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St.Petersburg State University
<nikolai@ND1506.spb.edu>
Dear colleagues:
It was of interest for me to see the thread on the State in
Africa. In fact, there has been a discussion on these
issues among Eastern European/Russian scholars of late, and
as far as I remember it included different approaches not
just to the definition of State, but also to its
development, destruction and (not necessarily)
reconstruction. E.g., in a series of articles by Prof.
Andrei Korotayev he tried to prove that some South Arabian
areas before Islam had developed from a strong state to a
pseudo-primitive tribal society.
My impression is that many studies of the African State seem
to be based on illusions or paperwork done by local
administrators and international organizations. In times of
peace, there certainly are some State structures that make
an African country united within its post-colonial borders.
But even then a "paper State", or a "State-on-the-maps" does
not extend its influence to many areas where its presence
would be expected in Europe.
E.g., I remember my surprise when, doing research in
North-Western Nigeria, I found out that the results of the
last census were not just incorrect. Indeed, about a half of
the existing villages of the LGA I visited were not
mentioned, while almost the same number of place-names
turned out to be unknown to local people. The Abacha
dictatorship was present in some aspects (the Chairman of
the LGA was once invited to Abuja "to support the State"),
but its role in local political life or economy could not be
compared with what we see in the democracies of Europe or in
Russia.
It is in times of crisis or war that the real existence of
some African states might be proved. So the study of
countries like Somalia or Congo would be of great interest.
It could help us to understand whether a post-colonial
African state can survive, and if so, why it can still be
rebuilt. But I am afraid maps or official paperwork still
influence the perception of the Africanists too much; at
least I have not seen any research on, say, the state
experiments in Puntland or in a Tuareg- controlled area of
Sahara where these "proto-States" would not be seen as
something occasional or temporary in contrast to "permanent"
Somalia or Mali.
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