The Politics of Evil: Magic, State Power and the Political Imagination in South Africa (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Politics of Evil: Magic, State Power and the Political Imagination in South Africa Richard F. Weisfelder Crais, Clifton . 2002. The Politics of Evil: Magic, State Power and the Political Imagination in South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 297 pp. $60.00 (cloth); £10 paperback African edition (limited markets). From the title of this book, one might expect to read a systematic evaluation of the interactions of magic and traditional African spiritual beliefs with a wide variety of economic, political, and social experiences. Instead, the central themes are primarily the spatial, economic, political, and social consequences of colonial state-building in the Ciskei and Transkei areas of South Africa from the initial conquest through the end of the apartheid era. Crais notes how stable those patterns have become, and that they remain "enduring features" of the postapartheid "political order" (p. 31). He sees "precious little evidence" of substantive democratization of local government in the former reserves, but just minimal efforts by the current administration to shore up enough political consent to foster its policies and programs (p. 224). Crais tells the tale of people who were not privileged in the colonial order, but participated in social movements and organizational activities that challenged the colonial state (p. 11). He portrays their creative imagination in hating and resisting the profoundly evil colonial and apartheid systems and the subaltern African institutions those had fostered. He [End Page 134] emphasizes how the victims of social dislocation often attempted to harness occult forces to restore social harmony and health or create harm, especially to those deemed responsible for disrupting the social order. He persuasively demonstrates the blending of witchcraft beliefs with Christian notions of good and evil, and revenge and redemption, as well as the syncretism resulting from the addition of Zionist and Israelite movements, Garveyism, trade-unionism, and revolutionary movements to this blend. Analysis of the evolving political economy and geopolitics of state formation comprises a substantial portion of this book. For Crais, the conqueror gains control through simplification, standardization, and increasing technological capacity, with control of land and labor playing the central roles. Maps and censuses define the new order, rather reflecting the actuality of the old; but "the more the state looked[,] the less it saw" (p. 83), replacing complexity and nuance with self-serving stereotypes. Crais does not infer that the administrators in the Native Affairs Department knew what they were doing or had a consistent plan, but cumulative colonial overlays on hitherto undefined domains and indigenous state-building processes rapidly became explicit sources of conflict. Crais perceives apartheid as "modernity gone mad" (p. 9), where a dry scientific language of social engineering prevailed, causing "redundant people" to be "endorsed out" as "mere objects of state policy" (p. 100). He argues that when such policies were translated into "indigenous grammars of power" and engaged the "political imagination" of the subject peoples, they were perceived to be similar to the coolly calculated surveillance used by witches to appropriate power and wealth at the expense of their potential victims (p. 13). An initial system based on colonial magistrates was transformed into a pattern of retribalization, where chiefs and headmen were "restored" dubious powers they had never had. Using alleged "scientific management" to reverse the economic damage created by prior policies, the apartheid state endowed these so called traditional rulers with sovereignty and modern coercive capabilities. Crais argues that Africanization of the subaltern culture under apartheid resulted in a form of patrimonialism where illegitimate rulers utilized state resources and power in a truncated and subordinate form. The strongest chapters deal with African actions to restore the health of their society in the midst of evils created from within and without. The first of these, with the highly symbolic title "Death of Hope," tells of the death of an early magistrate at the hands of ritual specialists who sought to recapture his powers for their chief and community. Crais explains how Zionist and Israelite churches subsequently fostered the concept of a "black nation," a concept that challenged the state's intrusive surveillance and categorization. He shows how Garveyism, trade-unionism, and political movements were also incorporated into this consciousness. He reveals how these...