cultural memory and the state_postcolonial malawi

8/12/2019 Cultural Memory and the State_postcolonial Malawi

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CHAPTER 6 -"-*Pentecostalism,CulturalMemory

andtheState:ContestedReprsentationsof Time in Postcolonial Malawi

Rijk vanDijk

The current state of theoryon culture, socialmemory and postcolonialsubjectivityprsents asimple challenge. Itcallsfor analysisdisentangledfromearliergrand socialthorieswhicharedeeply nostalgiein themselves.Nostalgia wasbuilt intothe very foundations of socialthoriesat a timewhen Westernnation-stateswere insearchofgrand stylesof patriotismandnational narrativesof heroicpasts (Turner 1994;Robertson 1990,1992).Leadingmotifsingrand thories, suchas the Gemeinschaft-Gesellschafiantithesis,gave primacyto thatwhich wa s - andwhich, implicitly,thepresent lacks. In research on religion in sub-Saharan Africa, a similarnostalgie paradigmhaslongdominated thestudyof new religiousmove-mentsand so-called independent churches. In particular, the modern urbanreligious movements arising in Southern Africa during the post-WorldWa r IIperiod have commonly been analysed as'oldwinein newwine-skins' (Sundkler 1961) as urban dviations from rural, older and,therefore,more 'audintie' religious patterns. Furthermore, the religiousgroups in thecitieshavebeen represented as if they re-created villagesin symbolic and discursive form for the sakeof 'nestingm the urbansocialnetworks' (Brodeur 1984),or reinstatinga Community that coulddeal withurban conditionsand hardships(foravety rcent example,seeDevisch 1996). For such approaches, th urban is estranging and dis-ruptive, and thus, inessence, 'inauthentic'in African social formationsand cosmologies.

Thisnostalgie viewofmodem urban religious movementsh urbanreligious Community as a clbration of the yearning for th 'village'whence th urban migrant once came- needs to berethought inthlightof thpostcolonial culturalorder (vanDijk i992a,b). We have toshiftour perspective fromnostalgie social theory to a theory of nostalgia,asMarilynStrathernsuggests, following Roland Robertson. The yearning

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I56 M E M O R Y AND THE P O S T C O L O N Yforan vocation of the past or the'authentic'should itself be thematisedas an object of cultural analysis(Strathern 1995:no).Two modesofnostalgiacan bedistinguishedby the waysocieties,orgroups within societies, foreground spcifie vocations of the 'past':synthetic nostalgia and Substantive nostalgia (Strathern 1995: in).Syntheticnostalgia betraysayearning for apastwhich thepresent lacks.The past isclosed; it is not now effective and, in that sense, has nofurtherhearing on thepresent.At thesametime, however, a process ofestrangement from the present state of affairs can be recognised inexpressions ofsynthetic nostalgia.Becausethis nostalgia is primarily re-lational t refers back to relationshipswith people, spaces an dplacesonce engaged in he anthropologist is unable to enter this realm ofyearning. Synthetic nostalgia embodies an idiosyncratic affective codewhich,at least at the level of superficialrcognition, seemsincapable ofbeing translated from the personal into the social or political.

In the second modeofnostalgia belongthe tracesof thepast thatnation-statesforeground, on a political level, to gain historically rootedlegitimacy, glorifyingtheir heroic pasts.Strathern,afterDeborah Battaglia,callssuch nostalgia 'substantive',for it is apastalwayspresentan d effectiveinthe way thatsocietiesor groups deal with their current predicament,substantiate claims of power and interests, and realise certain subjectiveidentities(see Battaglia 1995:93). However,as can be argued forreligieussyncretism as well, the blending of older and laterreprsentations, signsand images may be viewed as trajectories of empowerment, which seekto resist the power of ideologicalhgmonies (see Apter 1991 for ananalysis of syncretismas acountervailing poweragainstth eRoman Catho-lic hegemonyin the NewWorld). Consequently,'substantive'or, rather,mm yterms'syncretic'nostalgiacanperhapsbetterbeviewedaspo liticisedcultural m e m o r y . , syncreticallyblendingt helonging for apast and itsvoca-tion withinpresent socialrealityt omateaspcifierouteo fempowerment.

