Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:57:28.375Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘There's no bad bush to throw away a bad child’: ‘tradition’-inspired reintegration in post-war Sierra Leone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2008

Laura Stovel
Laura Stovel*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 5B6, Canada
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Government and civil society leaders in African transitional states often use rituals and expressions inspired by tradition to facilitate the integration of ex-combatants and displaced people. In Sierra Leone, the expression ‘There's no bad bush to throw away a bad child’, conveys a vision of African society as inherently forgiving and inclusive, and of Africans as needing to be amongst their own people. This ideal was perfectly suited for the needs of an impoverished state seeking to ease the strain on cities, and relying on communities' organic capacities to absorb their own people. This research draws on interviews with diverse Sierra Leoneans to examine the assumptions behind this communitarian ideal. It argues that while ‘There is no bad bush … ’ promotes a form of reconciliation defined as peaceful coexistence, it lacks the elements of justice required for deep reconciliation to occur.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , June 2008 , pp. 305 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abdullah, I. 1997. ‘Bush path to destruction: the origin and character of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF/SL)’, Africa Development 22, 3/4: 45–76.Google Scholar
Adjei, A. 1943. ‘Mortuary usages of the Ga people of the Gold Coast’, American Anthropologist 45, 1: 84–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradford University Dept. of Peace Studies & Africa Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. 2003. Peace Education, Human Rights and Democratic Governance Capacity Building Curriculum Development Workshop for the Military and Security Forces in Post-War Sierra Leone, Workshop report. http://www.bradford.ac.uk/acad/africacentre/publications/AFC_Report_02_Military_Workshop_November_2003.pdfGoogle Scholar
Carlson, K. & Mazurana, D.. 2004. From Combat to Community: women and girls of Sierra Leone. http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/portal/spotlight/disarmament/disarm_pdf/2004_Mazurana_Carlson.pdf>>Google Scholar
Ferme, M. 2001. The Underneath of Things: violence, history, and the everyday in Sierra Leone. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirsch, J. 2001. Sierra Leone: diamonds and the struggle for democracy. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, D. 2003. ‘Like beasts in the bush: synonyms of childhood and youth in Sierra Leone’, Post-colonial Studies 6, 3: 295–308.Google Scholar
Hoffman, D. 2004. ‘The civilian target in Sierra Leone and Liberia: political power, military strategy, and humanitarian intervention’, African Affairs 103, 411: 211–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Human Rights Watch (HRW). 2003. We'll Kill You if You Cry: sexual violence in the Sierra Leone conflict. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/SierraLeone/Google Scholar
Jackson, M. 2004. In Sierra Leone. London: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, P. 2005. ‘Chiefs, money and politicians: rebuilding local government in post-war Sierra Leone’, Public Administration and Development 25: 49–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mamdani, M. 2001. When Victims Become Killers: colonialism, nativism, and the genocide in Rwanda. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Oosterveld, V. 2007. ‘Women, international criminal justice and peacebuilding: advances and silences within international tribunals’, paper presented at ‘Negotiating Women: Peace and Security in “Fragile States”’, Carleton University, Ottawa.Google Scholar
Rashid, I. 1997. ‘Subaltern reactions: lumpen, students, and the left’, Africa Development 22, 3/4: 19–43.Google Scholar
Reno, W. 1995. Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shaw, R. 1997. ‘The production of witchcraft/witchcraft as production: memory, modernity, and the slave trade in Sierra Leone’, American Ethnologist 24, 4: 856–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaw, R. 2007. ‘Displacing violence: making Pentecostal memory in post-war Sierra Leone’, Cultural Anthropology 22, 1: 66–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stovel, L. 2006. Long Road Home: building reconciliation and trust in post-war Sierra Leone, Ph.D. dissertation, Vancouver: Simon Fraser University.Google Scholar
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone (TRC). 2004. Witness to Truth: Report of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission. http://www.trcsierraleone.org/drwebsite/publish/index.shtmlGoogle Scholar
Turay, T. M. 2000. ‘Civil society and peacebuilding: the role of the inter-religious council of Sierra Leone’, Accord 9. http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/sierra-leone/inter-religious-council.phpGoogle Scholar
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 1991. Human Development Report, 1991: Financing Human Development. http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/1991/en/Google Scholar
UNDP. 2007. http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/cty/cty_f_SLE.htmlGoogle Scholar

Interviews

British researcher for international NGO, telephone interview, 5.5.2004.

Canadian health worker who worked with war wounded, Freetown, 9.3.2003.

Canadian intern, Freetown, 7.3.2003.

Catholic priest, Makeni, 3.3.2003.

Child reintegration officer, Port Loko, 29.3.2003.

‘Edward’, Mende elder, Mende village (est. 500 people), 5.5.2003.

Elderly female amputee woman, Temne village (est. 5,000 people), 16.3.2003.

Elderly male amputee man, Temne village above, 16.3.2003.

Female educator, Port Loko, 20.8.2007.

Female section chief, Mende village above, 6.5.2003.

Female teacher, Mende village above, 6.5.2003.

Former civil defence force male A, almost-abandoned camp outside Freetown, 16.3.2003.

Former civil defence force male B, almost-abandoned camp outside Freetown, 16.3.2003.

‘Grace’, abductee and ‘ex-combatant’, Mende village above, 6.5.2003.

Health worker, Mende village above, 5.5.2003.

‘Joe’, Head of child reintegration organisation, Freetown, 17.3.2003.

Male student at Fourah Bay College, Freetown, 14.3.2003.

Man in restaurant, Port Loko, group interview with other civilian men, 29.3.2003.

‘Margaret’, abductee and ‘ex-combatant’, Makeni, 2.4.2003.

Musa Jambawai, Bo, 6.5.2003.

Senior manager in inter-religious NGO, Freetown, 8.4.2003.

‘Stephen’, house worker, Freetown, 27.2.2003.

‘William’, NGO reintegration worker, Freetown, 26.2.2003.