The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State

Preface

Preface A tortuous trail stretched between commencement and completion of this work. When we embarked upon our journey, the distance and difficulty of the path were mercifully concealed from us. Had we anticipated either the length ofthe odyssey or the greatly altered circumstances at its conclusion, we wonder whether we would have had the fortitude to set forth. The idea for the venture took form more than a decade ago, in early 1973. At that time we were both afforded the opportunity to return to Zaire for two-year teaching assignments at the Faculty ofSocial Science of the then-Universite Nationale du Zaire Lubumbashi campus. Those were times ofrelative optimism concerning the future of Zaire, both within the country and among those outside who followed its affairs. Some problems were apparent, yet the New Regime, which under President Mobutu Sese Seko had seized power in November 1965, seemed to have a number of achievements to its credit. There was no shortage of critics, but seeming success muted the intensity of their artacks. We recollect no prophets who foretold that Zaire was on the verge ofsudden descent into the maelstrom of unending crises. Certainly we had no such premonitions. Nor would we have ever imagined that state decline would become a central theme of our book. Our initial decision to undertake the study was primarily motivated by a more mundane sense that there was as yet no sustained, comprehensive study ofthe Mobutu era, which had brought many changes to the political life ofthe country. The First Republic years had fostered an abundant literature , but only the very beginning phases of the New Regime had been treated (in particular in the excellent 1972 study by Jean-Claude Willame, Patrimonialism and Political Change in the Congo). Both of us had already devoted years ofstudy to Zaire. Young had first visited Zaire in 1958, then carried out dissertation research there in 1962. In 1963, 1965, and 1967 he undertook study missions for the Department of State. In 1969 he headed a survey team of the Overseas Liaison Committee ofthe American Xlll xiv Preface Council on Education, which carried out a study ofthe educational system for the U.S. Agency for International Development. In 1965 he had published a study ofdecolonization and the early independence period, Politics in the Congo. Turner had taught at the former Universite Libre du Congo in Kisangani from 1969 to 1971, while carrying out research which led to his University ofWisconsin- Madison dissertation, "A Century ofConflict in Sankum" (1972). Both authors had published a number ofother articles and chapters dealing with the 1960-65 period. In the course ofour stay in Zaire from 1973 to 1975 we witnessed the first phases ofwhat was to become a crisis ofthe state itself. During vacation periods we were able to pursue our inquiry in a number ofareas ofthe country. Subsequently, Young spent the summer of 1976 collecting additional material in Brussels, and Turner was able to return to Zaire for several additional months ofinterviewing in 1978. Drafting ofthe manuscript began in 1978, with the first version completed in 1980. We then placed the draft in circulation, eliciting comments from a number of Zairian and American scholars. The work has enormously benefitted from the candid, searching comments of its numerous critics, whom we can reward only with our heartfelt thanks, and the customary absolution from any responsibility for remaining blemishes. Those who criticized the work in its entirety include Bakonzi Agayo, Bianga Waruzi , Bifuko Baharanyi, Edouard Bustin, David Gould, Bogumil Jewsiewicki , Ngoma Ngambu, Nzongola Ntalaja, Michael Schatzberg, Jan Vansina , and Yamvu Makasu. Those who offered critiques of portions of the manuscript include Stephen Morrison, Patrick Riley, Saroja Reddy, Harlan Robinson, Herbert Weiss, the members of the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton) 1980 seminar on comparative colonialism, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars 1983 colloquium on power and authority. The manuscript underwent three comprehensive revisions. In the process , it shed 500 ofits initial 1,200 typescript pages, and five ofthe original eighteen chapters. Its conceptual framework also experienced major alteration . Initially, our theme was authoritarianism; as time went by and patterns of decline became more pronounced, this theoretical vantage point seemed increasingly irrelevant. In mid-passage-after toying, in one draft, with the possibility of dropping the theoretical framework altogether -we shifted to the nature ofthe state as a unifying concept. After 1976, the authors were always separated by several hundred miles. We divided primary responsibility by chapter, with subsequent mutual editing , and...