view o f religion, and more pronounced individuation via a quest for elegance, to the great delight o f fashion stores.147 Thus in Iran ...th e hejab is certainly a symbol o f the rejection o f an im p o rte d and im ­ posed m odernity; but its m eaning for Islamic w om en is m uch rich er and m ore essential than that. It is the m aterialisation o f a continuity betw een hum an nature and Koranic revelation, and it structures the relationships betw een the private sphere and the public sphere, betw een the space o f the family and the social space. T his tw ofold function o f the hejab leads Islamic w om en to dem and, w ith som e variations, certain elem ents o f a m o dernity that has been established over the past few decades: the unrestricted right to a m o d ern education and to work; recognition outside the sphere o f the family; and involvem ent and participation in all the debates current in Iranian society.148

The Iranian example is particularly interesting because twentythree years after the only successful Islamic revolution in history, one can discern the reconstitution— even in the political sphere— betw een Islamic and secular attitudes, whose cleavage is dramatised in the Algerian crisis in the form o f an irre­ ducible antagonism.149 T he social polysemy o f the veil is now well understood in anthropological and sociological research, though not by the Western media, public opinion and politi­ cal classes.150 H ow should we account for this persistent gap

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betw een scientific knowledge, or even simple com m on sense, and social representations? It can probably be explained by the role the veil plays in subjectivising the w om en w ho wear it or reject it: the passions it arouses proceed from the moral economy that it represents, and they indicate conflicts over the definition o f subjectivity, whose im portance has been emphasised by Paul Veyne. If we accept his analysis, it may be no accident that the chief actor in this drama is the dom inated category par excellence, namely w om en.151 Some w om en reject the veil in the name o f a par­ ticular interpretation o f freedom and sexuality, for w hich they pay a high price: ‘Putting a scarf on her head is like accepting her loss o f her soul. B ut to leave her bare-headed is to expose her to any crank w ho comes along,’ says an Algerian m other o f her daughter, just before the beginning o f the school year.152 O ther w om en dem and the veil, sometimes also at their own peril, and it is a very French kind o f arrogance that sees in this the manifestation o f a simple alienation, obscurantism or even pernicious manipulations. In fact, the hejab is also associated w ith positive norm s whose register is not necessarily very dis­ tant from those prom oted by secularists. For example, among Iranian Islamists, it corresponds, as a garm ent and an appear­ ance (zaher), to the internal hejab (dam n, baten) that is also manifested on the level o f the senses by one’s gaze, voice and modes o f behaviour, and it requires an attitude o f truth and justice (haqq) w ith regard to the world and its creator. H ere we are not far from the Rousseauan reasoning o f the Jacobins, for w hom clothing was supposed to reveal the citizen’s interior, not conceal it. Thus the veil is nothing other than the textile em bodim ent o f qualities such as simplicity, modesty, firmness, gravity, chastity, dignity, seriousness and magnanimity, each o f w hich designates its contrary; it speaks o f a certain ‘concern for the self’.153 T he reader may find this easier to accept if we pause to consider the example o f Tuareg society. Tuareg m en wear a veil, and m uch m ore strictly than do their women: it is more

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appropriate for the latter not to go about bare-headed, but it is unthinkable for men to show their faces. Therefore they cover their faces w ith a piece o f cloth more than five yards long, which they are constantly rearranging, if necessary w ith the help o f a small pocket mirror, and taking care to give it a per­ sonal touch that allows them to be recognised from a distance w hen they approach a camp. W orn in this way, the veil is evidence o f the ‘restraint’ required o f a man in good standing; it is connected with being a husband or potential husband, and w ith the virility thereby implied; and it protects the wearer from the maleficent beings o f the desert, the kel esu f w hich are quick to take advantage o f any effusions, w hether o f words, saliva, or sperm.154 Here as well, the ethical imaginaire takes a material form— in this case, a fabric— and calls for certain ways o f dressing that are simultaneously coded and individuated. If necessary, it is defended by force o f arms, as French troops, and after them troops in N iger and Mali, learned at regular intervals. It is therefore not surprising that during the govern­ m ent’s repression carried out in M arch 1990, soldiers in N iger publicly disrobed Tuaregs suspected o f complicity w ith the rebellion, in order to break them. T h e im aginaire, a principle o f incom pleteness

T he condensation o f latent social imagiuaires into manifest political imaginaires thus goes hand in hand w ith the conden­ sation o f imaginary practices into practices o f materiality. Here D eleuze’s definition o f the imaginaire— ‘T he imaginaire is not the unreal, but the inability to distinguish the real from un ­ real’— acquires its full meaning. In this respect, it may be the object o f a genuine political economy, to w hich research on ‘material culture’, ‘social life’ and ‘the cultural biography o f things’, as well as on the historicity o f values, is already making a contribution. Consider the use o f ‘drugs’, that is, o f vegetable or chemical substances that, when consumed, ‘trigger’ and ‘amplify’ a cultural

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imaginaire latent in the user,155 and at the same time activate

equally intense mental representations in certain political, ju d i­ cial or police authorities. H ere and there these narcotic prac­ tices are closely connected with political practices. For example, in Africa combatants in armed movem ents constantly take drugs, thus endangering their lives by testing the operative character o f their warrior imaginaire. Narco-sociability can also help modify the relationships betw een the private and pub­ lic spheres, as it does in the case o f the chewing o f khat in Y em en.156 Simultaneously, the incorporation o f drugs into the regular trading sphere led to significant financial flows that made the fortune o f the East India Company, supplied incom e for the French and D utch colonial administrations in Indo­ china and the D utch East Indies through state-controlled sales o f opium and now constitute an im portant though hidden aspect o f the international economy. Today several wars are being financed through drug trafficking.157 T he latter has be­ come an issue o f vital concern for public policy-makers and, in particular, for American diplomats. A principle o f illusion par excellence, drugs nonetheless always relate to a more trivial world. T he same can be said about political strategies o f identity and their culturalist ideologies: their phantasmal discourses are also subject to condensation, too often in the form of violence— violence that is only too physical— that is now an integral part o f their imaginaires. W hat would the imaginaire o f ‘Greater Serbia’ have been w ithout the rapes, murders and ethnic cleans­ ing? W hat w ould the imaginaire o f ‘H utu pow er’ have been w ithout the m utilated bodies floating down the Kagera river? In short, the ambivalence inherent in the very notion o f the imaginaire and its complex relationship w ith the order o f mate­ riality compels us to relinquish a certain use o f the concept that is nonetheless widespread. We should not take literally expres­ sions such as ‘social imaginaire or ‘historical imaginaire . They are convenient, but they suggest that a given social (or his­ torical) imaginaire is a totality, endowed w ith a range o f rela­ tively coherent and restricted meanings. This m ight lead us to

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attribute to the imaginaire powers that we have just denied culture, and to confer on it the ability to over-determ ine political practice. W hen all is said and done, the concept o f the imaginaire, understood in this way, is no more than a pedantic version o f the concept o f culture. In any given society we encounter only procedures in the imaginaire that give rise to figures o f the imaginaire that are more or less strong, more or less shared, more or less stable. These figures are necessarily fragmentary and polysemous: none of them absorbs— usurps— the function o f imagination, whatever its power in a particular historical situation. Moreover, none of them has a definitive political meaning. We could repeat here our analysis o f discursive genres, since the latter are simulta­ neously genres o f the imaginaire: jih a d and hijra do not have the same political meaning for all Muslims, even if Muslims in general see these phenom ena as more im portant than some others, for example those of a liberal or Marxist kind. Similarly, we may suppose that the Vietnamese ‘social imaginaire is dom ­ inated by a w hole series o f representations inherited from their ancient history, by nationalism, by the m em ory of a thirty-year­ long war, by the bruises suffered under Com m unist totalitar­ ianism, and by mixed feelings regarding the French. B ut all this does not prevent them from laying offerings on the tom b o f the Frenchman Alexandre Yersin, w ho developed a serum against the plague bacillus— offerings consisting o f portions o f ‘ Vache-qui-rif cheese-—or from being convinced that this ven­ erable man stabbed a w itch w ho had eaten children’s livers.158 Conceiving the social imaginaire as a signifying totality would am ount not only to jettisoning the immense literature on symbolism and the unconscious— starting w ith Freud— but also obscuring the heightened kitsch that globalisation lends to the function o f the imaginaire in contem porary societies. It is all the more crucial to emphasise this point because many o f the great authors on w hom we m ight rely in reintroducing the problematics o f the imaginaire into political thought have a monistic view o f the imagination. Thus M ontesquieu asso­

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ciated a political passion w ith each o f the systems o f govern­ m ent in his typology, and the different passions were supposed to correspond to the structure and functioning o f the systems w ith w hich they were associated. Thanks to recent research, we are now able to understand that social imagiuaires are in fact amorphous nebula o f often disparate figures that are ultimately ambivalent from a political point o f view and o f varying duration: in short, that they are historical phenom ena. It may be that changes in the order of the imaginaire are long-term developments like those described by Braudel, and that they are imperceptible to contemporaries. Nonetheless, this optical illusion must not lead us to conceive the order o f the imaginaire in a society as a constant. T he sym­ bolism o f sacred kingship in France and England has finally eroded and lost its resonance, even if Francois M itterrand’s funeral in 1996 re-staged the old myth o f the king’s two bodies.159 Similarly the imaginary figures o f the carnival were omnipresent throughout the sixteenth-century wars o f reli­ gion in France: the repertoire o f scatology, rites o f inversion and animal symbolism were mobilised to ridicule and destroy the adversary. B ut this genre was defused during the reign o f Louis X IV and did not re-em erge till the French R evolution, w hen it played a central role in the processes o f state-formation in the provinces, w here it conveyed the new meanings and stakes created by the republican idea.160 This is a funda­ m ental point, for too often the study o f festivals has taken the form o f ‘the obsessive task o f finding one and the same sig­ nified through a m ultitude o f signifiers’,161 disregarding several obvious facts, one o f w hich is that the power o f symbolic language resides in being polysemous as well as clear. Thus Em m anuel Le R oy Ladurie writes concerning the animal m etaphors used in the French tow n o f R om ans in the six­ teenth century: ‘Say it w ith meats! It’s so m uch clearer, even if the meanings are multiple and vary depending on the festival or com m on action concerned. Cocks, eagles and partridges are at once representative and functional; they set up a m ulti­

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headed strategy; they allow a part o f a group to make itself the master o f a given situation or to derive certain advantages from it.’162 But we must add that another faction may turn the same animal metaphors to its own advantage if the situation takes a more favourable turn; as Freud put it, T h e analogous elem ents o f the latent materials are replaced in the manifest dream by condensations. C ontraries are treated in the same way as analogies, and they are preferably expressed by the same m anifest elem ent. Thus one elem ent o f the m anifest dream that has a contrary can itself signify this contrary, or bo th at the same time. It is only the general m eaning that allows us to m ake a choice regarding the interpretation. T h a t is w hat explains the fact that we do not find in dreams any representation, or at least any unequivocal representation, o f ‘n o ’.163

Carnival, w hich is rich in animal and other metaphors, re­ presented a principle o f radical heterogeneity in the Western European society. It is pointless to reduce it to ‘a determ inate and limited content ... for in reality it automatically trans­ gresses limits’.164 This repertoire may at times be exhausted or marginalised. But the imaginary function it perform ed in the Middle Ages and the sixteenth century remains transcendent, whatever forms it might take today (sports, for instance).165 This is not only because one cannot grasp all its possible m ean­ ings, but also because the well o f these meanings is bottomless. In Freud’s work, ‘every dream has at least one place w here it is unfathomable, like an umbilical cord that attaches it to the unknow n’: ‘T he dream thoughts that are reached through the process o f interpretation must, obligatorily and absolutely uni­ versally, remain w ithout issue and run in all directions in the intertw ined network o f the world o f our thoughts.’166 T he imaginative content o f our history and o f our political think­ ing remains similarly uncreative, because its figures are mutable and have many meanings. This is evident in everyday life through the circulation and reinterpretation o f ideologies, insti­ tutions and the products o f material culture around the world. Thus it would be a crude mistake to assume a deep or original

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structure in w hich all the figures o f the imaginaire w ould be resolved. Som eone m ight nonetheless ask how this can be true if w hat holds a society together is holding together its world o f meanings , as we hypothesised following Cornelius Castoriadis. H ow can ‘imaginary social meanings’ hold together, and thus hold together society, if they have to ‘remain incom plete’? Pre­ cisely through their radical ambivalence. All architects facing the seismic dangers will tell you: the flexibility o f the reed is better than the solemnity o f the oak ... Historians and anthro­ pologists have demonstrated that many political formations— and not the least im portant ones, either: R om e, for example— were governed by such a law o f incompleteness. And so is, a fortiori, the international system, in its cultural dimension as well as in its economic dimension.167 Transnational flows have becom e so intense that the ‘end o f territories’168 is being announced, though this does not mean the end o f states. In addition, many societies remain marked by deep ‘epistemic ruptures’.169 T heir peoples live in disparate space-times and neither political nor cultural centralisation has eliminated ‘m inority temporalities’170 from them. Even in France, the uni­ fication o f time came relatively late, despite the power and the nature o f the state.171 T he Islamic Republic o f Iran lives by both the solar and the lunar calendar. And in a province like R uthenia, three distinct times co-exist: the official time, that o f Kiev; that o f Moscow, for the nostalgic; and ‘our own tim e’, that o f the R uthenians, w ho follow the time zone o f the capital cities o f Western Europe in order to mark their dif­ ference from U kraine.172 Nonetheless, the heterogeneous con­ figuration o f time in a society goes beyond the problem o f its centralisation. Dissidence o f this kind may also be religious: in Pennsylvania, for instance, the Amish set their watches to a different time in order to express their withdrawal from m od­ ern society, w hich does not prevent them from being successful in business in the econom ic niches they occupy,173 and Muslim theological authorities rarely agree on the date o f the appear-

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ance o f the m oon that marks the end o f Ram adan. In fact, in every society, even industrial societies, ‘we are actually living in several times, both qualitative and quantitative, that can­ not be reduced to a single tim e’, and that can even enter into conflict.174 Let us draw some conclusions from all this. Society realises itself as a totality only in the ambivalence o f the imaginaire, including, o f course, in the material com ponent o f the latter: through the imaginary figures o f the market, the state, and the ‘international community’, which dispenses images and feelings at the same time as more tangible things in the form o f goods, services, sanctions, bombings, and aid. Steeped in ‘intercon­ nections that are not isomorphisms’, society is based on silence, ignorance, indifference, illusion, and a swarm o f m ore or less incoherent ‘tiny details’. But as one o f Gombrowics’s char­ acters warns us, ‘you’ve no idea how immense one becomes with all these tiny details...’

