BOOK REVIEWS

Le Vine provides in this work a masterful examination of much neglected

Francophone countries of West Africathe fourteen countries comprising
the former AOF and AEF states, plus Cameroon and Togodone by one who
has studied these countries through the whole history of their independent
existence.
A stronger editorial hand might have helped tighten the logic of presentation, but the resulting work is to be celebrated. It is both erudite and
accessible. In a field where wide-ranging works are too often journalistic
reporting with some scholarly borrowings on the one hand, or attempts to
synthesize Africa into an all-encompassing schematic on the other, this
work is refreshing in presenting information that is both wide and deep in
an attractive and accessible way. The author resists the embrace of any one
scheme of analysis, expressing his conviction that Africa is more complex
than can be encompassed in a single theoretical framework. The result is a

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Le Vine, Victor T. 2004. POLITICS IN FRANCOPHONE AFRICA. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. 441 pp. $68.00 (cloth).

africa TODAY

takes: the juxtaposition of such disparate figures as Louw and Modisane

draws attention to their human folded-togetherness.
There are a few puzzling moments in Complicities. Sanderss entire
reading of Schreiners Story of an African Farm turns on the hypothesis that
Victorian education was based on a Hellenistic system in which sexual contact with the master was seen as part of the initiation of a young man into
intellectual life. Without having read Linda Dowlings work on which this
assertion is based, and seeing little evidence that the Oxbridge system on
which Sanders is basing his assertion obtained equally in late nineteenthcentury South Africa, this reader found the rest of the argument to be a bit
of a stretch. Similarly, in the fi nal chapter, Sanders conflates the concept
of figurative or political consciousness developed by the Black Consciousness movement with the question of the literal (un)consciousness of the
detainee who has been beaten by police. This uneasy slippage of terminology, though mostly used here as a framing device, needs to be acknowledged
and explained.
These minor shortcomings aside, Complicities is a thought-provoking
book, suggestive not only in its explanatory power within South African
literary studies, but also in its applicability to any situation in which intellectuals are forced to face their complicities with the other and in acts of
injustice. If Greadys Writing as Resistance is the ultimate encapsulation of
an apartheid-era paradigm for reading South African literature and history,
Sanders may be pointing the way toward a new framework for interpretation
and debate.
Shane Graham
University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg

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BOOK REVIEWS

work nicely nuanced and historically grounded in its analyses, drawing on

a variety of useful analytic approaches.
In a short review of a work of this sweep, perhaps the best that can
be done is merely to note some especially strong features among the many
that could be mentioned. One of the strongest such features is a subtle
treatment of the French connection. Given that the work deals with the
former French colonies in Africa, and that Frances hand in those colonies
has been astonishingly strong even after the major attempt at Africanization that took place under Chirac after 1995, much attention had to be paid
to the French role. Le Vine does not disappoint. His examination is detailed
and carefulfrom French colonial influences on the surviving political
culture in a syncretic blend with African influences, to the French military
interventions that propped up tyrannical kleptocrats over the years (the
military lifeline, Le Vine calls it), to more subtle influences of well-placed
French advisors who profited from their connections with corruption in the
African territories.
Le Vines treatment of political cultures is also impressive. Too little
attention has been given to political culture in Africa in recent years, and
Le Vines approach serves as a valuable corrective to that neglect. He was
especially brave to try to sort out elements of the political cultures by their
African or French origins, but his efforts are largely persuasive. On related
themes we are given strong analyses of the role of ethnicity and the role of
religion in politics.
The redemocratization of the 1990s receives a subtle analysis, both in
its origins and in the reasons for its successes and failures. As Le Vine tries
to explain why and when redemocratization gave relatively good results, he
examines the enabling environment provided by exogenous influences,
the political resources of the old regime, the new forces for democracy, and
the bargaining strategies of those groups. He argues that one reason the
resulting democracy so rarely lasted had much to do with the lack of true
compromise that had gone into its making, so that the new dispensation
looked like different incumbents enjoying a variation on the old winnertake-all dispensation.
Le Vines examination of military rule and its loss of distinctiveness
from civilian rule over the years as it slipped into merely another version
of tyranny is interesting and informative on the details. In that discussion
and in a discussion of civilian forms of rule, he does an interesting job of
noting the connections among coercion, legitimacy, food (or the politics
of the belly), and problems with succession. In an excellent discussion of
nonformal politics, he provides detailed illustrative evidence on the subversive power of parapolitics, including a presentation of the Cameroonian
massive street demonstrations of the villes mortes (ghost towns) of the early
1990s. His discussion of the deflation songsters, poets, and playwrights
visited upon the self-delusions of grandeur of the tyrants is entertaining
and enlightening.

BOOK REVIEWS

In the mid-1990s, Ethiopias supporters in Britain, the European Union,

and the United States christened Prime Minister Meles Zenawi as one of
Africas new leaders (the others were Yoweri Museveni, Paul Kagame,
and Isaias Afeworki). This nomenclature supposedly reflected his commitment to democracy, good governance, human rights, and a free-market
economy. Ironically, by the late 1990s, the new leaders were battling
one another (Museveni and Kagame in the eastern part of the Democratic
Republic of Congo and Meles and Isaias along the still-undefi ned EritreanEthiopian border). Meles refused to end what Stalinists had called the
command economy and state ownership of land, and according to annual
reports by the U.S. Department of State, Ethiopias human-rights record has
been poor.
These unpleasant facts failed to dampen the enthusiasm and exuberance of Meless western supporters. After all, he was better than the hated
Mengistu Haile Mariam! Far too many academics and political commentators urged their readers to give Meles a chance. Meanwhile, conditions
in Ethiopia continued to deteriorate. An important exception was Meless
home district of Tigray, where development projects proliferated after 1991,
when he seized power. Many Ethiopians condemned this blatant pork
barreling, but most donors remained silent.
Ethiopia since the Derg, which focuses on the 2000 and 2001 elections, appears at a critical time, as Ethiopia is preparing for elections in
2005. The contributors to this volume, all of whom are well-known Ethiopianists, based their chapters largely on extensive field research. Each assesses

111

Pausewang, Siegfried, Kjetil Tronvoll, and Lovise Aalen (eds.). 2002. ETHIOPIA SINCE THE DERG: A DECADE OF DEMOCRATIC PRETENSION AND PERFORMANCE. London and New York: Zed Books. 254pp.
$75.00 (cloth); $29.95 (paper).

africa TODAY

While there is much more of interest and value in this work, the few
examples given should convey some sense of its value. Le Vines editors
and publisher are to be commended for allowing the author to keep a treasure trove of information in discursive notes and detailed appendices. For
more-advanced students of the field, they add much value to the work. The
attractiveness of the combination of accessible information with strong
analyses led me to wish the price of the work were lower so that it could
conscionably be assigned as a required text for my undergraduates. In the
absence of an edition that might serve that purpose, however, the work
is highly recommended for libraries, academics in the field, and well-off
graduate students. Now if we can only convince Lynne Rienner to produce
a paperback edition!
Richard Peck
Lewis and Clark College