This is a general issue which covers a wide range of topics falling under the general heading of ‘the political economies of the everyday’. It covers such topics as debt (Carolyn Bassett), neoliberalism and gender in Egypt (Karim Malak and Sara Salem), extrajudicial executions and civil society in Kenya (Peris Jones, Kavita Ramakrishnan and Wangui Kimari), reform and counter reform in Kenya’s land governance (Jacqueline Klopp and Odenda Lumumba), the politics of the Kenyan sex workers’ movement (Eglė Česnulytė), military corruption among Zimbabwean troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Godfrey Maringira) and state building and educational expansion in the Congo (Cyril Brandt).
In her article on Africa’s next debt crisis, Carolyn Bassett poses a discerning question: ‘Could we be seeing the beginnings of a new African debt crisis a short decade after debt forgiveness reduced Africa’s mountain of debt?’ Her concern is premised on the growing number of commodity exporters who are now beginning to experience debt servicing difficulties. She warns that the debt recovery system that is now being instituted by the international financial institutions (IFIs) is simply a return to the bad old days of the 1980s, which impeded African growth, and in its wake left ‘the “precarious” component of [heavily indebted poor countries] which is causing African governments to pay out large sums up-front and reducing funds for the [Millennium Development Goals]’ (Commission for Africa 2005, 367). For Bassett, the major source of this growing indebtedness is that African governments have increased their borrowing from several lenders, old and new, particularly from Africa’s international sovereign bonds, the focus of her article. She draws attention to the devastating sway of neoliberal thinking impelling African governments ‘down a dangerous path of higher levels of indebtedness … into global financial markets without proper regulatory mechanism in place’. She points to the need to strengthen the regulatory regime in order to pre-empt an impending crisis. Furthermore, while international sovereign bonds account for only a small proportion (5.8%) of sub-Saharan African’s debt, nonetheless, they have been steadily growing in absolute terms and as a percentage of total debt. She identifies four converging reasons why many African governments have been able to attract international bond investors since 2008. First, many African countries since 2008 have had their debts cancelled; second, there is a lack of attractive bond offerings elsewhere; third, after 2000, African economies experienced rapid growth fuelled by rising demand for raw materials; and finally, there are growing economic ties with emerging economies such as China and Brazil.
Bassett addresses the question of the viability of international sovereign bonds in Africa’s development. In her view the downturn in the global economy puts Africa’s exports in danger and poses a major threat to the ability of African states to service their debt. The situation is aggravated by the fact that: ‘Most African international sovereign bonds were denominated in US dollars, whose value had risen relative to the currencies of most commodity exporters, [thus] increasing service costs.’ For Bassett, it is the duty of radical scholars ‘to raise questions about the wisdom of Africa’s international sovereign bonds and their prevailing neoliberal regulatory framework’. She draws attention to some of these problems: in particular, the absence of a financial architecture to regulate the flows of financial capital; and the risk for African governments to finance infrastructural and other development projects through sovereign bonds. In her view, rapid and unmanaged accumulation of bond debt could mean that governments would not know how much was owed, by whom, or where the money has gone.
Bassett distinguishes the foregoing stance of ‘heterodox liberal scholars’ from that of Marxist political economists who have studied the role of international sovereign bonds in African and global accumulation models. She points out that for the Marxist economists, Africa’s sovereign bonds issues are only one strategy in the process of tackling the protracted over-accumulation crises, the process whereby investment capital seeks profitable outlets. Contrary to the neoliberal mantra, that African economies have remained poor and economically stagnant because they have been excluded from the global market, Bassett draws attention to the conclusion of the Marxist political economists, such as Colin Leys, David Harvey and Giovanni Arrighi, who argue that African political economies have been impoverished by the nature of their incorporation into the global markets. The logical deduction from these analyses is that ‘Africa’s international sovereign bonds are but one tool developed by global financial capital to facilitate its accumulation strategies, by financing infrastructure associated with resource extraction and export, while at the same time cultivating profitable new markets of borrowers.’ She points out that ‘under the current regulatory regime, a new African debt crisis is likely to further deepen the continent’s exploitation in global markets.’