C O N C L U S IO N

THE PARADOXICAL INVENTION OF M ODERNITY We now turn to consider the four points that have been propounded: (1) T he function o f the constitutive imagination plays a cen­ tral role in the form ation o f the state, and more generally in the production o f politics. (2) N o m atter how hard political actors may try to instrumentalise this function, it remains irreducible, even if the polit­ ical actors are hegemonic. Thus it can be considered infinite and ungovernable. (3) T he function o f the imaginaire is inseparable from the order o f materiality: it is this property that gives it its structuring capacity and that makes political and economic processes occur in its dimension. In parallel fashion, one can envisage a form of materiality only in its relation to the imaginaire. (4) Finally, in a given society the imaginaire does not represent a coherent totality, since it includes a host o f heterogeneous, constantly changing figures. Imaginary productions are thus not necessarily isomorphic. Moreover, as symbolic productions by definition they have many meanings and are ambivalent. It is in this respect that they help ‘hold together’ a society w ithout this ‘holding together o f its world o f meanings’ ever being dem onstrated or even assumed to be demonstrable. These few m ethodological rules that have been established in the course o f our discussion may make the reader feel uneasy or even dizzy. However, in consulting a few classic texts in the 233

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social sciences and philosophy, we have seen that the radical heterogeneity o f society was noted long ago and has been amply debated. Tocqueville, Marx, W eber, D urkheim , Bakh­ tin and Elias have all come to this disturbing conclusion— each in his ow n way, to be sure, but often in ways that are comple­ mentary rather than contradictory. Anthropologists and soci­ ologists— for example, Clifford Geertz, R oberto Da Matta, Georges Balandier, Anthony Giddens— have confirmed the same conclusion on the basis o f their ow n experience. Michel Foucault is thus synthesising a well-established intellectual tra­ dition w hen he writes— referring, moreover, to B ook II o f Das Kapital — that ‘society is an archipelago o f different powers’: ‘A society is not a single, unified body in which one and only one power is exercised, but rather a juxtaposition, a connec­ tion, a co-ordination, and also a hierarchy o f different powers, which nonetheless retain their specificity’.1 Curiously, Western societies find it very difficult to acknow­ ledge and incorporate this fundamental lesson. They are con­ stantly falling back into the ruts made by utilitarian arguments (attributing too m uch im portance to instrumentalisation and to the manipulation o f imaginary figures, emotions) or holistic demonstrations (giving priority to primordial cultural factors). The conception o f social change, in particular, remains n o r­ mative, linear, and teleological, as is shown by ratiocinations on ‘transitions to democracy’ and the passage toward a ‘market econom y’.2 However, for a long time ‘historians have been accustomed to no longer necessarily seeing m odernisation as a general transformation’.3 For instance, the standardisation o f money in the U nited States was not a linear process. It was one o f the most explosive social issues o f the late nineteenth century, and was largely frustrated by various practices that subverted the idea o f money as uniform .4 And how can we situate in the neo-liberal paradigm o f reform an event that occurred in D nepropetrovsk in 1994: ‘W hile Anatoly Kosoy, 37, was walking in the [city] park, a large dog attacked him, apparently attracted by the strong odour o f alcohol he was

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emitting. D uring the ensuing battle, the man killed the animal by ripping open his throat w ith his teeth’5? After all, in Ukraine the m arket econom y is ‘shaped’ or not ‘shaped’ in relation to such events! Because the dimension o f the imaginaire, and especially o f its ‘w orking o u t’ (in the Freudian sense o f the term) is concealed, the dimension o f ambivalence is concealed as well. This obliv­ ion makes the paradoxical invention o f m odernity incon­ ceivable or scandalous. Yes, the polis is ‘absurd’ (in the Freudian sense). B ut its absurdity is inherent in its realisation in the imaginaire, in its ‘w orking o u t’, in its ‘abridged translation’, and in a w hole series o f disparate, baroque, and segmented prac­ tices. In criticising some o f these paradoxes, culturalist reas­ oning is certainly not the least o f the misinterpretations that prevent us from understanding our own time. Consider, for example, the religious invention o f modernity. We know that this was a major modality in the history o f the West; that the system o f parliamentary representation was ecclesiastical in origin; that the C ounter-R eform ation, just as m uch as the R eform ation itself, helped bring about new political and artistic configurations; that Catholic activism was crucial for the transformation o f society, and even for the spec­ tacular economic development o f Ireland, Brittany, the Vendee, Bavaria, Flanders, and Venetia; that these same Catholics, whose democratic tendencies the Church long resisted, finally managed to institutionalise these ideas through the inter­ mediary o f Christian-D em ocratic parties; that pietism was the crucible o f Prussian power in the eighteenth century, and M ethodism that o f radical working-class consciousness in nineteenth-century England, just as American independence and democracy are the progeny o f Puritanism; that the most conservative religious trends have not necessarily been the least modernising, and that there has even been a ‘genuine rad­ icalism o f tradition’.6 All this is not surprising from a theoretical or m ethodo­ logical point o f view. First o f all, many scholars have adopted

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H egel’s insight regarding the role o f civic processions in the French R evolution. They note the creative function o f ritual in the medieval and m odern city that Fustel de Coulanges wrongly thought peculiar to the ancient city. T he city is created and transformed— regenerated— through celebrations o f this kind, which combine the religious w ith the profane and are far m ore than simple theatrical representations o f the city’s identity. Florence, for example, depended on the media­ tion o f multiple ceremonies that simultaneously produced its unity and regulated com petition am ong its leading men. In the fifteenth century, a ‘ritual revolution’ provided a frame­ w ork for the transition from the Republic to the proto­ absolutist state and the gradual integration o f children, ado­ lescents, and plebeians into the processional life o f the city, w hich had previously been closed to them .7 Similarly, accord­ ing to Victor T urner’s seminal study, ‘pilgrimage centres [...] generate a “field,” and may have helped ‘to create the com ­ munications net that later made capitalism a viable national and international system’.8 As we have seen, in the N ew W orld the secularised ‘administrative pilgrimage’ seems to have been decisive in the crystallisation o f the ‘imagined com m unity’ o f the nation, while today the ‘tourist pilgrimage’ may be seen as outlining a European civic space. Nonetheless, religious rituals, in the literal sense o f the term, played a significant role in the formation o f European nations. W ithout even dallying on the ‘king’s touch’ in France and England, let us recall that the confrontation between the young Italian state and the H oly See in the second half o f the nine­ teenth centuiy took place on this stage. In 1878 Pius IX ’s fune­ ral cortege was violently attacked on the Ponte Sant’Angelo by a crowd crying ‘Throw the pig pope in the water! Long live Italy! Long live Garibaldi!’ It had to be rescued by the police, whose protection the Vatican had initially rejected, in order to avoid recognising the pre-em inence o f the state in the cere­ monial procedure. In September 1882, w hen thousands o f priests assembled in San Lorenzo to honour the m em ory o f

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the sovereign pontiff, the liberals called a counter-dem onstra­ tion in the Pantheon on Victor Em m anuel’s tom b.9 W e can argue that the symbolic com petition centering on the two mausoleums constituted an ‘abridged translation’ o f the con­ flict regarding legitimacy that was sapping Italy. The relations betw een certain peripheral areas and the political or religious centres on w hich they depended were also often mediated by ritual imaginary action: betw een 1830 and 1950, no fewer than eighty apparitions o f the Virgin confirmed the assertion o f the identity and the interests o f Catholic Brabant w ithin the Protestant-dom inated Low Countries, and in 1981 she also appeared opportunely at M edjugoije, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in order to help Franciscans eager to preserve their autonom y w ith regard to the political authorities, the bishop o f Mostar and the Vatican.10 T he m odern polis is thus not as disenchanted as M ax Weber thought. Ceremonies, processions— in some cases, in the form o f demonstrations— continue to be performative and are still key m om ents in the enunciation o f the m odern polis’s ‘moral econom y’. T he staging o f death, for instance, is always marked by a solemnity that helps order the hierarchies o f power and wealth by observing a strict protocol, but this solemnity may also lead to an explicit politicisation by giving material form to the confrontation betw een the authorities and the opposition, and to the appropriation o f the deceased’s prestige by his more or less w ell-m eaning supporters (as in France after the death o f Georges Pom pidou), or even by his adversaries (as in 1996, w hen Jacques Chirac rendered homage to his predecessor Francois M itterrand). In Chapter 3 we noted that the performativity o f political ritual proceeds from the passion that it con­ denses. M ourning is an em otion, and it is peculiarly propitious to the transform ation o f feelings into practical political action. For example, in August 1914 Leon Jouhaux, the secretarygeneral o f the C G T (Confederation generale du travail, France’s largest trade union federation)— the only im portant organi­ sation on the extreme left that had not yet lent its support to

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the governm ent’s defence policy— improvised his funeral eulogy for Jean Jaures. In the republican fervour o f the cere­ mony, and urged on by the crow d’s applause w hen he m en­ tioned the need to resist German aggression, he ended up supporting, in the name o f the revolutionary tradition, what Prime M inister R aym ond Poincare was to call, in the address to Parliament that he delivered a few hours later, ‘the sacred U nion’, thus sealing the return o f the syndicalised w orking class into the bosom o f the nation.11 As a result, funeral ceremonies inevitably exceed efforts to ‘manage’ them. They can unleash violent anger directed against the state, deemed to be responsible for the death o f a hero— as in Palermo in 1992, during the funeral o f the judge Paolo Borsellino and his escort— or simply a sadness so pro­ found that it retrospectively transfigures the political career o f the person involved, as in the case o f King B audouin o f Belgium, form er French prim e minister Pierre Beregovoy, or Francois M itterrand. Seen from this angle, they are valuable indications o f the masses’ civic expectations and the ‘moral econom y’ o f the state: through the anger o f the people o f Palermo could be glimpsed the rejection o f the dark side of the basis o f power in Italy; in Parisians’ sad reflection on the body o f Pierre Beregovoy, a meditation on w hat the left had become, on the relationships betw een money and politics, and between the press and public life; and in the Belgians’ sorrow a referendum in favour o f the unity o f the kingdom . Thus in Western Europe as well, funeral rites enunciate the ‘im agined com m unity’ and give it an ethical as well as a political content. From this point o f view Francois M itterrand’s funeral epito­ mised the genre. It was a barely disguised replica o f the myth o f the king’s two bodies, and the television coverage was obliged to split the screen in order to show live the two synchronous and symmetrical ceremonies, one reserved for M itterrand’s family and the tow n where he was born, the other for world figures. T he burial confirmed the recognition o f M itterrand’s daughter born out o f wedlock and the official cohabitation o f

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tw o w om en he had loved. This was a scene that seemed to foreign correspondents so bizarre that they often preferred to ignore or misrepresent this ‘cultural exception’. But one can­ not deny its m odernity, in the sense that it corresponded to the lived experience o f many o f his contemporaries. T he ‘pol­ itician w ho was said to be discredited and out o f touch with society offered a life narrative that provided food for thought and was capable o f arousing emotion: the scene was ‘beau­ tiful’, as in the cinema or in soap operas. Similarly Francois M itterrand’s long m editation on death, the revelation that he had been fighting cancer since 1981, and that he had chosen the time w hen he w ould die, all no doubt contributed to modifying the social representation o f an illness perceived as m ore terrible than others, at the very m om ent at w hich an enorm ous scandal was tarnishing the A R C , the main organi­ sation in the fight against cancer. Finally, the participation of the president’s Labrador in the private cerem ony— it was noted that he travelled in the childrens’ plane— sanctioned the role canines play in French society today, and not only, alas, in the private sphere.12 In opposition to both observations and research that de­ monstrate, in a neo-Fustelian or neo-D urkheim ian sense, that the m odern polis is also a ritual polis, we also have a theoretical literature o f considerable proportions that urges us to crossbreed explanatory factors, to carry out a ‘causal multiplication’, and to ‘establish interconnections that are not isomorphisms’ among the various areas o f society. In addition to the Foucauldian approach w hich we have just cited, and w hich underlies the concept o f governmentality, there is also, for instance, Max W eber’s emphasis on ‘the enorm ous intertw ining o f mutual influences’, the accent put by Alltagsgeschichte on actors’ ‘m ulti­ dimensional experiences’ (Mehrschichtigkeiten) , m icro-interactionist trends in American sociology, Giddens’ theory o f structuration and Elias’ configurational model. These varying approaches all recognise the ambivalent and paradoxical nature o f the modalities o f social change. The expression ‘unwittingly’

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(a leur insu) was already repeatedly used by Tocqueville. At the

same time as he constructed ideal types, W eber also acknow ­ ledged that ‘we must expect that these effects o f the R efor­ mation on culture will have, in large measure, consequences that were unforeseen and undesired in the works o f the R e ­ formers, consequences often far rem oved from everything they had sought to achieve, and sometimes even in contra­ diction w ith their goal’.13 There follows a similar analysis re­ garding ‘modes o f the economic orientation o f action’.14 Ernst Troeltsch, W eber’s friendly opponent, w ent m uch further than the latter in studying the paradoxical invention o f modernity, emphasising that ‘the role played by Protestantism in the emergence o f the m odern world is certainly in no sense a simple one’: ‘[It] is, in many ways, an indirect and even invol­ untary role, and what Protestantism, despite itself, has in com m on w ith m odern culture is very deeply buried in the hidden depths o f its thought, and not immediately accessible to consciousness. There is, o f course, no question o f a direct creation o f m odern culture by Protestantism, but only o f w hat role it played in this creation. But even this role is not hom o­ geneous and simple. In each o f the various cultural domains, it is different, and in all o f them, it is more or less hidden and complex’.15 Thus it is appropriate to ask ‘w hat significance Protestantism might have had, not in a resurrection or general creation affecting the whole o f life, but chiefly in indirect or unconscious consequences, and even directly in effects o f an epiphenomenal and contingent order, or influences exercised in spite o f itself.16 He concludes, in the inimitable style in fashion in turn-of-the-century Germany: We can arrive at an understanding o f the true causal relationship only if we give up a unitary fram ew ork based on a leading idea, w hich is supposed to derive and elaborate everything by itself, and only if w e take in to account the plethora o f different, parallel, independent, and som etim es intersecting influences. C hance, that is the sudden connection established am ong several independent causal sequences, m ust never be underestim ated w h e n dealing w ith such p h e n o m e n a .17

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Finally, situating him self in this line o f thought, N orbert Elias has emphasised that ‘civilisation’ and ‘rationalisation’ are not produced by hum an ratio, but rather by what he called ‘the order o f interdependency among m en’. R esorting precisely to Elias’s configurational model, the contem porary historian will show, for example, how the processes that determined the forms o f stratification in French society in the nineteenth and tw en­ tieth centuries are given concrete form by ‘blind dynamics’: T h e social space appears in tact to be structured by several types o f cohesion that differ bo th in nature and in duration, and that appear in com ­ petitio n for the resources and form s o f possible developm ent. [...] T he process o f evaluation, as it is seen in a configurational m odel, is thus far from being linear and d eterm in ed in a unidirectional m anner by single, m acrostructural phenom ena. In m ost cases, im portant changes are brought about on the basis o f peripheral, relatively w eak m ovem ents. [...] T h e im age that is established on the basis o f such processes is in fact a configuration o f m obile points organised in accord w ith specific local forms. A configu­ ration that is sensitive to the m ovem ents o f each o f its com ponents, to their particular structurations, and to the dynamics these structurations engender. It is at this level that w e can speak o f blind evolutions, for it is clear that each synchronic form , each o f the overall configurations achieved in the course o f the process o f evolution, is a tem porary product o f several m ovem ents that take place on the basis o f varying interests, perspectives, and projects.18

For example, the Protestantism of'cam isards’ (early eighteenthcentury French H uguenot rebels in the Bas-Languedoc and Cevennes regions o f southern France), w hich was obviously an obstacle to monarchical centralisation, served the latter in the long run by adopting French, not Occitan, as its religious language.19 Likewise, the political transition in Spain after Franco s death was the result o f ‘interstitial choices’ made by actors w ho were guided less by a great rational alternative ‘for’ or ‘against’ democracy than by the traditions or rules o f the game already prevailing in various sectors o f civil society. In particular, Spanish democracy is heavily indebted to the ‘meta­ m orphoses’ o f the C hurch in the 1950s and to its ‘avatars’, because o f the rise o f young Catholics within the Church, its