In pursuing a more critical perspective on nostalgia and politics inAfrica, the anthropologyof memory as a politicised reality for largerethnieunits or even postcolonial nation-states has departed fromanearlieri n v e n t i o n - o f - t r a d i t i o nperspective (Hobsbawman d Ranger 1983;Ranger1993).At the level of family an d individual life, a recent study byRichardWerbner (1991)explores the mtertwining of familynarratives andnation-state narratives,analysingthe admixtureof synthetic and syncretic nostalgiemodes.Remembrancean d nostalgiaalwaysconstitute a s l e c t i v eyearning,relating to the level of the individual,the communaland the supra-communal, and hence revolving around issues of power as Fdip De Boeck(1995) argues. De Boeck analyses the practice bywhich ritual situtesboth individual and collective social memory in time and space.His

PENTECOSTALISM, M E M O R Y AND THE STATE 157approach disclosestheextenttowhichpersonhoodandcommunalidentityaregeneraled, rememberedand produced in ritual performance.Similarly,in the context of exchange and gift relations inTanzania, Brad Weiss(1996)illumintes thecomplex processes of rememberingand vocationof thepastwhich,by creatingspcifieprsencesandabsences, affect thepolitical relations between different social groups.

There are, however,two key yetlargely ignored features of nostalgia.These need to be highlighted all the more because they are cruciallysignificant for the subject of thischapter:the ideological rejection of'pasts'. First, within society, a yearning for a past, an vocation of acollective memory,ma yoccur in the context of a mlturally s p c i f i e imageafthe future .Here nostalgia as a yearning for apast engages in a dialoguewithutopia,a longing for a perceived future state orcondition.Inotherwords,the slection of remembrances,made present syncretically at theindividual, collective or national level (that is, empowering subjects inrelationtoexistingpower/knowledge schemes), maydependon reprsen-tations of the future, onprognosticismand its underlyingassumptions.Asecond relativelyneglected feature of nostalgia isthat of no twishingto rememberz .past, of wilfullydisempowering thepast (Werbner1995), ofinstitutional forgetting (Douglas 1986, 1995;Shotter 1990),of rejectingnostalgia and its yearning for apast.BendingWeiss's argument (1996) toourpurposes,we may saythat e v e r yprsence crtes its ownabsence and,viceversa,the deliberaterejectionof'the past' shouldbeexploredfor itssyncretic qualitiesaswell.Inthiscase,thepastis notmade powerless,ashappensin'closed'synthetic nostalgia;nor is itturnedintoa resource ofempowerment in the fashion of syncretic nostalgia, asanalysed by themvention-of-tradition approach. Instead, the past is ruptured. This sug-gestionreveals howsubjectscan beempoweredbyidologies containinga strongelement of prognosticism.

In this chapter, I explore how, in the context of AfricanPentecostalism,therupture withthepastis intimatelylinkedto anoverwhelmingorien-tation onemight say,a rapture for the future. M y analysis of thePentecostalistmovement of Aba dwa Mwatsopano (Born-Again) in urbanareasof Malawi, and most of all in the largest city,Blantyre,discloses theimportance of the exprience of the 'instant' nstant^beaHng)(Van Dijk1992 1992 19933,i99subjectivities_ate,.constituted~which_-arewpgrceiyed to_be detached fromtheir individual,commurj,aLor,_eyjerj, national pagts.

