In this article we draw on three years of ethnographic observation of postconflict humanitarian intervention in Liberia to consider the process whereby global efforts in the areas of gender-based violence (GBV) and human rights are interacting with local debates over kinship, entitlement, personal rights, and social responsibility. This article draws upon Liberian narratives, complaints, and efforts to regulate, in a national context, social norms and behavior in regard to gender-based violence issues in postconflict life while also engaging with an ongoing international human rights discourse on the subject of GBV. Our ethnography takes a multiscalar approach to give a sense of the process, multiple discourses, and dialectics of power involved in this issue, and to demonstrate how the definition of “the GBV problem” in Liberia, the target of complex GBV interventions, is different from the conception held by agencies, governmental ministries, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that are responsible for implementing global mandates.

Fifty years after the occurrence of a major event, a golden jubilee, is often an opportunity for celebration and reminiscing over fond memories. Conventional wisdom would project such an event as a landmark likely to serve as a stepping stone toward greater achievements.

As in most African countries on Independence Day, there were formalities in Kinshasa on June 30, 2010. But while the political establishment— flanked with foreign dignitaries, including King Albert II and Queen Paola of Belgium—watched a military parade to showcase the existence of political institutions, unusually large numbers of ordinary people went about their normal daily business. The general mood in both the capital city and elsewhere was one of indifference, reflecting the hardships of daily life and the challenges of mere survival: over the course of fifty years, the per capita income had been halved. The whole atmosphere had an eerie feeling, suggesting a tamed anxiety and a simmering anger from unfulfilled promises. The euphoria of the 1960s has withered into the obvious gloom made visible in the tattered infrastructure of the capital city. InJune 2010, the mood was more somber than celebratory.

In the cacophony of what has been referred to in broad terms as “The Congo Crisis,” some misrepresentations have been repeated again and again. This commentary therefore will not attempt a comprehensive analysis of the Congo's struggle and achievement of independence; instead it will focus on aspects that can be given a new or revised interpretation. Itwill consider five themes where misrepresentation has had significant effects: (1) Belgian policy on the education of elites; (2) the supposed “violence” associated with the nationalist drive to independence; (3) Belgium's decision to accept a dramatically condensed decolonization process; (4) Belgian miscalculations in this process; and (5) the price of haste.

The staggering dilemmas facing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today have their structural roots in both the near and distant past. The purpose of this brief reflection is to consider the nature of these disasters and to deflect discussion away from those hardy perennials that somehow, usually incorrectly, pass as explanations of the Congo's problems. Ethnic tensions, corruption, and the absence of democracy all contribute in harmful ways to the current situation, but they do not tap into the deeper structural roots of the disasters besetting the DRC More specifically, by “structural roots” I mean those features of the Congolese political landscape that seem to recur, albeit in slightly different form, across time and therefore across different political regimes as well.

In his conclusion to his seminal book, Politics in the Congo (1965), Crawford Young wrote the following:

Belgium … constructed in Africa a colonial state which stood out by the thoroughness of its organization, the formidable accretion of power through an interlocking alliance of state, church, and capital, and the ambition of its economic and social objectives. The very strength of the system as a colonial structure, and its steadfast refusal to face effectively the problem of political adaptation until it began to disintegrate, made an ordered transfer of power peculiarly difficult. A colonizer who suddenly lost the profound conviction of the righteousness of his policy was confronted with a revolution by the colonized which lacked both structure and ideology. Total colonialism was replaced by total independence virtually overnight, yet the very completeness of the victory of the colonized had as its concomitant an impotence which emptied success of its substance. (1965:572)

Introduction

While independence negotiations in the Congo were succinct, decolonization was a long and tortuous process. Indeed, in some respects it continues today, at least in the eyes of many people in eastern Congo, who feel that the formal demands of the colonial state are reflected in the informal impositions of the current state—and of neighboring states. Certainly many Congolese today feel that they have no adequate state structure to address their collective needs as a people, or to represent them on an international stage, or even to protect them from invasion, extraction, and occupation. Lacking effective state structures to protect their interests is not new: the colonial state in the Congo was marked by its intrusive presence in mobilizing labor, requiring crop production, and imposing taxes, among many other demands. But the character of life in the Congo today does not reflect anyone's vision of what independence would bring. At best, the last fifty years can be seen as a process of an aborted decolonization, and in some ways the violence now present in the Congo can be seen as the result of the unfulfilled aspirations of decolonization—or as the deferred violence of a decolonization gone awry (see Newbury 2009).

This article examines the motive behind China's increased activities in Ethiopia in recent years and concludes that it lies in Ethiopia's perceived diplomatic usefulness. If China's relations with many African countries could be described as one of “infrastructure for natural resources,” the Sino-Ethiopian relationship can be described “infrastructure for diplomatic support.” After exploring the nature and scope of Ethiopia's relations with China and highlighting areas of divergence of interest, the article seeks to demonstrate how the convergence of interests between the two countries has ushered in a period of Sino-optimism among Ethiopia's elite and rising expectations among ordinary Ethiopians.

This article explores recent changes in Kenya's curio or handicrafts industry. In addition to a crisis in access to raw materials and a diversifying tourist market, the rise in the use of cell phones and the Internet during the early 2000s present unique challenges. Nonetheless, innovative Kenyan entrepreneurs are using these challenges to market and brand products in new ways—by representing modern global interconnectedness as “fair trade” or creatively promoting the authenticity of their products in other ways. Kenya's artisans and traders have also adapted to diverse and complex tastes beyond the desire for an invented tradition of ethnic and “tribal” art.