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integration into the West European religious field, and the repercussions o f Vatican II.20 As we have seen, slippages and interactions between one sphere o f society and another are con­ stant, and all the more disturbing because they correspond to pure contingency.21 W hen they occur, these ‘interconnections w ithout isomorphism’ are the result o f cultural operations— especially the transfer o f meaning— analysed in C hapter II, and w hich are situated in the autonom ous dimension o f the imaginaire; they are one o f the ‘concrete genetic relationships that inevitably take on their ow n individual character’ that W eber discusses.22 Carrying all this baggage, Western political societies are nonetheless more or less paralysed and incapable o f m aking use o f it as soon as they have to decipher their relationship to the Other: for example, their relationship w ith Islam or their par­ ticipation in globalisation. They follow Tocqueville in his interpretation o f the founders o f N ew England as ‘simulta­ neously ardent sectarians and impassioned innovators’: ‘Held within the most restrictive bonds o f certain religious beliefs, they were free from all political prejudices.’23 But they im m e­ diately refuse to say the same about the Islamist movement. Between the latter and a social mobilisation inspired by C hris­ tianity there is supposed to be a difference in kind that pre­ cludes any comparison. It does not m atter that the historian reminds us that in Java ‘the earliest signs o f m odernity did not appear with the arrival o f the Portuguese or the D utch, but with the arrival o f Muslim traders and the rise o f the first sul­ tanates’.24 N o one listens to him or to his colleague w ho estab­ lishes a strong correlation betw een movements revitalising Islam and social change.25 Similarly, it matters little that ac­ cording to anthropologists this mobilisation itself is a vehicle for deep changes in both religious practices and ways o f being in society.26 If they even dare to suggest this w ith regard to wearing a veil, the secular chorus protests. According to the culturalists, Islam is one and indivisible, doom ed to reproduce

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itself eternally in obscurantism and fanaticism, at best under a closely-watched ‘m oderate’ regime— even though Islam has shown in T urkey that its reason can evolve and be rationalised under the influence o f historical constraints.27 O n this subject, public debate has rem ained m arooned in w hat in the Middle Ages was called ‘psychomachies’, that is, confrontations between abstract rival entities: Athens vs. Sparta, R o m e vs. Carthage, the Christian and secular W est (secular because Christian, pace the U nited Kingdom, the U nited States, and a few other second-order democracies!) vs. Islam. T o those w ho are not satisfied w ith this M anichean view o f the world, it is gravely conceded that the religion o f the Prophet may in fact be the bearer o f social change. But, its objectors immediately retort, does that involve m odernity, in the sense in w hich we under­ stand it in the W est, in accord w ith the heritage o f the Enlightenm ent: as being ‘m an’s moving beyond his im m a­ turity, for w hich he himself is responsible’ (Kant)? This question is w orth discussing briefly. Either we have a historical or sociological definition o f modernity, and we see in it, for example, ‘an era turned -toward the future, conceived as being probably different, and if possible, better than the present and the past’,28 or a social experience peculiar to this particular era, especially the experience o f globalisation.29 Or, like Fou­ cault com m enting on K ant’s essay Was ist Aufkldrung?, we do not understand ‘very well’ what this notion o f m odernity means,30 and we envisage it ‘as an attitude rather than as a his­ torical period’, seeking to discover how, ‘since it took shape, [it] has been involved in a struggle w ith attitudes o f ‘contram odernity’. T hen ‘m odernity’ becomes an ethos: ‘A kind of philosophical interrogation that problematises simultaneously the relationship to the present, the historical m ode o f being, and the constitution o f the self as an autonom ous subject’. For Foucault ‘the thread that may attach us in this way to the A ufkldrung is not fidelity to elements o f its doctrine, but rather the perm anent reactivation o f an attitude; that is, o f a philo­

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sophical ethos that could be characterised as a perm anent critique o f our historical being’. The rest o f his argum ent is interesting for our subject because it rejects any ‘“blackmail” involving A ufkldrung’ in the form o f ‘a simplistic and authori­ tarian alternative:’ ‘Either you accept the Aufkldrung, and you remain in the tradition o f its rationalism ... or you criticise A ufkldrung , and then you try to escape these principles o f rationality’. In addition, Foucault rejects any confusion be­ tween A ufkldrung and humanism. M ore positively the ethos o f modernity consists in ‘an extreme attitude’— ‘we have to be at the frontiers’— that seeks to ask ‘what in us is given as uni­ versal, necessary, obligatory, and what is unique, contingent, and due to arbitrary constraints’.31 T he Islamist movement corresponds to the first definition o f modernity, even if it sometimes takes a fundamentalist approach by seeking to restore the golden age o f the Caliphate: it sees itself as revolutionary or progressive; it wants things to go better from the moral point o f view, but also from that o f national independence, democracy, and social equality; nor does it conceal its fascination w ith technology. If we privilege the second definition o f modernity, it is hardly less clear that at least some Islamist militants are trying, through their com ­ m itm ent, to move beyond their ‘im m aturity’ by using reason, to the great dismay o f the traditionalists. Seen phantasmally as the seat o f the obscurantist ‘International’, Iran is in fact a labo­ ratory in w hich what some people describe as reform w ithin Islam is being experim ented with, w ith all the debates, con­ flicts, and uncertainties this involves: the groundw ork for the 1979 revolution was laid by intense intellectual and theological work, especially in the holy city o f Najaf;32 today, major re­ alignments between religious thought and secular thought are occurring in the name o f the Islamic Republic— conflictually, o f course.33 Ultimately for Said A qom and ‘contem porary con­ stitutionalist clerics in Iran are the first established M uslim authorities to feel an urgent need to reconcile the fundamental

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concepts o f the Greek science o f politics w ith sharia, the Islamic religious law’.34 O n the other hand, it is evident that the constant ‘blackmail’ involving A ujklarung and the hotch­ potch o f humanistic principles and Realpolitik that applauded the 1992 coup d ’etat in Algeria on the pretext o f defending the secular state and w om en scarcely coincide w ith the ethos o f m odernity. This critique o f culturalism will, I hope, allow us to escape from the false dilemmas in w hich Western societies tend to trap themselves. T he choice is not between universalism by uniformisation, notwithstanding the diversity o f ‘cultures’, and the relativism produced by exacerbating ‘cultural’ uniqueness at the price o f certain fundamental values. Universality is equi­ valent to the reinvention o f difference, and there is no need to make the latter the precondition for the former. D oing so is not only pleonastic, but suspect, for it opens the way to all sorts o f mental and political restrictions. Culturalist discourse, and, unfortunately, increasingly culturalist diplomacy as well, imprison concrete historical societies in a substantialist definition o f their identity by denying them the right to borrow, to be derivative, that is, to change, possibly by a paradoxical invention o f modernity. There is nothing less than a conservative ‘Holy Alliance’ between native despots and their W estern protectors or accomplices, an alliance whose inconsis­ tencies we have seen in Iraq, Rwanda, Algeria, Serbia, China, and Russia, and w hich cannot ensure peace even by repression. N o t everyone can be a M etternich! Western democrats should be able loudly to proclaim the universality o f their political principles while foreseeing that they will be refashioned in the societies that receive them. A nd their values will shine in their acceptance o f their ‘globalisation’, that is, from their reinven­ tion, not only by leaders concerned w ith ‘authenticity’, but by the concrete w ork o f uttering them from deep w ithin the societies involved.

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Young Fulani wear sunglasses, multicoloured socks, hand­ bags, and w om en’s rubber high-heeled sandals to distinguish themselves from other ethnic groups as well as from their elders. Just as objects belonging to capitalist material culture, far from altering the identity o f their consumers, can strengthen it, so democratic values and institutions can generate identityrelated specifications w hen they are transplanted to other climes. T he problem is not how to determine, for example, w hether democracy is adapted to ‘African culture’, but how African societies will adapt it in adopting it and will reconfigure it as a polis, just as India has rew ritten the ‘Westminster m odel’.35 Moreover, it is significant that representative systems, once transplanted outside Europe, have prospered less in the register o f copies in conform ity with the original than in that o f hybri­ disation, by resorting to autochthonous sources o f legitimacy. Thus ‘political man in democratic India has been w rought out o f traditional materials; he is not a new m an’.36 Similarly, ‘it is because [of] the Islamic past, and not because they have read J. S. Mill, that the Turkish masses support m odern dem ocracy’: ‘They support it to the extent that they see in it an oppor­ tunity to assume the most im portant part o f their innate right, namely the right to “prom ote good and combat evil,” and to protect their own private sphere’.37 T he continuity o f the elec­ toral orientation in Turkey since 1950, in the form o f various partisan avatars, records this attitude, and it is not at all obvious that an Islamic party’s accession to power would represent a major shift in this respect. Braudel said o f capitalism that it was a ‘night visitor’: ‘It arrives w hen everything is already in place.’38 The same can be said o f democracy, and the question is that o f its authentication, through the intervention o f autochthonous political genres, rather than that o f its ‘authenticity’. The blindness o f the conservatives in this area is all the more unjustifiable because their favourite author, Tocqueville, very clearly saw this possibility o f the differentiated universalisation o f democracy— not, it is true, w ithout sometimes giving the

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impression that he was limiting it to ‘Christians’. Foreseeing its ‘im pending, irresistible, universal advent ... in the w orld’,39 he wrote: ‘W hat I see among the Anglo-Americans leads me to think that democratic institutions o f this nature, introduced prudently into society, blending little by little with habits, and gradually m erging w ith the opinions o f the people, could subsist outside A m erica.’ And he wonders: ‘If other peoples, borrow ing from America this general and fertile idea, and w ithout w anting to imitate its inhabitants in the particular application they have made o f it, sought to make themselves suitable for the social condition that Providence imposes on m en in our time, and thus to escape the despotism or anarchy that threaten them , what reason w ould we have to think they w ould necessarily fail in their efforts?’40 Nonetheless, let us play the devil’s advocate. D o n ’t relativists limit themselves to merely taking cognisance o f this inevitable reinvention o f difference w hen they speak o f the African, Asian, or Islamic conceptions o f democracy and the rights o f man, w hen they envisage the possibility that ‘[the] universal values o f justice, tolerance, and freedom [...] can be expressed in differing forms, through our respective cultures and tra­ ditions?’41 O u r reply is an emphatic ‘n o ’. T he two approaches differ in nature. O n the one hand, the culturalist argum ent dis­ qualifies the diffusion o f values and models by postulating them to be incompatible w ith the inner core o f intangible cultures and by seeing in them a source o f instability for these cultures. O n the other hand, the anti-culturalist argum ent trivialises the grafting o f these values and models by ques­ tioning neither their mutability nor the ability o f the societies that im port them to appropriate them in inventive ways. In addition, behind this difference o f approach, we can glimpse a genuine philosophical divergence in m ethod between two definitions o f the concept: in the culturalist argument, the term ‘concept’ designates ‘the essence’; in the anti-culturalist argum ent, it designates ‘the event’.42

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‘T he event’ in this case, and insofar as we are concerned here, is the development o f ‘concrete genetic relationships that inevitably take on their own individual nature’; they are the processes o f the ‘form ation’ o f the polis, w hich may be dem o­ cratic. Such sequences o f productive events (sequences evenementielles) can be very broad: M ax Weber relates the genesis o f capitalism to the ethical revolution o f the R eform ation, but also to a whole series o f institutional transformations that oc­ curred in the High Middle Ages w ithin cities, the feudal system, and the Catholic C hurch.43 If we provisionally adopt the notion o f interconnections w ithout isomorphism linking religious change w ith political change, we should see how the form er interferes w ith the transformation o f the civic scene. Let us not assume that these interactions are teleological. Nothing guarantees that they are by nature democratising factors. But we must pay attention to the relationships that arise betw een religious movements, especially w hen they are prophetic or millenarian, and to the ‘form ation’ o f the public sphere. All the more since these mobilisations, w hich are often syncretic, are often at the same time vehicles for ecclesial bureaucratisation, as in Cao Dai in Vietnam, Bahai’ism in Iran, N urcu in Turkey, prophetic cults in C ote d’Ivoire and extremist H indu national­ ism in India.44 They are also capable o f elaborating new, radical discourses on freedom which are not w ithout impact, and w hich rem ind us that the democratic West has no m onopoly on this idea.45 T he influence o f liberal principles will grow even greater to the extent that they are intertw ined w ith autochthonous or syncretic representations o f emancipation. Nonetheless, religious movements are not the only vectors o f political globalisation. It is the w hole o f the practices o f symbolisation that we must connect w ith the processes o f the ‘form ation’ o f the polis, and especially w ith the ‘general and fertile idea’ o f democracy. In the preceding chapter, we offered an overview o f these kinds o f ‘interconnections’, m entioning the various repertoires o f political action connected w ith hair­ styles, cooking, and dress, and showing that they could inspire

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genuine cultural m ovem ents comparable to social or religious movements. Such cultural movements thus take the form o f the rites o f m odernisation’ as in, for example, the ludruk in Java. Before the establishment o f the N ew Order, this theatri­ cal genre allowed young people to distance themselves from the closed universe o f their neighbourhood or slum, and situ­ ate themselves in the economically and socially differentiated w orld o f the city o f Surabaya, and even in national space. It provided them w ith the practical or cognitive means for deal­ ing w ith the institutions o f the state and contem porary society. It was an instrument o f relative rationalisation and ‘disenchant­ m ent’ since it helped to prom ote the monetarisaton, the bureaucratisation and even the ‘conjugalisation’ o f the Javanese proletariat’s social representations, in a way that often contra­ dicted, moreover, the ideals defended by the Indonesian C om ­ munist Party, w ith w hich some o f the troupes were associated.46 Political societies imagine themselves by means o f a wide diversity o f social cults o f this kind, whose heterogeneity, and often their triviality, are subsumed under the pompous rubric o f ‘culture’. Today, this is one o f the meanings o f sports, and especially o f football, a prom inent site o f globalisation, includ­ ing its aspect o f reinventing difference from one country or club to another. ‘A paradigm o f male language, transgressing regions and generations, bringing the singular and the indi­ vidual into dialogue, juxtaposing m erit and chance, justice and trickery, “w e” and “they,” the soccer match appears ... to be one o f the deep symbolic matrices o f our time. H overing be­ tw een festival and war, comic and tragic, ridiculous and se­ rious, fiction and reality, ritual and show, it condenses into a unique, hybrid genre the fundamental values that shape our societies’, writes Christian Brom berger at the conclusion o f a remarkable investigation in Marseilles, Turin and Naples.47 W hatever ‘herm eneutic plasticity’ it may have that prevents it from being reduced to a single, univocal function, it is clearly ‘the site par excellence w here the democratic imaginaire takes concrete form, glorifying equality o f opportunity, universal