Inother partsof Africa,t,JPeji ^sta]isrnjandescores the iecessityforjts merrBrsto make_acompltebreak with the past(see,forGhana,Meyer,Chapter 7below;and van Dijk 1997).AlthoughJ^entecpstalismspeaks a language of modernity mwhich diere is apast/inferior^ versus


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1 5 8 M E M O R Y A N D T H E P O S T C O L O N Ypresent/superior dichotomy(see Baumann1993')whereby the believer isprompted to sever all ties with former social relations in the search fornew_indiyiduality, it would be a mistake to argue that Pentecostalismstops here(see Meyet).On thecontrary,Iargue that becausethemomentof instant rebirth is seen as the power base from which new futureorientations are constructed, Pentecostalism may swing in differentmodal-ities from a disembedding of the subject from past social relations to are-embedding in relations with a different temporal orientation. Thesefuture orientations promotea new sense of sharing identity within thePentecostalsetting, and enhance theconstitutionof this new individuality.

On the social plane, such temporal orientations acquire politicalmeaning, particularly if the construction of futureideals and a sense ofnew individualityrun counter to the postcolomal state's project. In thecontext ofMalawian society - which was,at the time this movementemerged,veryfirmlyundertheyokeof theregimeof President HastingsBanda th e A b a d w a Mwatsopano represented a break with existingnostalgie modes.Althoughit sprang up in cities and dealt with migrantsfrom rural areas,theAbadwa Mwatsopano did not re-create a Communityresemblinga rural village a 'villagisation of the city' (Devisch 1996),asa counter-hegemonie project to that of thenation-state. 'Villagisationof the city', such as occurred in Zare in a verydifferent postcolonialsociopolitical context, was not the hallmark of this counter-movement.Rather, the A b a d w a Mwatsopano signalled a break with other urbanreligious movements, which indeed try to reconstruct the migrants' senseof belonging and satisfy their yearning for support in what they mayperceive as ahostile,anonymous urban environment. My chapter exploresboth the realising of this break with existing nostalgie modes, and thedeparture fromotherurban religious movements which attempt to main-tain a nostalgie mode in Malawi's postcolony by forging a continuityfrom the past into the present.After this introduction, I reflect upon the close link between ananthropology of time and the nostalgie mode in the description andanalysis of new urban religious movements. Next I describe how themovement of the Abadwa Mwatsopano established itself in the urbanenvironment, particularly by presenting apocalyptic views of an imminentmoral reordering of society. Finally,I analyse central sociopolitical aspectsof this non-nostalgic religious mode m Malawi's postcolonial situation.

I conclude my chapter by arguing that the study of diis and othernon-nostalgicreligiousmovementsrequires astronger culturalanalysisofshifting emphases in the temporal orientations of such movements, m-cludingtheprognosticand theutopian.The aimisama jorunderstandmgof the pivotairleofPentecostalismsin promoting alternative subjectiv-

P E N T E C O S T A L I S M , M E M O R Y A N D THE S TA TE 15 9ities in different modalities n one modality a level of disembeddedsubjectivity; in another, a new sense of individuality.

BeyondColonial Nostalgia:Southern fricanReligiousMovements asMnemonics

It took quite some time before the anthropology of urban religiousmovements inSouthern Africa could 'escape' from its own tradition ofnostalgie theorising. Sundkler (1961), Daneel (1974), West (1975) andDillon-Malone (1978, 1983)analysed such movements primarily in termsof are-enactment of earlier,'audintie'religiouspractices.The past wasequated with therural,and themovements witnessedin theurban areasweretaken to be modern variations onaudintiereligious forms whichstillcould beobserved intraditional rural areas.Theexplosivegrowdiofurban movements and churches in Southern Africa was associated bytheseauthorswith the expanding urbanisation ofrecentdecades (Sundkler1961: 8085;Daneel 1974: 5 5 ;West 1975:4 ;Kiernan1981: 142;Comaroff1985: 185,186).Ingenera terms, these movements were seen and inter-preted as apt vehicles for the adaptation of the rural-to-urban migrant,whowasconfrontedby a confusing,anarchieand fragmented socialreality.