Karim Malak and Sara Salem’s article, which focuses on civil society in Egypt, examines the confluence of neoliberalism, gender and citizenship in rural Egypt. More specifically, the authors investigate the running of a microfinance project in al-Minya in Upper Egypt, aimed at empowering a group of rural Egyptian women. In the 1980s, microfinance was recommended by the IFIs and the United Nations as a new approach to revolutionise ‘thinking about how to provide small uncollateralized loans to the poor’ (United Nations 1999, 194). Malak and Salem draw attention to the fact that microfinance, which was designed to ‘keep administrative costs down, reduce risks and provide incentives for repayment’ (United Nations 1999, 194), was seen as crucial for economic development in an ‘unbanked population’, creating problems for the poor as they continued to be marginalised. The authors point out that these new forms of production were accompanied by new forms of social relations, and that agriculture was the first sector to be liberalised in Egypt’s transition to an open market economy. The rural areas were stigmatised as backwards and starved of capital, largely because of the lagging status of women. The main question the article addresses is the meaning of womanhood in the hinterland, and it seeks to do this by scrutinising the singular gendered dynamics it creates through the discourse of the ‘rural’. In their critique of neoliberalism, Malak and Salem pose the question that if techno-managerial discourse, market forces and security, which are prerequisites for neoliberalism, are lacking in the Egyptian hinterland, how useful is it then to use neoliberalism to explore microfinance theoretically? Furthermore, they ask: ‘if microfinance so often fails to fulfil its stated goals of alleviating poverty and generating growth, what happens when microfinance NGOs choose to work in the hinterland?’
From their work in al-Minya, Malak and Salem argue that NGOs are not merely interested in microfinance, but in addition, women are processed and ‘disciplined in a way to create the market through defining what it means to be a “developed” woman’. A unique quality of the village is that it had several enclaves of revenue generation that are impervious both to commodification and proletarianisation. This ran contrary to the aim of the microfinance project, which invited strong resistance from the women to the charging of high interest rates and borrowing due to cultural factors. The authors point to the fact that, on the one hand, workshops or training designed to procure a skill set to liberate these village women ‘almost always translated into bids by urban-based Cairene “experts”’. On the other hand, local women who were promised such positions as consultants were disadvantaged despite the promises ‘that civil society is an arena of free exchange and free competition, and yet it just so happens that these rural members of civil society are at a disadvantage just because of where they are from’. The authors point out that the local NGO that won the British grant had no say in the hiring of consultants to carry out the project, notwithstanding the fact that the programme was about empowering women. This experience impels Malak and Salem to pose the question that if the task is to liberate these women by allowing them to become self-dependent entrepreneurs, with the prerequisite of neoliberalism, such as techno-managerial discourse and security, and the fact that ‘market forces are lacking in the hinterland’, then ‘how helpful is it to use neoliberalism to explore microfinance theoretically … [and in] its stated goals of alleviating poverty’? In conclusion, Malak and Salem recall James Ferguson’s aphorism that: ‘development is not always about its “failures” – failure to alleviate poverty, bridge income inequalities or bring access to health care – but about the effects of these projects to depoliticise, then it becomes clear why it is necessary to trace the effects of microfinance projects as they become more numerous across Egypt.’
The article by Peris Jones, Wangui Kimari and Kavita Ramakrishnan on Kenya addresses the disturbing politics of extrajudicial executions and civil society in Mathare, a collection of slums with a population of approximately 500,000 people. Such ‘informal areas’ often constitute a world of their own, with little contact with the authorities, and often develop their own informal leadership, structures and institutions away from the central government. They are often citadels of meta-violence, that is, ‘coercion aimed at undermining the legitimacy of state-approved coercion’ (Bauman 2003, 4).The presence of the state is thin, as witnessed by the absence of state social provisions. The focus of the article is an exploration of a particular struggle, showing how frustration with civil society is being used by social justice activists to garner ideas concerning everyday violence and to mobilise for change. The authors start off by pointing to the unacknowledged shoot-to-kill policy of the Kenyan state, in particular the continuous violence during the presidency of Mwai Kibaki, and an upsurge since 2013 marking the beginning of the regime of Uhuru Kenyatta. The violence is particularly aimed at young men in what the authors call the ‘“other” Nairobi’, i.e. its slums. They draw attention to the everyday nature of violence in Mathare, especially from the police, in spite of the new constitution of 2010 and the Bill of Rights, which were designed to protect citizens from torture, cruelty, degrading and inhumane treatment, enforced disappearance and police brutality. These state-led attacks became major concerns for civil society, leading to calls for the latter to be involved in ‘grassroots mobilisation’ as extrajudicial execution increased. According to the authors, these killings have acted as catalysts to mobilise the youth into establishing the Mathare Social Justice Centre.