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competition, and personal merit [.. .]’,48 at the same time that it allows chance and deception their place. T he globalisation o f its practice and the passions it unleashes suggest that it has be­ come one o f the major rituals through w hich relationships among the actors in a single society or in different societies are negotiated: the m odem polis is ‘footballerian’ and m ore gen­ erally athletic, as m uch as it is religious, one not hindering the other, as was shown in Algeria by young sports fans’ support for the Islamic Salvation Front.49 Thus in Africa, confronta­ tions betw een supporters o f different cities or countries are a com m on ‘abridged translation’ o f ‘tribalism’ or xenophobia, just as the exploits o f the national football team, ‘Bafana, Bafana’, constituted an extraordinary civic celebration o f inter­ racial reconciliation in the new South Africa in 1996.50 Like other kinds o f interconnections, exchanges betw een the sphere o f sporting passions and that o f political passions are contingent and w ithout specific orientation. T he spectators in the Greek Olympia, w ho came from various cities, had already ‘decided to feel that they were experiencing a general Greek ceremony, a symbol o f their civilisation’, w ithout assembling for the explicit goal o f glorifying their unity and their identity w ith respect to the barbarians.51 In our own time the contri­ bution made by football to the ‘imagined com m unity’ is o f the same order. Sport is one o f the mediations through w hich the public sphere is conceived. From the U nited States to the Islamic Republic o f Iran, televised coverage o f matches even provides for the globalisation o f the various possible elabo­ rations o f the public sphere. But the condensations that sport invokes are just as paradoxical as the religious invention o f modernity. Oblique, fragmentary, facetious or violent, they are anything but linear, and their bizarreness cannot help but remind us o f certain episodes recounted in this book. For example, French majorettes have drawn heavily on the military repertoire: their baton toss is borrowed from the American army, w hich is supposed to have im ported it from Thailand, Samoa, or even Arabia in the 1930s, but it has been merged

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w ith the French parade tradition; in addition, their troupes observe a discipline, adopt a hierarchical organisation, wear uniforms, and m ove in accord w ith a music whose style re­ peats, in a distanced or even parodic manner, that o f the French armed forces, n o t w ithout slightly embarrassing or annoying the officers in the local garrison. M utatis mutandis, this ludic and increasingly athletic activity should be compared w ith the Beni dance that popularised the ‘drill’ technique in East Africa. C om bining in a very ambivalent way a strict moral conform ­ ism and a grass-roots exhibitionism, the m ovem ent o f French majorettes has allowed ‘quite simple girls’ from modest back­ grounds to escape from their families, at least for a time, to increase their social visibility, and perhaps even to begin to rise in society.52 R ath er than disapproving o f cultural movements— w hether connected w ith religion, sport, hair-styles, etc.— by describing them at the outset as futile, alienating, or retrograde in relation to allegedly universal criteria, we should try to locate the meanings they convey in specific historical contexts. Moreover, all effects o f universalisation are not necessarily good, and they do not excuse us from m aking ethical judgem ents, w hich are the prerogative o f each individual’s conscience. Simply, let us judge know ing w hat we are about, not on the basis o f scanty infor­ mation; let us not allow the wool to be pulled over our eyes; let us take care to consider as productive events (evenementialiser) the matrices o f symbolic action through w hich the imaginary figures o f politics are constituted and condensed. In addition, let us not conceal the fact that while the criticism o f strategies o f political identity involves the exercise o f reason — rasonieren o f the Enlightenm ent, w hich is indis­ pensable for ‘m oving beyond im m aturity’— it also implies a reconquest o f the imaginaire, for reasons we have explained at length in the last two chapters. T he Abbe Gregoire declared the Convention: We all have senses that are, as it were, the doors o f the soul; through them we are all capable o f receiving deep impressions; and those w ho claim to

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govern a people by philosophical theories are no philosophers. E ven a m an as free o f everything material as it is possible to be is susceptible to the prestige o f decorations and the magic o f all the arts o f im itation; and the person w h o prides him self the m ost on being guided solely by reason has perhaps yielded less often to reason’s voice than to the illusions o f the im agination and the senses: these effects derive from the very nature o f man; and if it is philosophical to analyse it by using abstractions that m ake it easier to understand, it is no less philosophical to analyse it as a w hole, to start out from this point to act upon his heart and to direct it tow ard the ful­ film ent o f the duties that ensure the stability o f the social ord er.53

Today nothing threatens the ‘stability o f the social order’ more than the illusion o f cultural identity. It needs, as never before, to be contested by a m odern philosophical ethos that unravels the roles o f the contingent and the universal, now that political parties in Europe and elsewhere have seized the initiative in what they call the ‘battle for identity’.

[pp. ix-4]

NOTES Foreword 1. J.-E Bayart, ‘L’enonciation du politique’, R evue frangaise de science politique, 35/3, June 1985, pp. 343—72; L ’E tat en Afrique. La politique du ventre, Paris: Fayard, 1989; and (with A. Mbembe and C. Toulabor), Le Politique par le bas en A frique noire. Contributions a une problematique de la democratie, Paris; Karthala, 1992. 2. E. Hobsbawm, N ations and Nationalism since 1780, Cambridge University Press, 1990, 3. M. Foucault, Histoire de la sexualite, vol. II: L ’Usage des plaisirs, Paris: Gallimard, 1984, p. 14. 4. ‘One cannot imagine Diderot in regional dress. There seems to be a contra­ diction. Is it possible to be a world-renowned philosopher and at the same time wear a regional costume...? The uniformity which we expect to see every­ where leads to unexpected reactions in all domains,’ says the writer Cees Nooteboom sarcastically, being the good ‘business-oriented’ Dutchman that he is. Interview in Liberation, 4—5 Aug. 1990. 5. T. Todorov, N ous et les autres. La reflexion frangaise sur la diversite humaine, Paris: Seuil, 1989, p. 79. • 6. Cf. especially G. Delannoi, ‘Nations et Lumieres, des philosophes de la nation avant le nationalisme: Voltaire et Herder’, and A. Renaut, ‘Logiques de la nation’ in G. Delannoi and P-A. Taguieff (eds), Theories du nationalisme, Paris: Kime, 1991, pp. 15-46. 7. B. Berman and J. Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley. Conflict in Kenya and Africa, vol. II: Violence and Ethnicity, London: James Currey; Nairobi: Heinemann; Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1991 (reviewed in R evue frangaise de science politique, 44/1, Feb. 1994, pp. 136-9).

Part I

T he Beaujolais N ouveau is here!

1. C. Tardits (ed.), Contribution de la recherche ethnologique a I’histoire des civilisations du Cameroun, Paris: CNRS, 1981; C. H. Pradelles de Latour, Etlmopsychanalyse en pays bamileke, Paris: EPEL, 1991; J.-P Warmer, L ’esprit d ’entreprise au Cameroun, Paris: Karthala, 1993. 2. M. Lachiver, Vins, vignes et vignerons. Histoire du vignoble frangais, Paris: Fayard, 1988, pp. 502—3 and 506. 3. J. Clifford, The Predicament o f Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature and A rt, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988, p. 15.

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Notes

[pp. 7-11]

T he Interweaving o f Traditions

1. P. Hassner, La violence et la paix. D e la bombe atomique au nettoyage ethnique, Paris: Esprit, 1995, pp. 309,341,380-1. 2. F. Braudel, Grammaire des civilisations, Paris: Arthaud-Flammarion, 1987, pp. 38­ 9 (authors italics). 3. A. Appadurai (ed.), 77ie Social Life o f Things. Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 1986 (esp. chs I and II, by A. Appadurai and I. KopytoS); F. Adelkhah, Being Modern in Iran, London: Hurst, 1999; S. Darbon, D esjeunesfilles toutes simples. Ethnographie d ’une groupe de majorettes en France (no date or place of publication, but appearing 1995). O n cultural differences in management, cf. P. Iribarne, La logique de I’honneur. Gestion des entreprises et tra­ ditions nationales, Paris: Seuil, 1989, and, for non-Western examples, P.-N. Denieul, Les Entrepreneurs du developpement. L ’ethno-industrialisation en Tunisie. La dynamique de Sfax, Paris: Harmattan, 1992; J.-P. Warmer, L ’esprit d ’entreprise au Cameroun, Paris: Karthala, 1993. 4. W. M. O ’Barr, ‘The Airbrushing of Culture: An Insider Looks at Global Advertising’, Public Culture 2/1, 1989, p. 15. 5. J.-M. Lotman and B.-A. Ouspenski, Semiotique de la culture russe. Etudes sur I’histoire, Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 1990, pp. 47—9. 6. J. N. Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics: A Theory o f Change and Continuity, Princeton University Press, 1990, p. 143; A. Giddens, M odernity and Self­ Identity: S e lf and Society in the Late Modern Age, Stanford University Press, 1991; P. Hassner (n. 1). 7. B. Lewis, Islam et laicite. La naissance de la Turquie moderne, Paris: Fayard, 1988 (esp. pp. 233ff. and 425—6); D. Kushner, The R ise o f Turkish Nationalism, 187 6 —1908, London: Frank Cass, 1977. 8. M. Salilins,y4i/ coeur des societes. Raison utilitaire et raison culturelle, Paris: Gallimard, 1980, p. 8. 9. This is contrary to what Sahlins thinks when he writes o f ‘a cultural schema... variously modified by a dominant place of symbolic production, which feeds the major idiom of other relations and activities’, and of a ‘privileged institu­ tional place of the symbolic process, from which there emanates a classifiying pattern imposed on the culture in its entirety’, (ibid., p. 263) 10. A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, University of Chicago Press, 2000. 11. Cf. esp. the work of Alain Henry at the Caisse Fran^aise de Developpement, esp. Tontines et banques au Cameroun. Les principes de la Societe des amis, Paris: Karthala, 1991, of which G.-H. Tchente and P. Guillerme-Dieumegard are co­ authors. 12. K. van Wolferen, H ie Enigma o f Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation, N e w York: Vintage Books, 1990 (esp. pp. 29 and 184£F.);H. Ooms, ‘Les capitalistes confuceens’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 80, Nov. 1989, pp. 81—6. 13. Y. Shinichi, ‘Le concept de public-prive’ in H. Yoichi and C. Sautter (eds), L 'E ta t et I’individu au Japon, Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1990, p. 36. For current transformations in Japanese culture,

[pp. 11-21]

14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

Notes

255

cf. E. Seizelet, ‘La societe japonaise et la mutation du systeme de valeurs’, Les etudes du C E R I , July 1995. P. Veyne, L ’Elegie erotique romaine, Paris: Seuil, 1983, p. 25. Y. Shinichi (n. 13), pp. 34—5, and K. Postel-Vinay, La revolution silendeuse du Japon, Paris: Calmann-Levy, Fondation Saint-Simon, 1994, pp. 85-183. A. Walthall, Peasant Uprisings in japan: A Critical Anthology o f Peasant Histories, University of Chicago Press, 1991. Cf. also the review of the work of Japanese medievalists, esp. Yoshihiko Amino, by P Pons in Le Monde, 3 March 1989, p. 19. Le Monde, 11—12 Nov. and 22 Nov. 1990. I am grateful to Jacques Andrieu of the CN RS Centre Chine for having ‘opened my eyes’— as Cameroonians would say— to this symbolism during a visit to an exhibition of Maoist badges at Xian in Oct. 1993. M.-C. Bergere, L ’A ge d ’or de la bourgeoisie chinoise, 1911—1937, Paris: Flammarion, 1986. Y. Chevrier, ‘L’Empire distendu’ in J.-F. Bayart (ed.), La Greffe de 1’Etat, Paris: Karthala, 1996 (ch. 9). R.H . Solomon, M a o ’s Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture, Berkeley: Uni­ versity of California Press, 1971, p. 521. N. R. Keddie (ed.), Religion and Politics in Iran: S h i’ism from Quietism to R evo­ lution, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983; Y. Richard, Le C h i’isme en Iran. Imam et Revolution, Paris: Librairie d’Amerique et d’Orient,Jean Maisonneuve, 1980. J. L. Esposito (ed.), T he Iranian Revolution: Its Global Impact, Miami: Florida International University Press, 1990. Quoted in G. Kepel, Les banlieues de 1’islam. Naissance d ’une religion en France, Paris: Seuil, 1987, p. 253. Interview with Jacques Chirac by the Washington Times in Nov. 1986, reproduced in L e Monde, 11 Nov. 1986, p. 2. S. Haeri, The L aw o f Desire: Temporary Marriage in Iran, London: I. B. Tauris, 1989. ‘L’intervention televisee du president de la Republique’, Le Monde, 28 Oct. 1995, p. 8. F. Adelkhah, J.-F. Bayart and O. Roy, Thermidor en Iran, Brussels: Complexe, 1993. P. Clawson (ed.), Iran’s Strategic Intentions and Capabilities, Washington, DC: Insti­ tute for National Strategic Studies, 1994. Liberation, 15 Feb. 1994. As reported by R . Girard, Le Figaro, 19 May 1994. Le M onde, 18 Feb. 1993. Cf. for example at the rime of Operation Manta, in 1983: J.-E Bayart, La politique africaine de Francois Mitterrand, Paris: Karthala, 1984. J. de Barrin, ‘Un quart de siecle d’independance au Burundi et au Rwanda. Pas de fete de famille pour les jumeaux des Grands Lacs’, Le Monde, 1 July 1987. As reported by R . Girard, Le Figaro, 19 May 1994. The officer quoted was very probably General Huchon, then head of the Military Cooperation Mission at the French Ministry of Cooperation.

256

Notes

[pp. 22-29]

36. Interview in Le M onde , 13 July 1994. Cf. also interview with Francois Mitterrand in Lc Figaro, 9 Sept. 1994: ‘[Juvenal Habyarimana] represented in Kigali an 80 per cent majority ethnic group.’ 37. J.-F. Bayart, L ’Etat en Afrique (n. 1), ch. 1. 38. C. Newbury, The Cohesion o f Oppression: Clientship and Ethnicity in Rwanda, 1860—1960, New York: Columbia University Press, 1988; C. Vidal, Sociologie des passions. Rwanda, C ote-d’Ivoire, Paris: Karthala, 1991; R . Lemarchand, Burundi, Etlmocide as Discourse and Practice, Cambridge University Press, 1994. 39. Quoted in M. G. Schatzberg, M obutu or Chaos? The United States and Zaire, 1 9 6 0 -1 9 9 0 , Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Foreign Policy Research Institute, 1991, pp. 47—8. 40. According to some recent sources, this massacre has not been proved, or at least it would appear to have been exaggerated. But it has been established that the security services maintained their pressure on opponents, despite the intro­ duction of multi-party politics, attacking independent newspapers and leaders of the UDPS. 41. ‘Un proces exemplaire a Bamako’, Le Monde, 14-15 Feb. 1993, p. 1. 42. Liberation, 25 Sept. 1990, p. 25. A good example of the globalisation of identitybased absurdities: that supervisory employee was of Tunisian origin. 43. On the rebuilding of Zulu ‘tradition’ by Inkatha, cf. S. Marks, ‘Patriotism, Patriarchy and Purity: Natal and the Politics of Zulu Ethnic Consciousness’ in L. Vail (ed.), The Creation o f Tribalism in Southern Africa, London: lames Currey, 1989, pp. 215-40. 44. Didier Bigo, Pouvoir et obeissance en Centrafrique, Paris: Karthala, 1988; C. M. Toulabor, Le Togo sous Eyadema, Paris: Karthala, 1986. 45. T. O. Ranger, ‘The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa’ in E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), The Invention o f Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 41-2. ' 46. E. Terray, ‘Le debat politique dans le royaumes de l’Afrique de l’Ouest. Enjeux et formes’, R evue frangaise de science politique, 38/5, Oct. 1988, pp. 720—30; I. Wilks, Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution o f a Political Order, Cambridge University Press, 1975; R .H . Bates, Essays on the Political Economy o f Rural Africa, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 41—2. 47. L. de Heusch, Le roi ivre ou I’origine de I’etat, Paris: Gallimard, 1972, pp. 94ff. 48. P. Geschiere, Village Communities and the State: Changing Relations among the M aka o f Southern Cameroon since the Colonial Conquest, London: KPI, 1982. 49. Cf.— as well as Jean Rouch’s short film Les Mattres fo u s — T. O. Ranger, ‘The Invention o f Tradition in Colonial Africa’ (n. 45), and Dance and Society in Eastern Africa, 1890—1970: The Beni Ngoma, London: Heinemann, 1975;J. Iliffe, A Modern History o f Tanganyika, Cambridge University Press, 1979, p. 100. 50. J. Vansina, Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History o f Political Tradition in E qua­ torial Africa, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990. 51. C. Young and T. Turner, The R ise and Decline o f the Zairian State, Madison: Uni­ versity of Wisconsin Press, 1985, pp. 30ff., and B. Jewsiewicki (ed.), Naftre et mourir au Zaire. Un demi-siecle d ’histoire au quotidien, Paris: Karthala, 1993. 52. J. Vansina (n. 50).