Basically, these movements were represented as if they provided amnemonic, and thus made a nostalgically comforting rural-to-urban trans-ferenceof a stock of religious symbols andconceptualisations,authoritystructures and ways of coping with illness and misfortune.2 As CliveDillon-Malone stressed for the Apostle Masowecommunities h studied,this 'mnemonisation'of urban ritual crtes a secure setting for the prs-ervationof traditionalstylesof life andreligiousbeliefs (Dillon-Malone1978: 12930). Martin West also noted, for instance, that this processseemedto belinkedinlarge partto gerontocratie relationships, andthatits success depended on theopportunities the churches or movementsoffered for the elders to resum their influential positions in the new,urban environment. It was apparently unusual for a man under fifty toholdany position of authority within thesehealingchurches (West 1975:5 5 -One could therefore conclude that the ralisation of the subject inthese new urban religious movements was conceived by the peoplethemselves asmoving backwards, and was analysed by an anthropologyof religion which addressed the nostalgie as a self-vident ground foracademiereasoning.

Jean Comaroff, in her study of Tshidi urban religious movements(1985),dparts dramatically fromthis approach- she nolongertakesthemnemonic and the nostalgie for granted. Comaroff redirects analysis to


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i6o M E M O R Y A N D T H E P O S T C O L O N Ythe syncretic, empowering dimensionswhichmnemomc religieus practiceconstructs. She argues, first of all, that the urban Zionist incorporationof thenostalgieand mnemoniccoversnot onlySymbols, beliefs,authontystructures and thelike,butalso - andmost importantly - thespatialorganisationof therhythmsof kfe.Second,theZionist mnemonic modelserves the purpose of political protest. More broadly, her argumentsuggests that anthropology must both question its own nostalgia, andexplore the political implications of the absence or prsence of nostalgiawithinreligieusbodies.

In Comaroff's view, within apartheid South Africa , the Zionistchurches, like premodern villages,followeda culturallystandard mnemonicscheme. Theyreflected,under modern conditions, the'house'and its keysymbolicandstructuralfonctions for theindividualintraditional society:'Theirprimary mnemonic is lodged not inScripturebut in the physicalbody and its immdiate spatio-temporal location' (1985: 200). Signs,colours, dress and style are transplanted from the traditional into theurban setting, at once retaining their earlier significance and acquiringnewmeanings within the Zionist Church (1985:219-26).Comaroff warnsusnot toview this process- which Iwould liketocall mmmonisa t ion -as a retreat into 'romantic nativism' (1985:227). Rather, it is a dynamic,purposeful reconstruction, and its intent is double: to express distanceboth from the subjugated traditional world and from thepredicamentofapartheid, which deforms everyday exprience. Hence, under modernlabour relations of oppressive capitalism, individuals who join a Zionisthealing church do not find themselves reintegrated into a 'precolonialEden'which no longer meets their needs. Like the urban migrant, thechurches have been irreversiblytransformed by expriences outside thetraditional setting.TheZionist Church furnishes newly constructed -albeit mnemonised nitiation and healing rites, meant to reintegrateindividuals into the collectivity of Zion and to draw them away fromboth the oppressed traditional scne of existence and the modern, afflict-ing conditions of life.M ypointhreconcerns a theoretical absence. Although Comaroff doesmake anadvancein her approach to the syncretic nature of such nostalgiemodes he incorporation of the mnemonicinpresent modesof con-testation andempowerment - thepng nos t icis largely absent from heranalysis.More broadly,justaswithnostalgia,theprsenceor absenceofprognostic thought needs to be examined critically, and not taken forgranted. This criticismregisters two levels at once. First,the absenceofprognosticism needs to be quesoned at thelevelof anthropological theory- anthropologyhas not yetmanagedtodevelopaparadigmor amethodofanalysisfor exploring prognosticism, scenario-writing and other future-

P E N T E C O S T A L I S M , M E M O R Y A N D THE S TA TE 161orientated constructs. Second, on amore Substantive level, the prsenceorabsenceof futuristic orientations needsto beanalysed, like nostalgia,initspowerimplications and its cultural ramifications within society.

