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In this chapter I situate, both theoretically and empirically, the notions of military rampancy and plunder as historically recognizable features of the state, with specific reference to their deployment within the current process of class consolidation on the African continent. This deliberate, inherently violent process— most dramatically reflected in the ubiquity of wars and through the seeming normalization of impunity—is juxtaposed with the struggles for an inclusive and secure idea and practice of citizenship across the societies of the African continent. My arguments draw directly, in conceptual and activist terms, from a vibrant tradition of debate on various political and theoretical positions and experiences with regard to the state and militarization in Africa, ranging from colonial (and precolonial) times to the present. These debates provide an invaluable perspective from which to consider the state as it is defined and used within the specific context of the African continent. In this regard, my perspectives are informed predominantly by the thinking and visioning of African scholars and activists located within the purview of the state as well as outside its boundaries. The Proverbial Elephant in the Africanist Academy Western academic discourse and policy analysis about Africa derive largely from a liberal approach and are predicated on an often undeclared pro-capitalist stance, which tends to peculiarize the state in Africa by drawing curiously from anthropological representations and racist characterizations that are old-fashioned yet persistently popular. This Eurocentric approach manifests itself in a particular analysis (both conservative and liberal) that describes the state on the continent as the “African state” and tends to conflate moralistic notions of 136 8 Plunder as Statecraft Militarism and Resistance in Neocolonial Africa PATRICIA MCFADDEN ——————————————————————— ——————————————————————— CH008.qxd 5/28/08 7:37 PM Page 136 individual or group behavior with those of the state as an overarching, objective phenomenon at a national and continental level. This developmentalist literature on African societies and their political systems in the Western academy tends to be based on certain generalizations regarding the African state that for the most part derive from an established discourse informed by conservative, colonial-inspired racist biases about Africans and their political behavior. Although increasing numbers of scholars from the “former colonies” have rebutted such patronizing, reactionary discourses with scathing and often brilliant critiques (Said ; Ahmad ), the persistence of conservative approaches and perspectives on the state in Africa indicates a much larger challenge than first meets the intellectual eye. Such representations of Africa, which are drawn from the romanticized travelogues and journals of colonial adventurers, reflect the unacknowledged exotica that accompanies the often vilifying descriptions of the state and of those Africans who occupy it at the present time. This adoption of a conceptual consensus about the supposed characteristics of the state in Africa, which pervades the writing of Africanists in the West and has frequently drawn the ire of African male scholars, lends itself to a deeply conservative and often facile approach to matters of state practice on the continent. Conservative discourses pervade Western scholarship even in supposedly progressive analyses of African politics. An excellent example of this genre is a recent publication by Richard Sandbrook (), containing the beguiling inscription on the dedication page that encapsulates the exotic imagery often accompanying such liberal analyses of African politics. Among the most disconcerting features of such scholarship is the inaccuracy of the paradigm through which the state on the continent is framed. The critique of liberal notions of the state and its rhetoric of inclusiveness and universal protections, especially in relation to particular classes and social groups within societies of the West, is well established, albeit still largely contentious. Increasingly, in North America and Europe such critiques have influenced and informed the emergence of lively debates concerning the relationship (or lack thereof) between citizens and the state with regard to issues of security, health care, reproductive rights, sexual choices, and the like. The often-repeated assertion that the African state is a corrupted and mismanaged state derives its supposed credibility from the largely unarticulated (and unquestioned) assumption that those who control the state in Africa today inherited a functioning, Westernized (read democratic) state at the moment of independence, which they have tainted and destroyed. In other words, the allegedly civilizing project of colonialism has been undone by the reckless and unstatesmanly behavior of the likes of Moi in Kenya, Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and Kaunda in Zambia. However, the very construction of the state on that continent as the African state is a generic expression...

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