[pp. 29-37]

Notes

257

53. T. Ranger, ‘The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa’ (n. 45). 54. J. Vansina (n. 50), p. 258. 55. For a critique o f tradition reified in this way, cf. F. Eboussi Boulaga, La Crise du M u n tu . Authenticity africaine et philosophic, Paris: Presence africaine, 1977. In contrast to Jan Vansina, S. Feierman relativises the extent of that reification: Peasant Intellectuals, Anthropology and History in Tanzania, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990. 56. E. Colson, ‘African Society at the Time of the Scramble’ in L. H. Gann and P. Duignan (eds), Colonialism in Africa, 1 8 7 0 -1 9 6 0 , vol. I: The History and Politics o f Colonialism, 18 7 0 —1 9 1 4 , Cambridge University Press, 1969, p. 31. 57. J. Iliffe (n. 49), p. 324. The role of African middlemen, especially the literate ones, in this process of colonial ‘imagination’ of ethnicity is now better understood than a few years ago, when emphasis was placed on the inter­ vention of European administrators and missionaries: cf. for example L. Vail (n. 43) and B. Berman andj. Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley, Harlow: Longman, 1992. 58. J.-P. Warmer (n. 3). 59. J.-F. Bayart, L ’E tat en A frique (n. 37), ch. V I am grateful to Eric de Rosny for drawing my attention to that perverse effect of the Rwandan state’s territorial continuity. 60. According to a celebrated, and much debated, expression of Georges Balandier. 61. Voltaire, Essais sur les moeurs, Paris: Garnier, 1963, vol. II, p. 305, and vol. I, p. 23. 62. M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit o f Capitalism, London, Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989. 63. R . Collins, Weberian Sociological Theory, Cambridge University Press, 1986. 64. G. Roth, ‘Weber the Would-be Englishman: Anglophilia and Family History’, in H. Lehmann and G. R oth (eds), Weber’s Protestant Ethic: Origins, Evidence, Contexts, Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 83-121. Cf. also H. Goldman, M a x Weber and Thomas M ann: Calling and the Shaping o f the S e lf Berkeley: Uni­ versity of California Press, 1988. However, M. Herzfeld ( H ie Social Production o f Indifference: Exploring the Symbolic Roots o f Western Democracy, New York: Berg, 1992, p. 21) recalls that in 1904 Weber was still attributing the supposed speci­ ficity of Western rationality to ‘heredity’. 65. M. Weber, Economy and Society: A n O utline o f Interpretive Sociology, ed. Guenther R oth and Claus Wittich, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978, pp. 385ff., esp. pp. 393—4. 66. T. Todorov, N ous et les autres. La reflexion franfaise sur la diversite humaine, Paris: Seuil, 1989, p. 429. 67. Cf. esp. E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), 77te Invention o f Tradition (n. 45). 68. D. Cannadine, ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: the British Monarchy and the “Invention of Tradition”, c. 1820—1977’, ibid.,pp. 101—64. 69. E. Hobsbawm, ‘Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870—1914’, ibid., pp. 263— 307. 70. C. E. Schorske, Vienne f i n de siecle. Politique et culture, Paris: Seuil, 1983, pp. 50ff. 71. C. Hurtig, Les Maharajahs et la politique dans I’lnde contemporaine, Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1988. 72. B. S. Cohn, ‘Representing Authority in Victorian India’ in E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds) (n. 45), pp. 165—209. M. van Woerkens however observes that

258

73.

74.

75. 76.

77.

78.

79. 80.

81.

82.

83.

Notes

[pp. 37-40]

the ‘Indian Renaissance’ movement set off by Orientalist studies turned out less strong in Britain than in France or Germany (Le Voyageur etrangle. L ’Inde des Thugs, le colonialisme et I’imaginaire, Paris: Albin Michel, 1995, p. 274). C. Jaffrelot, Les Nationalismes hindous. Ideologie, implantation et mobilisation des annees 1920 aux annees 1990, Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1993, pp. 24 and 41. Ibid., p. 45. Colonial observers were disturbed by this mixture of styles and were naturally inclined to treat them as criminal, remembering the eradication of the criminal Thug sect in the nineteenth century: ‘The bomb-parast is an individual who has placed a bomb or grenade in the sanctuary of Shiva so as to adore her in company with Kali the Hungry, and to revel in advance in the blood that is to flow. In Bengal the pre-trial examination of all these assassins shows how the Hindu student, physically and morally victim of premature sexual activity, responds to propaganda of crime and adores the apotheosis of the Goddess under the power of nitro-glycerine... The cult of the grenade is similar to that of Bhowani and Kali, tutelary saints of Thuggism, whose thirst for blood spared nobody.’ Thus one of them fulminated in 1934 following an attempt on the life of the Viceroy (quoted by M. van Woerkens [n. 72],p. 352). C. Jaffrelot (n. 73), pp. 44ff. Ibid., pp. 83—4. See also,by the same author, ‘Les (re)conversions a l’hindouisme (1885—1990): Politisation et diffusion d’une “invention de la tradition’” , Archives des sciences sociales des religions, 87, July—Sept. 1994, pp. 73—98. ‘...totalitarianism results from the attempt, in a society where individualism is deeply rooted and predominant, to subordinate it to the primacy o f society as a totality,’ wrote Louis Dumont (H om o Aequalis. Genese et epanouissement de I’ideologie economique, Paris: Gallimard, 1976, pp. 21—2). In this case the ‘totality’ is ‘culture’ or ‘tradition’. Benedict Anderson reminds us that nationalism arose first in the New World, not in the Old (Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread o f Nationalism, London: Verso, 1983). E. Renan, Q u ’est-ce q u ’une nation? in Oeuvres completes, Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1947, p. 891. J.-F. Bayart, ‘L’hypothese totalitaire dans le Tiers monde. Le cas de l’Afrique noire’ in G. Hermet, P. Hassner and J. Rupnik (eds), Totalitarismes, Paris: Economica, 1984, pp. 201-14. Quoted by T. Todorov (n. 66), pp. 130 and 76—8. For a relativisation of the opposition between civic/political and ethnic/cultural conceptions of the nation, cf. A. Dieckhoff, ‘La deconstruction d’une illusion. L’introuvable oppo­ sition entre nationalisme politique et nationalisme culturel’, L ’A n n ee sociologique, 46/1,1996, pp. 43—55. Z. Sternhell, N i droite, ni gauche. L ’ideologie fasciste en France, Paris: Seuil, 1983, and (with co-authors) Naissance de I’ideologie fasciste, Paris: Fayard, 1989, as well as his commentary on Francois Mitterrand’s admissions to Pierre Pean about his Vichy past (in Le Monde, 8 Sept. 1994, p. 8) and the polemics which that set off! See on this subject B. Berman andj. Lonsdale (n. 57), chs. 11 and 12.

[pp. 41-45]

Notes

259

84. Cf. the essay by the Iranian philosopher Djalal Al-el Ahmad, L ’Occidentalite, Paris: Harmattan, 1988. 85. B. Anderson (n. 78), 1991 revised edition, pp. 163ff. Cf. also the critique of the instrumentalist character of the Hobsbawm-Ranger thesis by A. Smith (‘The Nation: Invented, Imagined, Reconstructed?’, M illennium , 20/3, winter 1991, pp. 353—68), and the development of Ranger’s thinking on this point (‘The Invention of Tradition Revisited: the Case of Colonial Africa’in T. Ranger and O. Vaughan (eds), Legitimacy and die State in Tiventieth Century Africa: Essays in Honour o f A .H .M . Kirk-Greene, London: Macmillan, 1993, pp. 62-111). 86. Ibid., p. 183. Cf. also, on the Javanese casej. Pemberton, O n the Subject o f ‘J ava’, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994. 87. Cf. the admirable study of Kikuyu society in Kenya by B. Berman and J. Lonsdale (n. 57), and the no less remarkable interpretation of the ‘trial of independence’ in Bassa society by A. Mbembe, La Naissance du maquis dans le Sud-Cam eroun (1 9 2 0 -1 9 6 0 ). Histoire des usages de la raison en colonie, Paris: Karthala, 1996. 88. Cheikh Hamidou Kane, L'A venture ambigue, Paris: UGE, 1979 (new edition), p. 164. Cf. also the famous essay by G. Balandier, A frique ambigue, Paris: Plon, 1957, and S. Marks, The Am biguities o f Dependence in South Africa: Class, Nationalism and the State in Twentieth Century N atal, Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1995. This idea is developed in ch. 3. 90. J. and J. ComarofF, Ethnography and the Historical Imagination, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992, p. 285. 91. Cf. for example the portrait of Chatelain, founder in 1897 of the Lincoln mission station in Angola, by D. Peclard, Ethos missionnaire et esprit du capitalisme. La Mission philafricaine en Angola. 1897—1 907 , Lausanne: Le Fait Missionnaire, 1995. 92. J. andj. ComarofF, Ethnography (n. 90), ch. VII, and O f Revelation and Revolution, vol. I: Christianity, Colonialism and Consciousness in South Africa, University of Chicago Press, 1991, ch. II. The relations between the Conquistadors and the Jesuits and the Mendicant Orders in the New World provide another classic example of such disagreements within the colonial world. 93. Cf. for example the fierce criticism o f the ideas of popular culture and folklore by M. de Certeau, La culture au pluriel, Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1980, ch. II (co-authored with D. Julia andj. Revel): ‘Does popular culture exist elsewhere than in the act that suppresses it?’ (p. 74). 94. J. G. Liebenow, Liberia: The Q uest fo r Democracy, Bloomington: Indiana Uni­ versity Press, 1987, p. 21. 95. T. Ranger, ‘The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa’ (n. 45). 96. Cf. for example D. Peclard (n. 91) and N. Monnier, Strategie missionnaire et tactiques d ’appropriation indigenes: La mission romande au M ozambique, 1888—1896,

Lausanne: Le Fait Missionnaire, 1995. 97. T. Ranger, ‘Religion, Development and African Christian Identity’ in K. H. Petersen (ed.), Religion, Development and African Identity, Uppsala: Scandi­ navian Institute o f African Studies, 1987, pp. 49fF., and J.-F. Bayart, ‘Les Eglises

260

Notes

[pp. 45-48]

chretiennes et la politique du ventre: Le partage du gateau ecclesial’, Politique africaine, 35, Oct. 1989, pp. 18—19.

98. B. Berman andj. Lonsdale (n. 57), pp. 234 and 254. 99. M. von Freyhold (Ujamaa Villages in Tanzania. Analysis of a Social Experiment, London: Heinemann, 1979) emphasises for example the kinship between Ujamaa and villagisation in Tanzania and colonial thinking; and T. Ranger stresses the affinities between African Christianity and the Socialist transfor­ mation of peasant communities: ‘Religious Development and African Christ­ ian Identity’, in K.H. Petersen (ed.) (n. 97), p. 30. 100. C. Geertz, Agricultural Involution: the Process of Ecological Change in Indonesia, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966; B. Anderson, Language and Power. Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990, and Imagined Communities (n. 78);J. Pemberton (n. 86). 101. D. Lombard, Le Carrefour javanais. Essai d’histoire globale, vol. I: L ’heritage des royaumes concentriques, Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1990, pp. 15ff. and 74ff. 102. C. Jaffrelot (n. 73), pp. 141-2. Cf. also E.E Irschick, Dialogue and History on the ‘dialogic’ birth of the village in southern India in the nineteenth century, and G. Prakash, ‘Introduction’ in G. Prakash (ed.), After Colonialism pp. 6—7, on the ‘post-colonial text’ of the village at Gandhi’s home, who reinterpreted colonial archives in the light of Henry Maine, Tolstoy, Thoreau and Ruskin, as well as R. O ’Hanlon, ‘Recovering the Subject. Subaltern Studies and Histories of Resistance in Colonial South Asia’, Modern Asian Studies, 22/1, 1988, pp. 189—224, for a critical review of the ‘Subaltern Studies’ historical school and its analysis of the peasantry. 103. J. C. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant. Rebellion and Subsistence in South­ East Asia, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976. 104. S. L. Popkin, The Rational Peasant. The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979, pp. 2—3, 10ff., 22ff. and 43ff. 105. Ibid., p. 149. 106. L. Dumont, La Civilisation indicnnc ct nous, Paris: Armand Colin, 1964, pp. llff. and 121. 107. Let the villagers themselves speak, such as this student at a N orth Cameroon agricultural college answering a questionnaire in writing and talking to us not o f ‘the village’ but of the peasants: Q u e stio n ‘In w h a t respects has the village m a d e progress ?’ ‘These villages have made most progress in the area of work in “Baba’s” fields. That means, work in the fields of the Chief of Rey Bouba only. Even to work in their indi­ vidual fields, they have no right when the rainy season comes; the chief’s dourgourous [guards] come to look for them in the village, to go first to the chief’s fields so as to come back and start work for themselves late in the day; that is why I say they have pro­ gressed in the area of the Rey Bouba chief’s fields.’ Q u e stio n ‘H a s this progress been m a d e b y all the p ea sa n ts, or o n ly b y so m e? W h y ? ’

‘I tell you that this progress is made by all the peasants, because the region or Lamidate of Rey Bouba comprises these tribes: [the names of various ethnic groups follow]. They

[pp. 49-55]

Notes

261

are all the slaves o f the chief of Rey Douba. Nobody among the tribes 1 have just men­ tioned has any rights as a person.’ (Handwritten homework found at Baikwa, North Cameroon, in an agricultural training school, Dec. 1984)

108. T. Ranger, ‘Religious Development and African Christian Identity’ in K. H. Petersen (ed.) (n. 97),p. 31; A. Hastings,/! History of African Christianity, 1950—1975, Cambridge University Press, p. 179. 109. V. S. Naipaul, A Turn in the South, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989, p. 40. Cf. also H. Cox, Religion in the Secular City: Toward a Postmodern Theology, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984, and G. Kepel, La revanche de Dieu. Chretiens, juifs et musulmans a la reconquete du nionde, Paris: Seuil, 1991, ch. III. 110. P. Gifford, Christianity and Politics in Doe’s Liberia, Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 264ff. 111. P. Gifford, ibid. pp. 21 Off. and 293ff. for a solidly documented analysis. Cf. also, for a Sudanese example, W. James, The Listening Ebony: Moral Knowledge, Religion and Power among the Uduk of Sudan, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988, ch. IV. 112. ‘Dispensationalist’ commentary quoted by P. Gifford (n. 110), p. 252. 113. For the Liberian example, see P. Gifford (n. 110). 114. J.-F. Bayart (ed.), Religion et modernite politique en Afrique noire. Dieu pour tons et chacun pour soi, Paris: Karthala, 1993. This approach has been particularly employed in reference to Zaire, esp. by P. Ngandu Nkashama, Eglises nouvelles et mouvements religieux. L’exemple za'irois, Paris: Harmattan, 1990, and R . Devisch, ‘Independent Churches Heal Modernity’s Violence in Zaire’in B. Kapferer (ed.), Peripheral Societies and the State, Oxford: Berg; and, concerning Nigeria, by R . Marshall, “‘Power in the Name of Jesus”: Social Transfor­ mation and Pentecostalism in Western Nigeria “Revisited”’in T. Ranger and O. Vaughan (eds), Legitimacy and the State (n. 86),pp. 213—46; and, concerning Ivory Coast, by J.-P. Dozon, La Cause des prophetes. Politique et religion en Afrique contemporaine, Paris: Seuil, 1995. 115. J.-F. Bayart (n. 37), pp. 236ff. 116. P. Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone, International African Institute/James Currey and Heinemann, London and Portsmouth, NH , 1996. 117. Tracts and testimony cited by R. Marshall, “‘Power in the N am e...”’ (n. 114), p. 236. 118. Ibid., pp. 234ff. 119. The works by Filip de Boeck and Rene Devisch on Zaire (Louvain, Africa Research Centre) are particularly enlightening on this point. 120. Source: G. Ter Haar, Spirit of Africa: the Healing Ministry ofArchbishop Milingo of Zambia, London: Hurst, 1992. 121. Quoted by Ter Haar, ibid., p. 259. 122. Quoted in ibid., p. 178. 123. Ibid., p. 123. 124. D. Cruise O ’Brien, ‘La filiere musulmane. Confreries soufies et politique en Afrique noire’, Politique africaine 4, Nov. 1981, pp. 16ff. (quoting notably W. Simmons, ‘Islamic Conversion and Social Change in a Senegalese Village’, Ethnology 18/4,1979).