AnEmergingCounter-Movement:Born-AgainConversion,SealingOff andInstant Memory

From the early 19705in Malawi's cities theBorn-Agains,as an mergentPentecostal movement, began forcefully advocating a special type ofconversion. Born-Again conversion was marked by a rejection of anyform of personal, communal or cultural nostalgia. The narrative con-struction of a new subjective identitywas to bring out the individual'scapacityto reject past personal expriences within a spcifie communaland cultural context. The movement's young leaders aimed at 'sealingoff' (kutsir ikd) theindividualbeliever from powersemanating from thebeliever's social environment. They positionedthemselves inoppositionto the oldergnration,andaccused their eldersofcreating socialpowerthat resu l t sfrom the past. The individual was to be constitutedas inde-pendent of anysubjectivity connected to the family, and its immdiatecosmological relations and power structure.

Given this beginning for the movement, my analysis foregrounds thesociopolitical dimensions of the cration of non-nostalgie conversionnarrativesand non-mnemonicindividuality.Themovement emerged whenPresident Banda's postcolonial project, the cration of new nationalidentifies for Malawians on the basis of aperceived cultural past,wasnearingcompletion.Arguably,themergenceofyoung, Pentecostalmove-ments, as a broad tendency in other Southern African states as well, hasmuch to teil us about the forming of transitionalsubjectivitieswithin thepostcolonial predicament.

Malawi's urban centres have seen the rise from 1970 onwards of awholearrayof Pentecostal groups and organisations led by young itinrantpreachers, varying in age from nine to thirty (van Dijk 19923, 1992^19933).Appealingtointerested crowds, these young preachers promul-gated a strict morality: they denounced, in fire-and-brimstone sermons,the sin and evils of everyday urban life.At present, these itinrant youngpreachers still call for a rejuvenated morality, reject the use of alcoholicbeverages, cigarettes and drugs, and fulminate againstadultery,promiscuity,violence and theft. While arousing religieus excitement and ecstaticmotion during mass revival meetings, they exhort the audience to singand dance; sinners are commanded to kneel before the young people,who then insist that all evd objects such as knives, tobacco, stolen goodsand, above all, esoteric magical tokens, be surrendered. All present are


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i6z M E M O R Y A N D T H E P O S T C O L O N Yurged to step forward in the 'altar call' to receive the 'infilling' of theM inm Wy e ra (theHolySpirit),whichisheldup as thesurest singlewayto become cleansed of worldly,defilingforces. Only afterlivingthroughamysticalrebirthby experiencingthis 'infilling'is aperson considered tobe bom again (kubadwa mwatsopano).

To a large extent, this movement of preachers can be seen as the mostrecent stage in the development of independent Christianity and Pente-costalism in this society,underway since the first decade of thisCentury(Schoffeleers 1985). The first preachers (alaliki, literally 'sayers') to takeup their 'calT to preach belonged to an urban class of well-educatedcollege and universitystudents, able to hold the higher-ranking jobs inurban society. As 'part-timers', they were an d still are involved inpreaching only in their spare time. Later on, in the earlyandmid-ipSos,came a second group of preachers; most had no more than a fewyearsof primary schooling and in no way belonged to a young urban elite.Serving mostly on a full-timebasis, they meant their preaching activitiesto provide theirlivelihood,in one way or another.

In the cration of conversion narratives within the Born-Againdiscourse, therelationshipbetween speaking inlongues (malilime)and seal-ing off (kutsirika) isconsidered essential.In a typicalBorn-Again conver-sion narrative, the individualbeliever teils how he or she was involvedwithallthatthe 'world'had to offer: thegoodand the bad, theculturalandthecommunal.Prior to themomentof becomingborn again throughthe 'infilling' with the Holy Spirit, conversion narrativesusually recountpast involvement in certain rituals (initiation, healing,funerals, ancestorworship) or in certain kinds of social behaviour (drinking, violence, etc.)which the born-again subjectmust and can now repudiate. A form ofprotection is then needed for the born-again individual to be 'sealed off'from the outside world from itsbonds, ritual obligations, and the like.

