114 Book Reviews
countries have experienced. The section on "ghost workers" who were said to be
on the payroll is fascinating and frustrating at the same as it brings out the true
picture of experiences faced not only by Uganda but other countries in sub-Saharan
Africa. These are some of the issues that makes the report interesting.
The findings on the research on social sectors give insight to the situation of
Uganda as a Third World country and at the same time poses a lot of questions as
to how many and which other countries fall within a similar situation to that of
Uganda. This book is suitable for social development planners and scholars and
could be included in their socioeconomic literature.
Reviewed by VioletMatimba, Lecturer, School of Social Work, Harare, Zimbabwe
Empowering People Building Community, Civil Associations and Legality in
Africa, Richard Sandbrook and Mohamed Halfani (eds), Centre for Urban and
Community Studies, University of Toronto, Toronto, 1993,209 pp, ISBN: 0-7727-
1364-2 Price: $14,95 + GST.
This volume contains the contributions of participants to the International Conference
of Civil Associations held in Arusha in August 1991. Taken as whole, it
provides an overview of the aims, strategies and tactics of a range of NGOs in
Anglophone Sub-Saharan Africa and the obstacles faced by them as they confront,
or attempt to negotiate with, the state. With over 30 papers, the editors clearly faced
problems of organisation and presentation. To a certain extent, this has been
resolved by gathering papers into sections, providing an introduction (Sandbrook)
and a conclusion (Halfani) and the insertion of brief editorial linking passages
between the sections.
Sandbrook's introduction notes that the themes of popular participation and
empowerment of people have featured centrally in a wide range of prescriptions for
political reform and economic recovery in Africa and raises the problem that these
terms have a wide range of meanings. However, as he makes it clear, the book
reflects the focus of the Conference, namely the problems involved in engendering
a wider consciousness of political, legal, social and economic rights and building
sustainable, coherent and popular organisations that can defend and extend these
rights against undemocratic states and the elites closely associated with them.
The first section of the book contains Julius Nyerere's opening address (Reflections
on Empowering), a record of some of the discussion which followed and
presentations on general themes by Halfani and Ampaw. Nyerere, whilst acknowledging
the failures of the post-colonial state, interventionist policies and the
practice of socialism, warns against taking a too confrontational stance against the
state and of the dangers of promoting sectional factionalism which could underBook
Reviews 115
mine national unity and destroy an already fragile national state. In the relatively
frank exchange of views that follows and in Halfani's and Ampaw's papers two
main points are made. Firstly, that the over-extended African state has to be
confronted and secondly that, without addressing social and economic inequalities,
attempts to institute political democracy and legal rights are likely to prove
ineffectual.
The rest of the contributions are loosely arranged under topics such as, Bringing
Law to the People, Building Community and Civil Associations, Regenerating
Civil Society, creating conditions for Democratic Development Despite the range
of organisations represented, and the variations in their experience, the papers
mostly reflect a common theme of conflict with the state and the problems involved
in creating a sustainable role for voluntary civil associations. As such, they make
interesting reading and add to the documentation on the growth of civil associations
in Africa during the last ten years. They also clearly indicate a process of
increasing politicisation as such associations attempt both to confront the state and
develop a degree of independence from northern NGOs. As Halfani, in his
conclusion to the book, notes, this represents a significant move away from the
welfare and leisure oriented civil associations of the colonial and immediate postcolonial
periods. He also argues that it reflects an attempt to recapture the civil
space hitherto dominated by the colonial and post-colonial state.
However, as Halfani recognises, nearly all of the 49 organisations represented
at the Conference fell into two types. There were what he terms 'service agencies'
set up by professionals (eg lawyers, academics) to expose the state, defend legal
rights and empower 'the people' or weaker sections of society (eg women) by disseminating
knowledge of rights. There were also organisations, again often set up
by professionals, whose main aim is to enhance developmental activities within
local communities. In this sense, the Conference did not represent the range of
grassroots people's associations such as rotating credit associations, burial societies
and artisan cooperatives which have existed in most African societies for
decades and which are an important feature of civil society and a major means of
ensuring community survival when government strategies or market solutions fail.
Halfani argues that, without some wider form or articulation between civil
associations, leading to their crystallisation into social movements, there is a
danger of either ultimately unsuccessful conflict with the state or withdrawal from
engagement in the political process and concentration on purely local or sectional
interests.
One of the problems with the book is that it falls uneasily between a more
theoretical and general discussion of the nature of contemporary African politics,
particularly the vexed problem of the nature or the state and civil society, and a
documentary account of the raw experience of those involved in day-to-day
116 Book Reviews
struggles. Many of the participants seem to have accepted the conventional view
that a central characteristic of African societies is the absence or uneven development
of civil society. However, what many of the contributions portray is not so
much the growth of civil society in Africa, but rather the emergence and consolidation
of a new professional middle class which is playing a central role in the
polib'cisation of parts of an existing civil society. The ability of this social group
to play such a role appears to depend on a particular historical conjuncture
characterised by the uneven development of the market and the severe structural
changes imposed on a fragile post-colonial state. Thus, the book raises, but does
not answer, fundamental questions about the class nature of political and civil
society in Africa and the extent to which the civil associations represented at the
conference are likely to form the basis for more broadly based social movements.
Reviewed by Ian Clegg, Lecturer, Centre for Development Studies, University of
Swansea, Wales, UK.
The People of the Great River: The Tonga Hoped the Water Would Follow
Them, Michael Tremmel and the River Tonga People. Artwork by Loes Roos,
Publisher Mambo Press in association with Silveira House (Price: approx Zim $ 10
from Silveira House. Mambo Bookshops, and Grassroots Bookshops).
*
This short, accessible, and honest book should be read by people interested in the
Zambezi valley's social and natural history. It tells the tale, directly, and in the
words of a selected group of elderly local people, of the consequences experienced
by the River Tonga People since they were translocated to make way for the rising
waters of Kariba dam.
Fr. Michael Tremmel, a Catholic priest, has spent the last eight years in Binga
District. He states his belief that the old missionary approach of bringing 'enlightenment'
was wrong, and he sees himself as a "missioner", or someone who
recognises that God has been, and is present, in the Tonga culture and tradition.
The motive for the book emanates from the author's empathy with the forced
sacrifice, made by the River Tonga, for the sake of a nation they did not identify
with. In the history of landre-classificationofZimbabwe, the Tonga were not alone
in paying the cost for the benefit of others. Nevertheless, the book testifies to the
fact that a social and economic price was paid fora 'greater commonwealth'. Those
who benefited most, with hindsight, are all users of hydro-electric power from
Kariba, and the wildlife and fishery based industries of the region.
The book is not a deep historical account, nor a academic book, more an
authentic tribute to the local people. It recognises an event, occurring in the late
1950s, which changed the environment they had co-existed with for centuries.
What brings the book to life is that the author analyses several themes - life before
the flooding, displacement, lifetoday.andfutureprospects-withagroupof Tonga
men and women who have lived through the entire experience.