262

Notes

[pp. 56—61]

125. Article published in Izvestia, 28 Aug. 1993, reproduced in Le Monde, 23 Dec. 1993, p. 3. 126. S. Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas, Princeton University Press, 1962. 127. H. E. Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religions Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990, pp. 47fF. 128. C. Vidal, ‘Les politiques de la haine’, Les temps modemes, 583,July—Aug. 1995, p. 25. 129. Personal observation, recorded in ‘L’Angola entre guerre et paix’, La Croix, 29 June 1991. 130. C. Hughes, Switzerland, New York: Praeger, 1975, p. 107. 131. B. Anderson (n. 78),p. 139.

Chapter 2

Should We Stop Using the W ord ‘C ulture’?

1. S. J. Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renonncer: A Study of Buddhism and Pol­ ity in Thailand against a Historical Background, Cambridge University Press, 1976, Chs Vll and VIII, and Culture, Thought and Social Action: an Anthropological Per­ spective, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985, ch. VII. 2. D. Lombard, Le Carrefour javanais. Essai d’histoire globale, vol. 2: Les reseaux asiatiques, Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1990, pp. 130—1. Cf. also, for the Caribbean, E Constant, ‘Construction communautaire, insularite et identite politique dans la Cara'ibe anglophone’, Revue frangaise de science politique, 42/4, Aug. 1992, pp. 618—35; D.-C. Martin, ‘Je est un autre, nous est un meme. culture populaire, identite et politique a propos du carnaval de Trinidad’, Revue frangaise de science politique, 42/5, Oct. 1992, pp. 747—64. 3. I. Kopytoff, The African Frontier: The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. 4. W. James, The Listening Ebony. Moral Knowledge, Religion and Power among the Udak of Sudan, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 3. Cf. also J. J. Ewald, Soldiers, Traders and Slaves. State Formation and Economic Transformation of the Greater Nile Valley, 1770-1885, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990, and W. G. ClarenceSmith (ed.), The Economics of the Indian Ocean: Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century, London: Frank Cass, 1989. 5. J.-L. Amselle and E. Mbokolo (eds), Au coeur de I’ethnie. Ethnies, tribalisme et Etat en Afrique, Paris: La Decouverte, 1985; J--P- Warmer, Echanges, developpement et hierarchies dans le Bamenda precolonial (Cameroun), Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner

Verlag, 1985. 6. Cf. for example C. Tardits, Le royaume bamoun, Paris: Armand Colin, 1980, pp. 296-7; P. Laburthe-Tolra, Les Seigneurs de la foret. Essai sur le passe historique, Vorganisation sociale et les twrmes ethiques des ancietis Beti du Cameroun, Paris: Publi­ cations de la Sorbonne, 1981; P. Bonnafe, N zo Lipfu, le lignage de la mort. La sorcellerie, ideologic de lutte sociale sur le plateau kuknya, Nanterre: Labethno, 1978, and Histoire sociale d’uii penple congolais, book 1: La Terre et le Ciel, Paris:

[pp. 61—66]

Notes

263

O R STO M , 1987; S. F. Nadel, A Black Byzantium, Oxford University Press for the International African Institute, 1942. 7. J. Poirier, ‘Tradition et novation. De la “situation coloniale” a la situation hetero-culturelle’, Revue de ITustitnt de sociologie (Brussels), 3-4,1988, p. 75. 8. W. MacGaffey, Modern Kongo Prophets: Religion in a Plural Society, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983, pp. 97ff. 9. C. M. Toulabor, Le Togo sons Eyadema, Paris: Karthala, 1986, p. 37; P. Geschiere, Village Communities aud the State: Changing Relations among the Maka of Southern Cameroon since the Colonial Conquest, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982,

p. 206. 10. M. Foucault, Histoire de la sexualite, vol. 3: Le Souci de soi, Paris: Gallimard, 1984, pp. 102—3 (taking over for his purposes the works of S. H. Sandbach, M. RostovtzefFandj. Gage). 11. P. Veyne, L’Elegie erotique romahie, Paris: Seuil, 1983, p. 25 (which itself estab­ lishes the comparison with the Japan of the Tale of Genji). 12. C. Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1968,pp. 369—70. 13. R . N. Frye, The Golden Age of Persia: The Arabs in the East, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975; P. D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History, Cam­ bridge University Press, 1984; Palacio Nacional de Queluz, Musee National des Arts Asiatiques, Du Tage a la mer de Chine. Une epopee portugaise, Paris: Editions de la Reunion des Musees Nationaux, 1992. 14. According to the well-chosen expression used by Ernest Gellner, in J. Rupnik (ed.), Le Dechiremeut des nations, Paris: Seuil, 1995, p. 262. 15. F. de la Serre, C. Lequesne and J. Rupnik, L ’Union europeenne. Ouverture a VEsP. Paris: PUF, 1994, pp. 133—4. See also the fine work of V. Perez Diaz, Le defi de I’espace public europeeu, Madrid: ASP, 1994. 16. O n the importance of these transnational flows, cf. B. Badie and M.-C. Sinouts, Le Retournement du nionde. Sociologie de la scene internationale, Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Dalloz, 1992, and A. Colonomos,

17. 18. 19. 20.

Sociologie des reseaux transnatiouaux. Communantes, entreprises et individus:lien social et systeme international, Paris: L’Harmattan, 1995. M. Henry, Man-, vol. I: Unephilosophie de la realite, Paris: Gallimard, 1976, p. 109. M. de Certeau, La Culture au plnriel, Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1980, pp. 238-9. M. de Certeau, L’Ecriture de I’histoire, Paris: Gallimard, 1975, p. 37, n. 15. F. Braudel, L’Histoire de la France. Espace et histoire, Paris: Arthaud-Flammarion,

1986, p. 237. 21. J. Le GofF, ‘La vie de Saint Louis et le XHIe siecle’, Esprit, Aug.-Sept. 1992, pp. 39—40. 22. F. Braudel, ‘L’histoire des civilisations: le passe explique le present’ in Ecrits sur I’histoire, Paris: Flammarion, 1969, p. 305. 23. M. de Certeau, L’invention du quotidien, vol. I: Arts de faire, Paris: UGE, 1980, p. 10. 24. M. Vovelle, Ideologies et meutalites, Paris: F. Maspero, 1982, pp. 125fF., and Les Metamorphoses de la fete en Provence (1750-1820), Paris: Flammarion, 1976; P. Joutard, La Legende des Camisards. Une sensibilite au passe, Paris: Gallimard, 1977; R . Mandrou, De la culturepopulaire aux X V Ile et X V llIe siecles, Paris: Stock,

264

[pp. 67-72]

Notes

1975 (new edn); M. Bloch, Les rois thaumaturges. Etude sur le caractere surnaturel attribue a la puissance royale, particulierement en France et en Angleterre, Paris: Gallimard, 1983 (new edn); CNRS, La religion popidaire, Paris: Editions du 25. 26. 27. 28.

CNRS, 1979. M. Vovelle, Ideologies et mentalites (n. 24), p. 261. C. Geertz, Bali. Interpretation d'une culture, Paris: Gallimard, 1983, p. 251. Ibid. E. Leach, Political Systems of Highland Burma, London: Bell, 1954; S. J. Tambiah (n. 1);G. Balandier, Anthropologie politique, Paris: PUF, 1967, and Sens et puissance. Les dynamiques sociales, Paris: PUF, 1971; 1. Kopytoff (ed.) (n. 3);J.-P. Warmer

(n-5)-

.

.

,

.

.

.

29. R. Bendix, ‘Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered', Comparative Studies in Society and History, IX/3, April 1967, pp. 292—346. 30. Cf.— besides the works of Max Weber (and the commentary on Weber by R. Collins, Weberian Sociological Theory, Cambridge University Press, 1986, ch. VI) and those of Otto Hintze— A. R. Zolberg, ‘L’influence des facteurs “internes” sur l’ordre politique “internet”’ in M. Grawitz and J. Leca (eds), Traite de science politique, vol. I, Paris: PUF, pp. 567—98. 31. D.-C. Martin suggests substituing this expression ‘emblem of identity’ for the idea of ‘identity marker’ borrowed from the vocabulary of biology and often used (‘Le choLx d’identite’, Revue fran(aise de science politique, 42/4, Aug. 1992, p. 589). ' 32. P. Rabinow, Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco, Berkeley: University of Cali­ fornia Press, 1977, pp. 35—7. 33. 1. Lotman and B. Ouspenski, Semiotique de la culture nisse. Etudes sur I’histoire. Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 1990, pp. 27, 39, 44, 51. 34. CNRS, La religion populaire (n. 24); Centre Meridional d’Histoire Sociale, des Mentalites et des Cultures, Les iuteruiediaires culturels, Aix-en-Provence: Publi­ cations de l’Universite de Provence, 1981. 35. D. Roche, La France des Ltunieres, Pans: Fayard, 1993, p. 99 (my emphasis). 36. R. Chartier, Les origines culturelles de la Revolution frau(aise, Paris: Seuil, 1990, p. 105ff. 37. M. N. Srinivas, Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India, Oxford Uni­ versity Press, 1965, pp. 214ff. 38. W. G. Andrews, Poetry’s livee, Society's Song: Ottoman Lyric Poetry, Seattle: Uni­ versity of Washington Press, 1985, ch. VIII. 39. M. Raeff, Couiprendre lAncien Regime rnsse, Paris: Seuil, 1982, p. 87. 40. M. de Certeau (n. 23), pp. 12 and 20—1. 41. J.-F. Bayart, L ’Etat au Cameroun, Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1979; L ’Etat en Afrique. La politique du ventre, Paris: Fayard, 1989; and (with C. M. Toulabor and A. Mbembe) Le Politique par le has en Afrique noire. Contributions a une problcmatiqtie de la deinocratie, Paris: Karthala, 1992; as well as A. Mbembe, Afriques indociles. Christianisme, pouvoir et etat en societe postcoloniale, Paris: Karthala, 1988. 42. C. Duverger, La conversion des ludiens de Nouvelle-Espagne, Paris: Seuil, 1987, pp. 216£F., 247,252-3,260-61. For another example of the Indian extraversion

[pp. 72-79]

Notes

265

strategy, cf. J. Fried, Two Orders of Authority and Power in Tarahumara Society in R. D. Fogelson and R. N. Adams (eds), Tlw Anthropology of Power: Ethnographic Studies from Asia, Oceania and the New World, New York: Academic Press, 1977, pp. 263—9. 43. C. Duverger (n. 42), p. 15. 44. Ibid., p. 261. As we shall see later, the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe— con­ demned by the Franciscans, but very popular among Spaniards and Indians alike— is also often associated with the assertion of a Mexican proto­ nationalism (S. Gruzinski, La Guerre des images. De Christophe Colomb a ‘Blade Runner’ (1492-2019), Paris: Fayard, 1990, pp. 188ff.). 45. I am grateful to Philippe Burin des Roziers and Rodolfo Ramon de R oux for having shared their observations with me while giving me hospitality in Bogota in 1981. 46. S. Gruzinski (n. 44), pp. 152fF. 47. I. Lotman and B. Ouspenski (n. 33), p. 28. 48. M. Vovelle (n. 24), pp. 312fF.; M. Ozouf, La Fete revolutionnaire, 1789—1799, Paris: Gallimard, 1976. 49. J. Delumeau, Rassurer et proteger. Le sentiment de securite dans I’Occident d’autrfois, Paris: Fayard, 1989, pp. 152-6. Cf. also O. Ihl, La fete republicaine, Paris: Gallimard, 1996, pp. 231fF. 50. J.-C. Schmitt, La Raison desgestes dans I’Occident medieval, Paris: Gallimard, 1990, pp. 57ff. 51. File 140/221, ‘Elites politiques. Charles Njonjo’, Nairobi: CRJEDU. 52. B. Berman a n d j. Lonsdale, Unhappy Valley, London:James Currey; Nairobi: Heinemann; Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1991, pp. 281, 369ff., 443ff., 458; J. Spencer, KAU: The Kenya African Union, London: Kegan Paul Interna­ tional, 1985, p. 43; R. Buijtenhuijs, Le mouvement ‘mau-mau’. Une revolte paysanne et anti-coloniale en Afrique noire,The Hague:Mouton, 1971,pp. 373—4. 53. B. Berman andj. Lonsdale (n. 52), pp. 383,458. 54. Nyunda ya Rubango, Les Etudes de lexicologie politique au Zaire. Bilan critique et perspectives (no place or date of publication indicated, but appearing in Lubumbashi), xerox, Brussels: CEDAF, file 083. 55. Source: anonymous letter of 19 June 1982, giving the record of the first session of the trial of the the thirteen political commissars. Brussels, CEDAF, ‘Oppo­ sition’ file 016.4. 56. Article published in Izvestia, 28 Aug. 1993, reproduced in Le Monde, 23 Dec. 1993, p. 8. 57. R.A. Peterson, ‘La fabrication de l’authenticite. La country music’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 93, June 1992, p. 4. 58. J.-P. Warmer (ed.), Le Paradoxe de la marchandise anthentique. Imaginaire et consonnnation de masse, Paris: L’Harmattan, 1994. 59. P. Beaussant, Vous avez dit ‘baroque’? Musiqne du passe, pratiques d’aujourd’hui, Arles: Actes Sud, 1988, p. 63. 60. B. Spooner, ‘Weavers and Dealers: the Authenticity of an Oriental Carpet’ in A. Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 195—235.