Althoughthey are largely intertwined, there are distinguishable spiritual,spatial and temporal dimensions in the cration of such sealed-offsubjectivity.Speaking inlongues (mali l ime) ,which is considered the centralelement of ritual,symbolicand worshippractice within the Born-Againmovement,inthisidiominvariablyleadsto a'sealingoff' from thewidersociety. The ritual practice of mali l imeis usually exhibited with great energyand force: people lie grovelling on the ground, sweatingprofuselywhileshoutingall kinds of incomprhensible sounds.This ecstatic exprience,compulsory for being consideredtrulyborn again, is perceived to establishalinewith benevolent, heavenly powers. Having thus succeededintappinginto the superior power, thetruebeliever is now in a position to confront'society' protected from its evil forces, includingwitchcraft and variousrnalignspirits.

P E N T E C O S T A L I S M , M E M O R Y A N D T H E STATE I6combats threatsfrom anocturnalworld, addressesthepredica-

mentof thosesuffering from(mystical)afflictions,and'paralyses' avengingevil forces and witches. The Born-Again who feels attacked by witches,tryingto abduct people for nocturnal orgies where human flesh is eaten,ma ycounteract and 'paralyse'themthrough mali l ime .Born-Again preachersareconvinced that mali l imeissuperior todemonic powersof witchcraftandevil spirits, and feel empowered to destroy relatedharmfulobjects.Likewise,the predicaments of modern urban society, where it is hard toobtain ducation, find paid employment and pay for health services, andwhere social tensions readily spring up due to overcrowding in thetownships, arealso understood in terms of the demonic. Confrontingsuchproblemsrequires sessionsof 'counselling'providedbyBorn-Againpreachers whereby both preacher and 'clint' are expected to beginspeaking in tongues together.

In spatial terms, the network, formed from thecountlessweekly Born-Again meetings and the small organisations set up by co-operatingpreachers, is a secure and safe 'environment',protectedby mali l ime .Heremali l imeis seenascreatinga defensive 'wall' against outside evil forces.Contrary to the spatial dimensions of Zionist and other puritanmove-ments, no encirclement as such exists in a materialised form: a closedCommunity,a compound, or anythingelseof that nature. Rather, mali l imeis a distinctive identity marker, turning every'true' Born-Again into aguardian of the spiritual, defensive'environment', however many theirurban social relations might be. A real breach of the 'wall' occurs onlywhen the channel of inspirational power from the heavenly forces isneglected,denied,or exchanged for adifferentand/orrival line of power.

In temporal terms,thecration of the'sealed-off' Born-Againsubjec-tive identity is marked by two discursive lments. First, the emphasisplaced on the 'instant', the immdiate (-fsopano) in religious expriencepermeatesthe entire ritual sphre. The immdiate serves as a jumping-off point forfurther development and'growth',without invocation of asubject'spast, previous kinshiptiesand their related ancestralcosmologicalnotions. Second, asnoted above, there is the notion of rejection of asubject's perceived past,togetherwith anything that smacks of the con-structionof socialpositions andauthority harking backto that past.

