The Serkawa, or Sarkawa, of Yauri Division, Northwestern State, Nigeria, provide an excellent opportunity for analyzing the interrelationships of the concepts of three major theoreticians: Frederik Barth, Ward Goodenough, and Max Weber. The Serkawa describe themselves as “Hausa who fish” and have moved into Yauri in increasing numbers since the late 1960s in order to fill an ecological niche created by the building of Kainji Dam, a major hydro-electric dam at New Bussa, Borgu Division, Kwara State. These professional fishermen, an offshoot of the Sorkawa from Songhai, have moved into the riverine environment which the Gungawa (Reshe) abandoned under governmental fiat. The Gungawa (literally, ‘island-dwellers’) were resettled on the mainland.

The major theoretical problem examined in this paper is that of the interrelationship of the concepts of class, status, and party and their relationship to that of ethnicity. Finally, ethnicity as a mode of identity is examined. The primary objectives of this study are: (1) to examine the consequences of ecology on identity and presentation of self; (2) to assess the interrelationship of Weber's concepts of class, status, and party in a situation of change; (3) to suggest that these are various modes of the same phenomenon; (4) to combine the insights of Barth's optative approach to ethnicity with that of Weber; (5) to analyze the political uses of ethnicity in a multi-ethnic situation; and (6) to apply Goodenough's reformulation of status and role theory to ethnic groups.

There are a number of benefits to be derived from using such an approach. Ethnic groups in this framework become social persona whose boundaries can be defined by their distribution of rights and duties vis-a-vis other similarly defined social persona. This approach has the further advantage of making the concepts operational without forfeiting their taxonomic clarity. It also succeeds in focusing on dynamic and relational aspects of stratification rather than on those that are static and descriptive.

The Kwilu rebellion of 1964 belongs within a little studied species of political violence: the aborted rural revolution.

Political change in Africa marked by violence seems endemic—historically, revolts and resistance to colonial intrusion; international conflict during the two world wars and along borders since independence; civil strife in many countries; a plethora of military coups d'état; anomic violence of several forms, including urban riots, hut burnings, and women's uprisings. Yet one form of political violence appears conspicuous by its absence. Political revolution has been rare in recent African history. To be certain, events in Algeria, Rwanda, and Zanzibar entailed profound social and political transformations, making them revolutionary in import (Humbaraci, 1966; Wolf, 1969; Lemarchand, 1968 and 1970; Lofchie, 1965). These are exceptions. Even a society as polarized as that of the Republic of South Africa appears to negate the standard explanations of revolution (Adam, 1971; Daniel, 1975; Van den Berghe, 1965). Understanding the aborted rural revolution in Kwilu thus will enable us better to grasp the obstacles to sweeping political change in Africa south of the Sahara.

For much of 1964, young maquisards controlled an area nearly the size of Belgium in the Western Congolese province of Kwilu. Leader of the uprising was Pierre Mulele, briefly a cabinet minister under Patrice Lumumba, and later an official of the breakaway Gizengist government. The rapid initial success of the partisan fighters testified to widespread political and social frustration among many Kwilu residents, to popular support for Mulele's efforts at violent and extensive change, to the coercive inadequacies of the national armed forces, and to the mobilizing effects of an ideology that interwove indigenous and Marxist threads. Only with the major reorganization of the Congolese military (including the recruitment of foreign mercenaries) was the uprising quelled and Mulele forced into exile. How the Mulelist fighters gained their popular support and initial military success are questions of great concern to analysts of African politics.

“There is no conflict between the Church and the State in Zaire,” President Mobutu Sese Seko stated recently in a Kinshasa daily newspaper (Salongo, 28 Oct. 1973: 5). Despite the President's claim, the events of the last several years indicate a situation of high tension, if not of conflict. Zaire's only Cardinal was expelled from the country; the state banned all religious broadcasts, publications, youth groups, and Bishops' meetings, and a Bishops' Committee wrote that the government is moving towards totalitarianism and dictatorship—not exactly the kinds of actions which reveal close harmony.

This article discusses the steady deterioration and final stabilization of church-state relations in Zaire over the last five years. In an attempt to give both viewpoints, President Mobutu's public pronouncements and the state's concrete actions are presented, as well as the Bishops' statements and the Church's responses.

This conflict has been an important one to both sides. On the one hand, the Zairian Church is certainly the largest and most powerful Catholic Church in Africa, and thus one in which the Vatican takes a keen interest. On the other hand, the government is preoccupied with the Church, which has constituted the greatest threat to Mobutu's drive for absolute power. With its 3,900 Belgian priests and sisters and its close ties to the Vatican it represents both the colonial past and foreign domination. Worst of all, the Church professes a system of beliefs and practices which are different from those of the Zairian political party. Certainly one of the fascinating aspects of this topic is the contradiction between the President's public statements, which imply that he objects to the large foreign involvement in the Zairian Church, and the state's concrete actions, which are clearly directed against spreading the Catholic system of beliefs and practices.