266

Notes

[pp. 81-88]

61. R.A. Peterson (n. 57), pp. 3—19. 62. L. Stringfield, ‘America and her Music’, University of North Carolina Extension Bulletin, 10, 1931, pp. 19, 14, 13 (quoted in R.A. Peterson, ibid., pp. 9-10). 63. D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, Cambridge: Blackwell, 1990. 64. R.A. Peterson (n. 57), pp. 4 and 11. 65. J.-C. Martin and C. Suaud, ‘Le Puy duFou. L’interminable reinvention du paysan vendeen’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 93,June 1992, pp. 21—37, and M. Vovelle, ‘Un historien au Puy du Fou’, Le Monde diplomatique, Aug. 1994, pp. 16-17. 66. B. Bucher, Descendants de Choiians. Histoire et culture populaire dans la Vendee conteinporaine, Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1995. 67. J.-C. Martin and C. Suaud (n. 65), p. 31. 68. Le Puy folais, 13, 1982, p. 4, cited in ibid., p. 36. 69. H. Le Bras and E. Todd, L’invention de la France. Atlas anthropologique et politique, Paris: Hachette, 1981 (Le Livre de Poche series). 70. R. Thapar, ‘Imagined Religious Communities? Ancient History and the Modern Search for a Hindu Identity’, Modem Asian Studies 23/2,1989, p. 216. 71. C. Jaffrelot, Les Nationalismes hindous. Ideologic, implantation et mobilisation des annees 1920 aux annees 1990, Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1993, p. 19. 72. C. Jaffrelot, ‘Le syncretisme strategique et la construction de l’identite nationale hindoue. L’identite comme produit de synthese’, Revue fran(aise de science politique, 42/4, Aug. 1992, p. 616. 73. C. A. Bayly, ‘The Pre-History of “Communalism”? Religious Conflict in India, 1700—1860’, Modern Asian Studies, 19/2, 1985, pp. 177—203. Benedict Anderson’s analysis of two Javanese epics, the Semt Centhini (probably com­ pleted in 1814) and the Suluk Gatlwloco (composed in 1854—73), shows a similar transition from a syncretic identity, combining ‘a flexible mixture of Sufi mysticism and pre-lslamic Hindu-Javanese tradition’ in the eighteenth century to a situation where Islamic orthodoxy oriented towards Mecca was in oppo­ sition to a Javanese cultural nationalism (B. Anderson, Language and Power: Exploring Political Cidtures in Indonesia, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, ' 1990, ch. VIII, esp. p. 293). 74. R.H . Bates, ‘Modernization, Ethnic Competition and the Rationality of Politics in Contemporary Africa’in D. Rothschild and V. A. Olorunshola (eds), State versus Ethnic Claims: African Policy Dilemmas, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983, pp. 152 and 164—5. 75. E. Hobsbawm, Nations et nationalisme depuis 1780. Programme, Mythe et Realite, Paris, Gallimard, 1990, pp. 151—152. 76. S. J. Tambiah, Sri Lanka. Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy, Uni­ versity of Chicago Press, 1986, pp. 74—5; C. Vidal, Sociologie des passions (Coted ’lvoire, Rwanda), Paris: Karthala, 1991, pp. 19ff.; S. Marks, ‘Patriotism, Patriar­ chy and Purity: Natal and the Politics of Zulu Ethnic Consciousness’, in L. Vail (ed.), The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa, London: James Currey, 1989, pp. 251-40. ' 77. Ibid.

[pp. 89-91]

Notes

267

78. B. Spooner, ‘W ho are the Baluch? A Preliminary Investigation into the Dynamics of an Ethnic Identity from Qajar Iran’ in E. Bosworth and C. Hillenbrand (eds), Qajar Iran: Political, Social and Cultural Change, 1800­ 1925, Edinburgh University Press, 1983, pp. 93-110. Cf. also J.-P. Digard (ed.), Lefait cthniqne en Iran et en Afghanistan, Paris: Editions du CNRS, 1988 (esp. the ch. by R. L. Tapper, with a very ‘Africanist’ tone). 79. M. M. van Bruinessen,^/;a, Shaikh and State: On the Social and Political Organi­ zation of Kurdistan, Utrecht: Rijksuniversiteit, 1978, p. 7. 80. Ibid., ch. II. 81. Ibid., ch. III. 82. Message from Abdullah Ocalan to the Kurdistan Islamic Movement in Berlin, in July 1984, quoted by J.-F. Bayart, ‘Faut-il avoir peur de l’islam en Turquie?’, Cahiers d ’etudes sur la Mediterranee orientate et le monde turco-iranien, 18, 1994, p. 353; on the role of the Naqshbandiyya in the great revolt of 1925, cf. M. M. van Bruinessen (n. 79); on the PKK guerrilla campaign, see the same authors ‘Between Guerrilla War and Political Murder: the Workers’ Party of Kurdistan’, Middle East Report, July-Aug. 1988, pp. 40—6. 83. S. Mardin, Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case ofBediiizzaman Said Nursi, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. 84. M. Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed. G. Roth and C. Wittich, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978, pp. 393—5. It follows that the evolutionist idea of political organisation, closely linked to culturalist reasoning, must be abandoned. Humanity does not travel from the lost innocence of the primitive (village) community to the dereliction of world government. We have seen that Kurdistan has passed from the proto-state stage to that of chieftaincy— the age of emirates— and then to that of tribal configu­ ration, before succumbing to the charms of nationalist demands. Similarly, Afri­ can empires and kingdoms either built themselves up on the basis of lineage structure, or were overstretched or broken up to the benefit of that structure. 85. Ibid., pp. 389 and 357. 86. P. Geschiere, Village Communities and the State: Changing Relations among the Maka of Southern Cameroon since the Colonial Conquest, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, p. 56 and all of ch. II. Cf. also, for example, P. H. Gulliver, Neighbours and Networks: The Idiom of Kinship in Social Action among the Nderideuli of Tanzania, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971; E. Schildkrout, People of the Zongo: The Transformation of Ethnic Identities in Ghana, Cambridge

University Press, 1978. 87. P. Geschiere, Village Communities (n. 85) and Sorcellerie et politique en Afrique, La viande des autres, Paris: Karthala, 1995. 88. E de Polignac, La Naissance de la cite grecque, Paris: La Decouverte, 1984, p. 16. 89. A. Cheddadi, ‘Le systeme de pouvoir en islam d’apres Ibn Khaldun’, Annales ESC, 3-4, May—Aug. 1980, pp. 534—50. O. Carre suggests equivalence— ‘more or less’— between asabiyya and Gemeinsinu in Max Weber, L ’Utopie islamique dans 1’Orient arabe, Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1991, p. 41.

268

Notes

[pp. 92-98]

90. M. Seurat, L’etat de barbaric, Pans: Seuil, 1989, chapter VIII. See also the recent works of Olivier Roy on asabiyya, esp. Croupes de solidarite an Moyeii-Orieut et eu Asie centrale, Paris: CERI, 1996, and his analysis of qawm in Afghanistan (L’Afghanis tan. Islam et nwdernite politique, Paris: Seuil, 1985). 91. N. Beyhum, Espaces eclates, espaces domiues. Etude de la recomposition des espaces publics centmtix de Beyrouth de 1975 a 1990, Lyons: Universite Lyons II, 1991, pp. 510 and 165. 92. M. Abeles, Jours tranquilles eu 89. Ethnologie politique d’uu departement frangais, Paris: Odile Jacob, 1989, pp. 350-1. Cf. also S. C. Rogers, Shaping Modem Times in Rural France: The Transformation and Reproduction of an Aveyronuais Community, Princeton University Press, 1991, and B. Bucher, Descendants de Chouatis (n. 66), esp. pp. 104—5. 93. See on this point the analysis of the nisba at Sefrou in Morocco by C. Geertz, Savoir local, savoir global. Les lieux du savoir, Paris: PUF, 1986, pp. 83fF. 94. Mambida-Babinza (Colonel), Odyssee des evenements de Kisangani-Bukami, 1960—1967 (no place of publication given, but appearing in Kinshasa),

Connaissance des Forces Armees (undated but 1973), p. 88 (my emphasis). 95. D. Lombard (n. 2), pp. 49, 64,75, 21 Iff., 301ff. 96. Ibid., p. 308, and F. Aubin, ‘Une Chine multinationale’ in M .-C. Bergere, L. Biano and J. Domes (eds), La Chine au X X e siecle, vol. 2: De 1949 a aujourd’hui, Paris: Fayard, 1990, pp. 287—304. 97. M. Iordanidou, Loxandra, Le Mejan: Actes Sud, 1994, p. 142. Cf. also the mur­ der of Tridib in A. Ghosh, Lignes d ’ombre, Paris: Le Seuil, 1992, pp. 274ff., and the remarkable analysis of ‘initimate crim e'in a context o f ‘good neighbour­ liness’by X. Bougarel (Bosnie. Anatomie d’un conflit, Paris: La Decouverte, 1996, pp. 81-100). ' 98. R. Rosaldo, Culture and Truth. The Remaking of Social Analysis, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1993, p. 182. 99. M. Weber, Economy and Society (n. 84), p. 389. 100. J. Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature and Art, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988, pp. 10—11. 101. F. Barth (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, Bergen: Universitetsforlaget and London: Geo. Allen & Unwin, 1969; J. A. Armstrong, Nations before Nationalism, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982. 102. Joutard (n. 24), p. 40. 103. See for example Rosaldo (n. 98). 104. M. Lagree, Religion et cultures en Bretagne (1850-1950), Paris: Fayard, 1992. 105. J. Chelini, ‘Les catholiques sous Vichy’, La Croix-L’Eveuement, 7 May 1993, p. 7. 106. Personal documents. It will be observed that these texts offer a superb example of transfer of meaning. 107. R. Chartier (n. 36), pp. 105ff. 108. In L ’Ancien Regime et la Revolution, quoted by Chartier, ibid., p. 107. 109. R. Strong, Les Fetes de la Renaissance (1450-1650). Art et pouvoir, Arles: Solin, 1991, pp. 24-37.

[pp. 98-102]

Notes

269

110. Ibid., p. 63. 111. Y. R ichard, Le Shi’istttc en Iran. hnan et Revolution, Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1980; N. R . Keddie, Religion and Politics m Iran: Shi’ism from Quietism to Revolution, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983; J. R. I. Cole and N. R . Keddie (eds), Shi’ism and Social Protest, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. 112. H. E. Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religions Modernism: The Liberation Move­ ment of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990, pp. 202ff. 113. S. A. Aijomand, The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988; P. Vieille, ‘L’institution shi’ite, la religiosite populaire, le martyre et la revolution’, Peuples mediterranean, 16, July—Sept. 1981, pp. 77—92; Y. Richard, Le Shi’isme en Iran (n. I l l ) and L ’Islam chi’ite. Croyances et ideologies, Paris: Fayard, 1991, pp. 108ff., 160-1,175,236. On the innovative character of velayat-e faqih, see H. Enayat, ‘Iran: Khumayni’s Concept of the “Guardianship of the Jurisconsult’” in J. P. Piscatori (ed.), Islam in the Political Process, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 160—80, and G. Rose, ‘Velayat-e faquih and the Recovery of Islamic Identity in the Thought of Ayatollah Khomeini’ in N. R. Keddie (ed.), Religion and Politics (n. 111), pp. 166-88. 114. On Imam Khomeyni s thought, cf. G. Rose (n. 113) and H. Algar, The Roots of the Islamic Revolution, London: Open Press, 1983, p. 43, as well as Christian Bonnauds thesis (which I have not been able to consult in its entirety). 115. F. Adelkhah, ‘L’imaginaire economique en Republique islamique d ’Iran’in J.-E Bayart (ed.), La Reinvention du capitalisme, Paris: Karthala, 1994, pp. 117— 44, and Traite des conipagnons-chevaliers, ed. Henry Corbin, Teheran and Paris: Departement d’Iranologie de Tlnstitut Franco-Iranien de Recherche/ Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1973.1 am grateful to Christian Bonnaud for drawing my attention to the affinities between javctnmardi and Imam Khomeyni’s political style. 116. A. Ehsteshami, After Khomeini: The Iranian Second Republic, London: R outledge, 1995, pp. 24ff. 117. F. Adelkhah, J.-E Bayart and O. Roy, Thermidor en Iran, Brussels: Complexe, 1993. 118. M. Hegland, ‘Two Images of Husain: Accommodation and Revolution in an Iranian Village’in N. R. Keddie (ed.) (n. 111), pp. 218-35. Cf. also R. Mottaheded, The Mantle of the Prophet Religion and Politics in Iran, New York: Pantheon Books, 1985, p. 353, and S. A. Aijomand, ‘Ideological Revolution in Shi’ism’ in S. A. Aijomand (ed.), Authority and Political Culture in Shi’ism, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988, p. 201. 119. J.-F. Bayart, ‘La question Alevi dans la Turquie moderne’ in O. Carre (ed.), L ’Islam et VEtat dans le monde d ’aujourd’hih, Paris: PUF, 1982, pp. 109-20; M. Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam: A n Anthropologist’s Introduction, London: Croom Helm, 1982, chapter III. 120. H. E. Chehabi (n. 112), pp. 72-3. 121. Richard (n. 111), Paris: Fayard, 1991, p. 44.

270

Notes

[pp. 102-107]

122. B. Lewis, Le Langage politique de I’islain, Paris: Gallimard, 1988. 123. Signes de piste, quoted by G. Kepel, Le Prophete et Pharaon. Les mouvements islamistes dans I’Egypte contemporaine, Paris: La Decouverte, 1984, p. 56. Cf. also O. Carre, Mystique et Politique. Lecture revolutionnaire du Coran par Sayyid Qutb, Frere musulmatt radical, Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Les Editions du Cerf, 1984. 124. Quoted by Kepel (n. 123), p. 83. 125. Ibid., pp. 183ff. 126. R. and N. Tapper, ‘Religion, Education and Continuity in a Provincial Town’ in R. Tapper (ed.), Islam in Modern Turkey. Religion, Politics and Literature in a Secular State, London: I. B. Tauris, 1991, pp. 56—83; S. Mardin, ‘The Nakfibendi Order in Turkish History’, ibid., pp. 121—42, and Religion and Social Change (n. 83);J.-F. Bayart, ‘Les trajectoires de la Repubique en Iran et en Turquie. Un essai de lecture tocquevillienne’in G. Salame (ed.), Democraties sans democrates. Politiques d'ouverture dans le monde arabe et islainiqne, Paris: Fayard, 1994, pp. 373-95. 127. O. Carre, L ’Utopie islamique (n. 89) and, in collaboration with G. Michaud, Les Freres musulmans. Egypte et Syrie (1928—1982), Paris: Gallimard,Julliard, 1983. For a different interpretation, cf. M. Gilsenan, ‘L’Islam dans l’Egypte con­ temporaine. Religion d’etat, religion populaire’, Annales E .S.C ., 35/3—4, May—Aug. 1980, pp. 603£f. 128. O. Carlier, Entre nation et jihad. Histoire sociale des radicalismes algeriens, Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1995; A. Rouadjia, Les Freres et la mosquee. Enquete sur le mouvement islainiste en Algerie, Paris: Karthala, 1990. ' 129. M. Weber, Economy and Society, p. 578. 130. Ibid., pp. 578-9. 131. F. Adelkhah, Being Modern in Iran, London: Hurst, 1999; E. Abrahamian, Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993; R. Tapper (ed.), Islam in Modern Turkey (n. 126), and S. Mardin, Religion and Social Change (n. 126); L. Martinez, ‘Les groupes islamistes entre guerilla et negoce. Vers une consolidation du regime algerien?’, Les Etudes du CERI, Aug. 1995, and S. Labat, Les Islamistes algeriens. Entre les urnes et le maquis, Paris: Seuil, 1995. 132. O. Roy, L ’echec de VIslam politique, Paris: Seuil, 1992. 133. We follow the analysis by G. Nicolas, ‘Recompositions sacrificielles au Nigeria contemporain’, Archives enropeenues de sociolo^ie, XXXII, 1991, pp. 299-326. ‘ v 134. B. Lewis (n. 122), pp. 18fF. 135. N. Keddie, A n Islamic Reponse to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of SayyidJamal ad-din 'al-Afgliam', Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. On the line of descent from al-Afghani to the Islamists, cf. also O. Carre, L ’Utopie islamique (n. 89). 136. O. Roy (n. 132). 137. G. Rose, ‘Velayat-e faqih’ in N. R. Keddie (ed.), Religion and Politics (n. 113), pp. 166—88; H. Algar (n. 114).