Immediacy andAnti-Nostalgia:RejectingEldersEmpowerment and Mnemonics

Born-Again preachers stress the importance of the exprience of imme-diacyboth in conversion and in healing. The subject, instantly 'saved' bybecoming a Born-Again, undergoes anon-the-spot total transformation


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164 M E M O R Y A N D T H E P O S T C O L O N Yin life, social, religious and moral attitudes, and the like. Contrary tosome Pentecostal discourses and practices elsewhere in Africa (see Meyerbelow), conversion andhealingpracticesin theAbadwa. Mivatsopanomove-ment do not require a fll ralisation and re-enactment of an mdividual'simmdiate past through such techniques as completing long question-naires.Thereisnodiagnosis, no probing into aperson's life history,noexamination of a past social environment.Unlikeother religious groups- suchas theestablishedmission churchesandsomeof theindependentchurches- inMalawi, Born-Agains demandnoperiodofcatechumenateandno period of training and initiation. In declaring one's past social lifeto beimmoral, therebyrejecting apastlifein all itsaspects,apersoncaninstantlybecome fully a Born-Again.

This immediacy is also emphasised m healing and protection.Deliverance from evil powers (k a pu lum u t s d ) does not require a fll ex-amination of one's earlier expriences which may havecontributed toafflictionand misfortune in thepresent. Onceinside the religiousnetwork,Born-Agains deal with everyaffliction and misfortune by instant healing,anddo not relyon an vocation of the past m a personal narrative form.Thetherapeuticdialoguesbetween healer/mediumand patint that formthecentrepiecesof the healing practices under the traditional nangasystem,its divination sessions, and the majority of the spirit-healingchurches(see Schoffeleers 1989) are largely absent. The Zionist Churches inBlantyre, for instance, deliver their members and clientsfromevil powersonly after they have been 'screened' by members who act as 'X-rays'capable of penetratingan afflicted person's soul and history in order to'see' the main causes of affliction.Within theA badwaM mt s opa n o 's healingpractices, by contrast, there is only the instant exprience of the healingpowersof the HolySpirit through thelaying-onof handsby one of thepreachers,noquestions asked.

Likewise, in extending the closing of the porosity of the individualbodyfromoutside evil influences, the immdiate living environment canalsobeinstantly protectedby calling on the'bloodof Christ'. Touchingthe walls of a house by any Born-Again who has entered the phase ofspeaking in tongues will ensure that the porosity of the place, allowingoutside evil influences to penetrate, is transformed into animperviousshell.Thehistoryof theplaceand theevilforcesthatmayhave hauntedit are of no interest.This directly challenges the lengthy prparationsothers, such as the asing'anga (medicine men), are required to make inorder to seal off ahousem the traditionalway bymeansof mankhivala(medicine).All thatisno longer needed, and is even theobjectof ridicule.

These notions of immediacyinthe narrative construction of the Born-Again subject are crucial to the sociopolitical and sociocultural dimen-

P E N T E C O S T A L I S M , M E M O R Y A N D THE S TA TE l65sions of the rejection of pasts in a wider sense in Malawian society. Suchrejectionattacks thosepositions of (gerontocratie) authority which arebelieved to be based on secretive pasts, and those cultural traditionswhich areperceived to be formed through theesoteric.M a l il ime ,and itsconsequent rigid moral order, entails a rejection of the wayelders aregenerally believed to become 'ripened' (kukhwima , empowered) (vanDijk1995) .Havingmanagedtobuildup aposition of considrable influenceinmost sectors of dailylife nbusiness,in one of the bigger missionchurches, in kinship affairs in the home village and in politics andhence being kukhwima, a person is liable to the suspicion that hhassought support from malicieus, dark forces. Among the Born-Again,kukhwimatherefore has the primaryconnotationof masteringthe forcesthat rside in witchcraft and its related objects, and beingablestrategicaytoapplythem toone'sownends.The Born-Again preachers,bycontrast,stress that success in the daily world, freedom, and protection fromaffliction and misfortune can be attained only through mal i l ime.Beingkukhwima implies, almost by dfinition, impurity and involvement inpractices not fit for public scrutiny.

