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National Commitment Among Local Élites in Western Zambia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
Extract
As part of a broader study concerned with tribal–national relations in modern Zambia, the research reported here deals with a complex, indigenous state, the Barotse Kingdom, in which adjustments to post-colonial arrangements have been fraught with difficulties. Here I deal with the results obtained by analysis of interview schedules collected during 1966–7 among a sample of local élites in one of the Districts of the then Barotse Province (now called Western Province). Employing a conceptual framework which emphasises the distribution of information — what Theodore Schwartz calls a distributive model of culture — the analysis focuses on several factors considered crucial in understanding how local groups become incorporated into the nation-state. Finally, the influence of traditional attachments on this process is explored.
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- Africana
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984
References
page 153 note 1 This research was made possible by a grant from the Social Science Research Council, New York.
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page 154 note 3 Historians have provided detailed studies of the Barotse, or Lozi, the name for the dominant tribe in the Kingdom. See especially Mainga, Mutumba, Bulozi Under the Luyana Kings: political evolution and state formation in pre-colonial Zambia (London, 1973),Google ScholarCaplan, G. L., The Elites of Barotseland, 1878–1969 (Berkeley, 1970),Google Scholar and Prins, Gwyn, The Hidden Hippopotamus — Reappraisal in African History: the early colonial experience in Western Zambia (Cambridge, 1980).Google Scholar
page 154 note 4 Since I wish to focus on a particular problem, there is no attempt here to present ethnographic details on the Lozi and other Barotse peoples. To mention only two of the better-known sources, Max Gluckman has contributed excellent descriptive and analytic accounts of the Kingdom: ‘The Lozi of Barotseland in North-Western Rhodesia’, in Colson, Elizabethand Gluckman, Max (eds.), Seven Tribes of British Central Africa (London, 1951), pp. 1–99,Google Scholar and The Judicial Process Among the Barotse of Northern Rhodesia (Manchester, 1955).Google Scholar Aside from the impact of the nationalist movement and the political changes wrought by the coming of independence in 1964, as outlined herein, there existed substantial continuity in Lozi culture from the time that Gluckman did his fieldwork during the 1940s and the 1960s, when the material for my study was collected.
page 155 note 1 Cf. Fallers, L. A., ‘Political Anthropology in Africa’, in European Journal of Sociology (Paris), 4, 2, 1963, pp. 311–29,Google Scholar and Weingrod, Alex, ‘Political Sociology, Social Anthropology and the Study of New Nations’, in British Journal of Sociology (London), 18, 2, 1967, pp. 121–34.Google Scholar
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page 156 note 1 A similar construct is employed by DeLamater, John, The Study of Political Commitment (Washington, D.C., 1973), p. 5:Google Scholar ‘[The ideology]…justifies the existence of the system, defining the role behavior appropriate to members, specifies the conditions under which such behavior is required, and legitimizes certain attitudes and values. This ideology will be built in and manifested by political institutions, communicated by those holding high positions in the system, and transmitted to individuals through the mass media and other agencies of socialization.’
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page 158 note 2 The respondent was asked: ‘What does freedom mean to you?’ The word for independence and freedom in Silozi is the same, tukuluho. If the response indicated freedom from colonialism, this was judged as consistent with the image content of the national system output.
page 158 note 3 If the respondent did not recognise any changes, this was judged to be inconsistent with the image content of the national system output. If the respondent recognised changes but did not approve of them, then this was judged as a lack of commitment to the national system.
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page 160 note 1 To devote whatever you have to the national unity. To rely on national feelings. To be a nationalist, as I consider myself to be one, is to follow the policies and principles of the Government and implement these in the right way. It is not only politicians who are nationalists. (Civil Servant)
page 160 note 2 When I hear Kaunda [President of Zambia] and his friends talk about it, I think it means the unity of tribes put together to make up one Zambia, one nation. To a certain extent it has been a good idea. But then there are some little points that make me doubt. Sometimes this one Zambia, one nation is just verbal. For example, we have little in this Province, but we do have forests, game, and other things, and it is hard to see the central Government get all the profit and from it. What does Bembaland [in eastern Zambia] contribute? Nothing! They have no forests and no fish, but they get all the development projects and the best jobs. (Teacher)
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