In their article, Jacqueline Klopp and Odenda Lumumba seek to address two questions: first, the nature of the politics of Kenya’s land governance reforms; second, whether they have the possibility of being transformative. In order to address these questions, they analysed Kenya’s historically grounded land governance system and the current struggle over its transformation. They discuss the historical origin of the bureaucratic and legal mechanisms, which triggered the unaccountable land allocation process from colonial times to the present, pointing to the networks that have done well in the land distribution processes, in early colonialism, and more recently, for the governing class of the post-colonial era. In their view, these networks generate grievances and exclusionary material conditions. Initially, as part of the indigenous social welfare system, the poor had access to land, a system which was to be undermined by the new land governing system. More recently however, the demand for change has been quite overwhelming, with calls to put an end to irregular administrative process, including false title deeds by the Ministry that manages the land registries with little or no public scrutiny and oversight. The beneficiaries of this lax system are said to be the bureaucrats, the politicians, their financiers and supporters, and the losers are the wider public who are deprived of the value and the potential use of such space.
In the immediate post-colonial era, ‘most land fell under the categories of government (former Crown lands) and trust land (former “native reserves”)’. The authors point to the strong link between land and power, ‘especially Presidential power, and the opaqueness of land transactions, [that produces] politicisation of land’. Furthermore, they observe that land disputes are often ethinicised by the political class, in order to ‘divert attention away from the need for institutional reform of a system benefiting politicians who often strive to gain access to it via the ballot box or political appointment’. The authors note that in November 1999, in order to calm public concern over the land system, a commission was appointed by the government to look into the land law system. Following angry complaints, the commission recommended the limiting of Presidential powers over land, harmonising and clarifying the law, enabling more public oversight, as well as a more transparent National Land Authority, in place of the ‘opaque’ Ministry of Lands. In the election of 2002, the government of President arap Moi lost to opposition candidate Mwai Kibaki, who went on to promise reform. Klopp and Lumumba warn that in order to modernise Kenya’s land laws and make them accessible to the public, they should be rewritten, in order to harmonise the fragmented and overlapping land laws and to bring land-use planning closer to the people. They point to resistance from those who have most to lose from the proposed land law reform, as it challenges arbitrary and opaque powers.
Eglė Česnulytė’s article relates to another group, namely sex workers in Kenyan society. Her main theoretical tool is Jean-Francois Bayart and Stephen Ellis’s concept of extraversion. She argues that:
due to the gendered nature of the Kenyan state’s extraversion processes and the resulting dual accountability to national and foreign sovereigns, the Kenyan's state’s approach to gender issues is inconsistent and thus produces a situation where social movements with a gender rights agenda can be both included and excluded from the national political scene.
According to Česnulytė, a similar dualism could be found in the work of Mkandawire, where he identified two sovereigns to which African states are accountable: on one side, African democracies are accountable to their own citizens; and, on the other, their dependency on foreign aid and support makes them accountable to donors. For Česnulytė, by applying a gender lens to explore the dynamics of the African state, its power relations are revealed: ‘outward-looking policies and relations with social movements [reveal] a masculine character to such processes.’ In her view, many women in post-colonial contexts encounter state power through structural violence, including economic vulnerability, lack of education and information. Social movements and civil society are described as traditional loci of women’s activities and actions, including protesting against injustice and state violence.
Česnulytė points out that the Kenya state has an inconsistent approach to sex work and ideas regarding gender, which are borne out by the dual character and accountabilities of the state. Thus, she observes: ‘Gender equality and engagement with sex worker groups is possible in those areas where the state has foreign donor constituents to account for and thus attempts to follow liberal values of equality and civil society inclusion.’ She goes on to elucidate how members of the Kenyan Sex Workers Alliance (KESWA) were able to position themselves in the dual Kenyan state, by avoiding direct action as they did not occupy a strategic position in the Kenyan economy or society. KESWA decided to utilise what the author calls ‘soft power’, including: ‘discursive practices, politics of information and legal actions’. This involves the representation of a variety of voices from different communities and engagement in the politics of information, which includes visible forms of activism, media exposure and the practice of local democracy in the movement, as well as strategic partnerships with international institutions and organisations in recognition of the dual nature of the Kenyan state’s accountability.
