241 pages

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In Sierra Leone , livre ebook

Duke University Press - Jackson Michael Jackson

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241 pages

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In 2002, as Sierra Leone prepared to announce the end of its brutal civil war, the distinguished anthropologist, poet, and novelist Michael Jackson returned to the country where he had intermittently lived and worked as an ethnographer since 1969. While his initial concern was to help his old friend Sewa Bockarie (S. B.) Marah-a prominent figure in Sierra Leonean politics-write his autobiography, Jackson's experiences during his stay led him to create a more complex work: In Sierra Leone, a beautifully rendered mosaic integrating S. B.'s moving stories with personal reflections, ethnographic digressions, and meditations on history and violence.Though the Revolutionary United Front (R.U.F.) ostensibly fought its war (1991-2002) against corrupt government, the people of Sierra Leone were its victims. By the time the war was over, more than fifty thousand were dead, thousands more had been maimed, and over one million were displaced. Jackson relates the stories of political leaders and ordinary people trying to salvage their lives and livelihoods in the aftermath of cataclysmic violence. Combining these with his own knowledge of African folklore, history, and politics and with S. B.'s bittersweet memories-of his family's rich heritage, his imprisonment as a political detainee, and his position in several of Sierra Leone's post-independence governments-Jackson has created a work of elegiac, literary, and philosophical power.

Sujets

Sociologie, société et politique

Sierra Leona

Biological anthropology

Sierra Leone

Informations

Publié par	Duke University Press
Date de parution	08 mars 2004
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780822385561
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1348€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

In Sierra Leone

m i c h a e l j a c k s o n

In Sierra Leone

Duke University Press Durham & London 2004

∫2004 Duke University Press

Printed in the United States of

Americaonacid-freepaper$

DesignedbyC.H.Westmoreland

Typeset in Carter & Cohn Galliard

by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-

in-Publication Data

Jackson, Michael.

In Sierra Leone / Michael Jackson.

p.cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

isbn0-8223-3301-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

isbn0-8223-3313-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Jackson, Michael, 1940–

2. Anthropologists—Sierra Leone—

Biography. 3. Political anthro-

pology—Sierra Leone. 4. War and

society—Sierra Leone. 5. Marah,

Sewa Bockarie. 6. Kuranko (African

people)—Biography. 7. Sierra

Leone—Social conditions. 8. Sierra

Leone—Politics and government.

I. Title.

gn21.j337a3 2004

301%.092—dc22

2003019451

To the Memory of

s e w a b o c k a r i e ( ‘ ‘ s . b .’ ’ ) m a r a h1934–2003

andm a r a hb o c k a r i e n o a h 1942–2003

‘‘that the path not die’’

AKleepaintingnamed‘‘AngelusNovus’’shows

an angel looking as though he is about to move away

from something he is ﬁxedly contemplating. His eyes are

staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is

how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned

toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he

sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage

upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel

would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what

has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise;

it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the

angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly

propels him into the future to which his back is turned,

while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This

storm is what we call progress.—Walter Benjamin,

Theses on the Philosophy of History

Contents

List of Illustrations xi Maps xiii Night Flight to Freetown The North 12 Place of Refuge 20 In Kabala 32 The Beef 41

Within These Four Walls The Executions 56 Fina Kamara’s Story 64 Tina Kome Marah 74 Early Days 86 Independence 98 Going Abroad 107 In Government 112

Thinking Back 125 Seeds of Conﬂict 132 The War 140 Day into Night 151 The Reversals of Fortune The Value of Shade 170 Exile 180 In Conakry 186 Trust and Truth 192 The Hotel 201 Notes 209 Index 223

161