[pp. 107-113]

Notes

271

138. G. Salame, ‘Islam and the West’, Foreign Policy, 90, spring 1993, pp. 22-37. 139. Gopal Krishna, quoted by M. Gaborieau, ‘Le legs de la civilisation musulmane aux formations etatiques du sous-continent indien’ in J.-F. Bayart (ed.), La grejfe de I’etat, Paris: Karthala, 1996, ch. V; we follow the analysis in that work. See also B. S. Cohn, ‘Representing Authority in Victorian India’ in E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 165—209; and, on other trajectories of cultural con­ catenation, D. Lombard (n. 2) and S. Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamizationfrom the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.

140. P Hardy, ‘The Authority of Muslim Kings in Medieval India’, in M. Gabo­ rieau (ed.), Islam et societe eu Asie du Sud, Paris: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1986, p. 55. The current trend among historians is to question the excessive specificity which Louis Dum ont’s work suggests that Hindu culture has. Dumont nonetheless admitted that in India ‘new forms do not drive away old ones’, and spoke of ‘stratified accumulation’ through a ‘process of coexistence and reabsorption’ (La Civilisation indienne et nous. Esquisse de sociologie coinparee, Paris: A. Colin, 1964, pp. 31—54). 141. P. Veyne, Les Grecs ont-ils cru h leurs mythesi Paris: Seuil, 1983, p. 97. Cf. also, for a criticism of ‘cultural totality’, M. Foucault, L ’archeologie du savoir, Paris: Gallimard, 1969, pp. 29—101, and M. de Certeau, L ’ecriture de Vhistoire (n. 19), pp. 36ff., 123fF. 142. ‘La politique en Afrique noire: le haut et le bas’, Politique africaine l,Jan. 1981, and ‘Passage au politique’, Revue frangaise de science politique, 35/3,1985 (some of these texts were reproduced in J.-F. Bayart, A. Mbembe and C. M. Toulabor (n. 41));J.-F. Bayart, L ’Etat eu Afrique (n. 41); A. Mbembe, Afriques indociles (n. 41); C. M. Toulabor, Le Togo sous Eyadema (n. 9). 143. Cf. J.-P Olivier de Sardan, ‘Populisme developpementiste et populisme en sciences sociales: ideologie, action, connaissance’, Cahiers d’etudes africaines, 120, X X X -4 ,1990, pp. 475-92. 144. A. Minnaar (ed.), Communities in Isolation. Perspectives on Hostels in South Africa, Pretoria: Human Science Research Council, 1993, pp. 131—2. 145. J.-L. Domenach, Chine, Varchipel oublie, Paris: Fayard, 1992; D. Bigo, ‘Ngaragba, “l’impossible prison’” , Revue frangaise de science politique, 39/6, Dec. 1989, pp. 867—86. 146. The best introduction to Bakhtin’s work— only incompletely and, it is said, often badly translated into French— is that by T. Todorov, Mikhail Bakhtine. Le principe dialogique, suivi de Ecrits du cercle de Bakhtine, Paris: Seuil, 1981. 147. M. Bakhtin, quoted by T. Todorov (n. 146), p. 127. 148. T. Todorov, ibid., p. 128 (my emphasis). 149. M. Bakhtin, quoted in ibid., pp. 113-14. 150. M. Bakhtin, quoted in ibid., p. 50. 151. Les Fleurs du Congo, suivi de Commentaires par Gerard Althabe, Paris: Francois Maspero, 1972, pp. 8—9. 152. E. Goffman, Forms of Talk, Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1981.

272

Notes

[pp. 114-118]

153. C. Young and T. Turner, The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985, pp. 157, 169, 351. 154. ‘Jah Houphouet-Boigny vous parle’, set to music by Alpha Blondy (tran­ scribed by P. Burge, Reggae, rastafarisme et politique, Lausanne: Institut de Science Politique, 1989, p. 39). On Houphouet-Boigny’s prophetic side, see also J.-P. Dozon, La Cause des prophetes. Politique et religion en Afrique contemporaine, Paris: Seuil, 1995. 155. J.-P. Siriex, Houphouet-Boigny on la sagesse africaine, Paris: Nathan and Abidjan: Les Nouvelles Editions Africaines, 1986, p. 214. 156. Document drawn up on 2 May 1985 by hotel employees who had been made redundant, quoted by I. Toure, ‘L’UGTCI et le developpement harmonieux. Un syndicalisme anti-conflits?’, Politique africaine, 24, Dec. 1986, p. 85. 157. Jeune Afrique, 1 May 1990, p. 18. 158. To parody the title of the French translation (Quand dire, e’estfaire, Paris: Seuil, 1970) of a leading work of pragmatic English philosophy which contributed much to refining the theory of enunciation: J. Austin, How to do Things with Words, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, 1976. 159. P. Veyne, ‘Foucault revolutionne l’histoire’ in Comment on ecrit I’histoire, followed by Foucault revolutionne I'histoire, Paris: Seuil, 1978, pp. 207 and 204, also pp. 230—1. 160. C. Gillard, Le regne de Francisco Macias Nguema sur la Gninee equatoriale. Un nepotisme meconnn, Bordeaux: Institut d’etudes politiques, 1980, p. 56. 161. C. M. Toulabor, Le Togo sous Eyadema (n. 9) and ‘Mgr Dosseh, archeveque de Lome’, Politique africaine 35, Oct. 1989, pp. 68—76; La Croix-L’Evenement, 13 Sept. 1975. 162. E. Jauffret, Un mytliefondateur de la nation mexicaine au X Xe siecle. La revolution, Paris: Universite Paris 1,1984, xerox, p. 96. 163. J.-E Bayart, L ’etat en Afrique (n. 41), and my debate on this subject with Achille Mbembe in J.-F. Bayart, A. Mbembe and C. M. Toulabor, Le Politique par le has en Afrique noire (n. 41), Chs VII and VIII. 164. P. Veyne, ‘Foucault revolutionne I’histoire’ in Comment on ecrit I’histoire (n. 159) pp. 230—1: ‘...a false natural object such as religion or a particular religion aggregates very different elements.. .which, at other times, are exposed in sharply differing practices and objectivised by them under sharply varying appearances.’ 165. Quoted by G. Hermet, Les Desenchantements de la liberte. La sortie des dictatures dans les annees 90, Paris: Fayard, 1993, p. 187. 166. J.-C. Waquet, De la corruption. Morale et pouvoir a Florence aux X V Ile et XVIHe siecles, Paris: Fayard, 1984. 167. Le Monde, 14 Dec. 1991. 168. Le Monde, 19 Dec. 1992. 169. R. H. Solomon, Mao’s Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971, pp. 42ff., lOOff., 135ff. 170. L. Bianco, ‘Seigneurs de la guerre et revolution nationaliste (1913—1927)’ in M.-C. Bergere, L. Bianco and J. Domes (eds), La Chine an XXe siecle. De 1949 h aujourd’liui, Paris: Fayard, 1989, p. 135.

[pp. 118-124]

Notes

273

171. F Godement, ‘La tourmente du vent communiste (1955-1965)’ in Bergere, Bianco and Domes (eds) (n. 170), p. 46. ’ 172. J.-L. Rocca, ‘Corruption and its Shadow: an Anthropological View of Cor­ ruption in China , China Quarterly, 130,June 1992, pp, 401—416, and ‘Pouvoir et corruption en Chine populaire’, Perspectives cliinoises, 1l-12,Jan.-Feb. 1993 pp. 20-30. ’ 173. B. Lewis (n. 122), pp. 36-7. 174. ‘Chirac, l’amer de Paris’, Le Canard enchame, 12 April 1989. 175. M. Foucault, L ’Archeologie du savoir, Paris: Gallimard, 1969, pp. 271-2. 176. U. Eco, Les Limites de Vinterpretation, Paris: Grasset, 1992, p. 12. 177. O. Carre, L’lslam laique on le retour de la Grande Tradition, Paris: Armand Cohn 1993, p. 114. ’ 178. F. Adelkhah, La Revolution sous le voile. Femmes islamiques d’Iran, Paris: Karthala, 1991. We return to this subject at the end of ch. IV

Part 2

Owls w ith R heum y Eyes

1. Quoted in L. Martens, Sankara, Compaore et la revolution burkinabe, EPO Edi­ tions (no place of publication given), 1989, p. 161. 2. P H. Euphorion, ‘Du langage animalier en politique’, Genive-Afrique XXVI/2, 1988, pp. 97-108. 3. Editorial in L ’Armee du Penple, 6, Oct. 1984, quoted in ibid., p. 103. 4. D. Paulme, La Mere devorante. Essai sur la morplwlogie des contes africains, Paris: Gallimard, 1976. 5. Cf.— in addition to the classic works by Comi Toulabor on political derision in Togo in J.-F. Bayart, A. Mbembe and C. M. Toulabor, Le Politique par le bas en Afrique noire. Contributions a une problematique de la democratie, Paris: Karthala, 1992— the analysis o f ‘facetious distancing’ of football fans by C. Bromberger (Le Match defootball. Ethnologie d’une passion partisane a Marseille, Naples et Turin,

Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1995, Chs XV and XVI) and of ‘paradoxical involvement’ in contemporary ritual by A. Piette (‘Les rituels. Du principe d’ordre a la logique paradoxale. Points de repere theoriques’, Cahiers internationaux de sociologie,XXll, 1992, pp. 163—79). 6. Quoted in P H. Euphorion (n. 2), p. 103 (my emphasis). 7. Marches tropicaux et mediterraneens, 19 Oct. 1990. 8. Quoted in J.-C. Willame, L'Automne d’un despotisme. Pouvoir, argent et obeissance dans le Zaire des annees quatre-vingt, Paris: Karthala, 1992, p. 128. 9. Marches tropicaux et mediterraneens, 2 Oct. 1992. 10. Kenya Times (Nairobi), 2 Aug. 1983; The Standard (Nairobi), 15 July 1983. The electoral impact of this practice of oath-taking— commonly used for political purposes in the Kikuyu country since the inter-war period—seems fairly significant and legal actions for cancellation on the basis of this fact are very common: ‘Elections. Recours en annulation’ dossier, 144/201, Nairobi: CREDU ; D. Bourmaud, ‘Elections et autoritarisme. La crise de regulation politique au Kenya’, Revue frangaise de science politique, 35/2, April 1985, p. 219; C. Legum andj. Drysdale, Africa Contemporary Record: Annual Survey and Doc­ uments 1969—1970, London: Rex Collings, 1970, B-123 and B-124.

274

Notes

[pp. 125-128]

11. F. Grignon, Le Multipartiswe au Kenya? Reproduction autoritaire, legitimation et culture politique eu imitation (1990^1992), Nairobi: IFRA, 1993, p. 11. 12. J.-F. Bayart, L’etat an Cameroun, Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1979, pp. 53, 233. 13. Ibid., p. 208; G. Thompson, T h e Bewitchment and Fall of a Village Politician’, Cambridge Anthropology, 7/2,1982, pp. 25-38; P. Geschiere, Village Communities and the State: Changing Relations among the Maka of Southeastern Cameroon since the Colonial Conquest, London: Kegan Paul, 1982, pp. 292fF., and Sorcellerie et politique en Afrique. La viande des autres, Paris: Karthala, 1995, Chs II and III. 14. A. Bikim, ‘L’UPC et nous’, La Presse du Cameroun, 30 Jan. 1958, quoted in R. Um Nyobe, Le Probleme national kamerunais, Paris: L’Harmattan, 1984, p. 27. 15. A. Mbembe, La Naissance du maquis dans le sud du Cameroun (1920-1960). Histoire des usages de la raison en colonie, Paris: Karthala, 1996, pp. 304—5; D. Lan, Guns and Rains: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe, London: James

Currey, 1985, pp. 167fF. 16. Fraternite Matin (Abidjan), 17 April 1964. 17. N. Leconte, Cote d'Ivoire: L’apres-Honplwuet, Paris: Nord-Sud Export Con­ sultants, June 1989. 18. W. Minter, The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) as Described by Ex-Participants and Foreign I "isitors, research report submitted to the Swedish International Development Authority, Washington, DC: Georgetown University, 1990, pp. 13—14. 19. U. Sulikowski, ‘“Eating the Flesh, Eating the Soul”: Reflections on Politics, Sorcery and Vodun in Contemporary Benin’in J.-P. Chretien (ed.), L ’Invention religieuse eu Afrique. Histoire et religion en Afrique noire, Paris: Karthala, 1993, pp. 379-92. ’ 20. D. Bigo, Ponvoir et obeissance en Centrafriqne, Paris: Karthala, 1988, ch. IV. 21. F. Bernault, Democraties ambigties en Afrique centrale, Paris: Karthala, 1996, pp. 232—4 and 250—4. 22. On West Africa, Africa Analysis, 2 Oct. 1992; on the place of transcendental meditation in Mozambique, Le Monde, 10 June 1994; on the role of the Rosicrucians in Cameroon, personal documents. 23. Nguza Karl I Bond, Mobutu on I’incarnation du mal za'irois, London: Rex Collings, 1982. 24. La cite africaiue (Kinshasa), 29 July 1991. The figure of Satan seems increasingly present in politics in Africa—for example in Zaire, Kenya, Benin and Nigeria— and that is probably not unconnected with the activism o f American fundamentalist churches, on the one hand, and the influence of the Iranian rev­ olution of 1979, attacking the ‘Great Satan’, on the other. The relationship between that general theme and witchcraft, monotheism, bureaucratisation and democracy would merit systematic study. 25. Marches tropicanx et inediterraneens, 21 Aug. 1992, p. 2208; B. Labe Noukouri, Marabontage et escrocqnerie b Abidjan. L ’exemple de la commune de Yopoiigon,

Abidjan: Universite Nationale, Departement de l’lnstitut de Criminologie, 1985, xerox, pp. 22ff.; Fraternite-Matiu (Abidjan), 14 Nov. 1985 (on the death

[pp. 128-130]

26. ^7.

28. 29.

30.

31.

32.

Notes

275

of the deputy Coulibaly Bakari in a car accident, unanimously considered ‘suspect’). Sources: interviews, and S. Andriamirado, ‘Un gouvernement en attente?’_/ei. .This is a work of great subtlety and erudition on -a subject that is close to the heart of world politics and seems set to stay at the forefront of debate for years to come__ He goes beyond the fashionable (and now outworn) demonstration that tradition is an invention to state that ‘the cultural interpretation of politics is necessary, because . .. political action is cultural.’” —STEPHEN ELLIS, UNIVERSITY OF LEIDEN

JEAN-FRANgOIS BAYART, a prominent French intellectual, is research director at the CNRS/CERI (Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques) and professor at the IEP (Institut d’Etudes Politiques) in Paris. Among his best-known works is the much-cited The State in AfricaiThe Politics o f the Belly.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS www.press.uchicago.edu Cover Photograph

© DieterTelemans / Panos Pictures Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Confusion among the waiting military as the Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt arrives on an official visit to the Congolese President Joseph Kabila. The visit marked the resumption of aid to this former Belgian colony after a suspension of ten years. *

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