Godfrey Maringira’s article on military corruption in war examines the conducts of Zimbabwean soldiers during their operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) war of 1998–2002. The author argues that Zimbabwean infantry units were engaged in corrupt activities during their tour of duty in the DRC: by stealing army rations from the trenches to be sold to civilians in neighbouring communities and to Congolese soldiers. However, the practice did not end once soldiers returned home, but continued in the barracks of Harare and other garrison towns in the country. For the author this aberration points to the collapse of discipline in the armed forces in question, which in turn could reflect on the morale and ability of the infantry to fight for the cause. The author points out that this illegal practice continued among the Zimbabwean units during their tour in the DRC, a far cry from the highly professional army that brought independence to Zimbabwe after a prolonged war of national liberation.
The army was an amalgamation of the two nationalist fighting units and the regular army of the white Rhodesian forces, which came together to form the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA), and was trained by the British Military Advisory Training Team, and as such was a well-ordered fighting force. However, the author argues that in the post-2000 period Zimbabwean soldiers became deeply unprofessional as they became enmeshed in politics, violence and ‘major corruption’; this was particularly true of senior officers and was symptomatic of other public institutions, including the judiciary, local government and the state. The cost of the war (with up to five battalions deployed in the DRC), in terms of both the numbers of personnel and the expense of maintaining troops abroad, impacted heavily on the Zimbabwean treasury and society. Furthermore, the shortages caused by Zimbabwe’s presence in the DRC led to demands for Zimbabwean troops to be withdrawn from the country. More than a battalion of soldiers deserted or resigned from the Zimbabwean army, with some soldiers alleging that they had not been cared for by the army. The desertion is symptomatic of the fact that a large part of the war resources were devoured by the army top brass. Thus, Maringira observes that many of the soldiers noted that instead of being recognised as professional soldiers, they were now living like ‘militias’. The failure of the ZNA to look after its own soldiers in war and in the barracks partly motivated them to engage in corrupt practices.
The ‘abandoned’ Zimbabwean soldiers turned to ‘creative’ survival via ‘military entrepreneurialism’, i.e. revenue generation and a systematic sense of deprofessionalisation, including chirenje (individual initiatives in war, including soliciting food for the commanders). One ex-soldier gave the reason for their action as the uncaring attitude of the Zimbabwean army during the war: their needs were ignored, their wartime allowance was paid late, in low-value local currency and then not at all; and ‘goodies’, desirable treats such as cigarettes, biscuits or chocolate intended for inclusion in the soldiers’ rations, were diverted by commanders and sold. This neglect induced them to use ‘creative’ survival tactics and follow the example of senior officers. A similar strategy was employed by sections of government soldiers in the Sierra Leone civil war when the officers failed to look after their needs, including failing to pay their salaries. A significant number of government soldiers transformed themselves into ‘Sobels’, i.e. ‘soldiers by day, rebels at night’, when they raided government stores as well as the property of the civilian population.1
The final article, by Cyril Brandt, concerns the ambivalent outcomes of state building and the multiplication of brokers and educational expansion in the DRC from 2004 to 2013. The main question that Brandt seeks to answer is one which he claims is central to any analysis of reform implementation processes. Furthermore, given persistent attempts at state building, he aims to establish to what extent and how actors shape the implementation and impacts of the concomitant reforms. Using qualitative and quantitative data on public school accreditation in the DRC, Brandt seeks to establish how democratisation and decentralisation led to a multiplication of political and administrative brokers. He seeks to establish how these brokers circumvent official procedures and interact with each other, in order to obtain decrees that accredit schools from the national Minister of Education. He points to the huge demand for education, noting that though the number of school-aged children has increased by 50%, yet it is difficult to obtain accreditation. He argues that democratisation, decentralisation and fragmentation have led to a multiplication of brokers who compete for the same goal; i.e. to obtain accreditation decrees for public schools from the Ministry of Education. While emphasising the role of political patronage, he draws attention to two major absurdities: that the Minister of Education can offer schools accreditation without prior agreement from the Ministries of Budget and Finance, and that accreditation decrees do not follow a thorough evaluation of educational needs. Brandt points out that elections and members of parliament play a decisive role in obtaining accreditation decrees, observing that the other factor responsible for the growth of these decrees is administrative unit proliferation. He notes that the proliferation of administrative units does not automatically lead to clientelistic bonds.
Brandt’s reference to elections reminds us that 2017 is a year of African elections, with over a dozen countries having held, or still planning to hold, parliamentary or presidential elections at some point during the year. The list includes: Algeria, Angola, Chad, Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea Conakry, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Niger, Senegal, Somaliland, Swaziland, Togo and Tunisia. In the Gambia, where elections were held in December 2016, long-term despot Yahya Jammeh was defeated by former property developer Adama Barrow. Initially, Jammeh conceded victory to his opponent, only to change his mind for fear of being brought to book for his atrocities against the Gambian people (Seddon 2017). Following the intervention of a delegation of West African leaders, and a threat of being removed from office by members of the Economic Community of West African States, led by Senegal, Jammeh was persuaded to leave and to seek asylum in Equatorial Guinea, by which time he had emptied the nation’s treasury. On 4 August 2017, the long-serving President Paul Kagame of Rwanda (dubbed ‘the global elite’s favourite strongman’ and ‘the darling tyrant’) (Dahrir 2017) was returned to power for a third consecutive seven-year term with a landslide 99% majority. He has been credited with transforming the fortunes of the former war-torn, landlocked country. On 8 August, Kenyans went to the polls to vote for six elective posts and the presidential election, pitting veteran politician Raila Odinga, the leader of the opposition National Super Alliance, and Uhuru Kenyatta, current President and leader of the Jubilee Party, against each other. Limited protests followed the announcement of President Kenyatta’s re-election, which were met with a heavy-handed security response, resulting in the death of 23 people. The official results gave Uhuru Kenyatta 54.2% of the vote, and 44.5% to Raila Odinga; the latter, after rejecting the election results on the ground of fraud, decided to appeal to the Kenyan Supreme Court. After much deliberation, the six-judge bench ruled by 4 to 2 in favour of Mr Odinga by declaring Uhuru Kenyatta’s election null and void and ordered fresh elections within 60 days. This was a milestone decision in competitive politics not just in Kenya, but according to the The Guardian, it also ‘set a unique precedent for the continent’ (Burke 2017). President Kenyatta accepted the court’s decision and, whilst calling for peace, decided to order fresh elections. According to The Guardian, ‘The decision surprised many in Kenya, where courts have long been subservient to the president’ (Ibid.). The opposition leader Raila Odinga felt that the court had set an ‘exceptional example for all of Africa. … Our judiciary now knows they have the power’ (Ibid.). The major question is whether this judgment marks a watershed in democratic transition in Africa, or, whether it simply demonstrates ‘Kenya’s resilient democracy and commitment to rule of law’ (Ibid.); one that African leaders will observe. The truth is that many leaders see this decision as a Kenyan prerogative, not applicable to their country, in the spirit of African exceptionalism. A decision made by six wise men and women in Nairobi is unlike to be seen as binding by the rapacious despots in other parts of the African continent.
The court decision did not resolve all the concerns of Odinga, who decided to boycott the elections because fair play could not be guaranteed by the government of Uhuru Kenyatta. In the re-run, Kenyatta polled 98.25% of the vote, representing 38% of the 19.6 million registered voters. He described the result as a ‘revalidation of the voters’ will’, whilst Odinga felt that the low turnout meant that the result must not be ‘allowed to stand … as it will make a complete mockery of elections and might well be the end of the ballot as a means of instituting government in Kenya’ (Mohamed 2017). Clearly, the election did not resolve the misapprehension about the execution of free and fair elections in Kenya, a major feature in a democratic polity.
Indeed, the inability to implant free and fair elections in African ‘democratic’ polity is a major source of instability on the continent, and a factor in the recent political demise of Robert Gabriel Mugabe of Zimbabwe. On Wednesday 15 November 2017, the Zimbabwean army began what turned out to be a peaceful process of removing from power the octogenarian leader and ‘Father of the Nation’, President Mugabe. This was a sanitised coup: no bloodshed, no shot fired, it was not designed to humiliate or disparage the leader, it was simply time for a change, and the army wanted to have a say in who would succeed the leader. It has been described as a ‘coup non-coup’ (Zeleza 2017). For the people of Zimbabwe, it was time for change, and a new start. Mugabe and his wife were both placed under house arrest, while the army announced that they were seeking ‘criminals’ who were around the leader. Meanwhile, thousands of people demonstrated in the capital demanding the resignation of the President as former comrades and long-term critics of the regime demanded an end to the rule of Robert Mugabe, who had led the nation from its inception for 37 years. In a speech shortly after his detention, Mugabe was upbeat, informing his comrades of his intention to continue in office and to preside (as chair) over the ZANU-PF congress a month later. Senior members of the ruling party called for him to step down, but as usual the President was defiant, holding out for a few days before being forced to resign after striking a deal with the military, including immunity from prosecution. Prior to the events of 15 November, there had been the beginnings of a struggle among senior party officials as to the successor to the leader, who was also leader of the ruling ZANU-PF party. Among the contenders were: Mrs Joice Mujuru, a veteran of the war of liberation who in the struggle for power had been sacked from the post of Vice President; Mrs Grace Mugabe, wife of the President and whose candidacy enraged many in the ruling party; finally, Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose sacking as Vice President is said to have precipitated the coup. As we write very little is known about the policies of what will turn out to be a diarchy in Zimbabwe. What is clear from experiences across Africa is that military-led regimes tend to act mainly to satisfy military interests first. There is no reason to expect a different approach in the new situation in Zimbabwe, where the military and the ruling party have dominated public policies.
Clearly, the end of Mugabe’s dictatorship does not mean the end of the woes of Zimbabwe and its people. It is never an easy task for a long-standing totalitarian polity to adapt to democratic values. President Emmerson Mnangagwa will have to earn the approval of the Zimbabwean people through carefully listening to them, implementing dynamic and progressive economic policies that benefit the majority of rural and urban inhabitants, and abandoning neoliberalism and structural adjustment programmes, which helped to destroy the Zimbabwean economy in the 1980s and 1990s (Zeleza 2017). The issue of land will have to be revisited, to compensate not just white farmers whose lands were confiscated by the ancien régime (as the new President intimated in his inaugural speech to the nation), but also those rural and urban dwellers who lost their land in the longue durée of accumulation by dispossession. Indeed, the economy will remain the new government’s biggest challenge in a population renowned to be one of the most educated on the African continent, with millions in the diaspora; policies would have to be tailored to encourage these émigrés to return home. The regime would have to offer an olive branch to the people of Matabeleland, the victims of the Gukurahundi massacres, as well as those who suffered in Operation Murambatsvina, in which many poor communities lost their dwellings and livelihoods. These are daunting tasks for the new regime, which has emerged with much goodwill from the people. However, this must not be taken for granted as it can fizzle out if Zimbabweans come to the conclusion that the regime is not working for them, but simply protecting military and imperialist interests.
Following the longer articles, we publish Robin Cohen’s moving tribute to Ken Post, who died earlier this year. We also have a rich array of Debates and Briefings. On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, Arndt Hopfmann writes about the impact of the revolution on Africa’s development in the 20th century. In the first Debate piece, Hopfmann discusses the legacy of the Soviet Union on the continent (the second part of this two-part Debate will appear in Issue 155, March 2018). He argues that the most visible impact has been on the models of development that were ‘exported’ from the Soviet Union and adopted by movements and governments in newly independent African states. We are also conducting a debate on the Russian Revolution on our roape.net website, where Matt Swagler has written on how politics on the continent, in the early years after 1917, were transformed by the revolution. The Revolution, he argues, offered for the first time the possibility of linking socialist change and revolution to anti-imperialist struggles in Africa (see Swagler 2017).
In the second Debate piece, Joël Noret elaborates on Henning Melber's Debate article at the end of last year. Looking at how the African middle class has recently become the subject of discussion in African Studies, Noret calls for added necessary and nuanced analysis. In a wide-ranging Briefing on the situation in Eritrea, Martin Plaut describes the state's complex security apparatus that monitors all aspects of the population's movements. The state's repression, Plaut argues, operates inside the country and frequently, for those who manage to leave, also in exile. The second Briefing in this issue recounts how Nigerian textiles used to be an important industry in the country, reaching an international market. The authors, Murtala Muhammad, Mansur Ibrahim Mukhtar and Gold Kafilah Lola, describe the devastating impact of Chinese textile imports and the further collapse of Nigeria's famous textiles.