Aselders are accused of being kukhwima,the Born-Again project ofempowerment through mali l ime therebyopposes gerontocratie authorityhead-on.Itemphasises immediacy insteadofpersonal historyor'ripening'.Instark contrasttotheir positionin allotherreligious bodies, suchas theestablished mission churches, no allowance is made for the widelyrespected source of the elders' powers. They are excluded from anypositionof authority withintheBorn-Again groups, since they representinvolvement in otherlinesof power such as witchcraft and politics wopursuits whicharecomparablein thedegreeof evil involved. Elders donot preach, organise meetings orenter into the speakingof tongues. Inpublic meetings the 'ways of the a g o g o [elders]',the 'elder'as a subjectiverle model for the new gnration, are often made the object of ridicule.Born-Again messagesusuallyset a hostile tone towards any inclination tocopy elders' behaviour, at least in religious practice.

In a cultural sense, the exclusion of elders extends to a range ofsymbolic repertoires, styles, rituals and other phenomena which directlyfonction in a perception of 'the ritualpast'.The Born-Again ideologyembodies the notion that such symbolic repertoires, dominated by elders,continueto constitute a'past'to berepudiatedand thenforgotten. Long,binding threads are seen to have been woven by the older gnrationthrough theirdeahngs withevilpowers,which still affect the acviesofrelatives in the present. There is no room for a conversation with aperceived past thatwouldinvolverecollection of a subject's involvementin traditional rituals of any kind, or his or her engagement m activities


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166 M E M O R Y A N D T H E P O S T C O L O N Yconsidered smful. Mnemonics in the form of objects, incisions on thebody (the so-called mpim} ,and ritual expriences that relate to the pastare seenasbeingcontrolled to alarge extent by the older gnration,who are suspected of being able to put all sorts of bonding magicalpowersinplace.Esotericobjects, suchascertain amuletswhich extendtheir powers from thepast into thepresent (the so-called itumiva,singularchitumwa),areseen tohave been produced byeldersin thepast, and tobe capable ofhauntingcertain people long aftertheir initial ownershavedied. Theiconoclasm pursuedby thepreachers includestheconfiscationand destruction of such objects,3and provides a widevarietyof possiblepoints of conflict andtension between Born-Agains and their relatives.

Creating a rupture of this nature leads to an outright rejection ofcentral lments in Malawian cultural traditions which, by implication,directly relates the personal narrative of denouncing one's past to thelevelof the sociopolitical. TheBorn-Again projectof whatIwould callcu l tu ra l de-m mm onisa t ionentails a fll rejection of anyexpriences, prima-rilyin the context of initiation or dealings with the traditional leaders andhealers (asitig'anga), which ma y lead an individual into the realm of theolder gnration. Secrets that relate to the relatively 'hidden'process ofinitiation ( c h i n a m w h a l f ) aretherefore readily and mockinglydisclosed,whilethe Nyausecret society, to whichinitiatedmen in the Central and South-ern Rgionso fMalawi belong, isbranded asdevilish (onBanda'spoliticaluse of Nya u ,and the anxietyit aroused in local communities, see Kaspin1993;Englund 1996).Funeral ceremonies are regularlytargeted byBorn-Againpreachers, who fulminateagainst ancestral vnration, the pouringof libationsand the use of alcoholic drinks- thereby fur thercontestingthepower of theolder gnration.

The emphasis onimmediacy,realisedthroughsevering the threads withculturaltradition,isenhancedby astrongfuture-oriented impetus in thereligiousideology of thegroup.Here the Born-Again preachers ventureinto a new territory by rerouting the overriding temporal orientation ofnew convertsby avarietyof means.The ideologyof discontinuity withthe past, counterbalanced by aprognosticorientation, distinguishes theenoreBorn-Again movement fromother urban religious movements. Theend-state of society, as conceived by the preachers, is a situation wherethereal sourceof powerand authonty liesbeyondsociety's ownperim-eters, and hence beyond the clutchesof tradition and its gerontocracy.Forgettingfor the Future,StrangerhoodandBoundary-CrossingThis rerouting of temporal orientation, accompkshed at the subjectiveandat thesocial levels, anticiptes ineschatologicalternis theimminent

P E N T E C O S T A L I S M , M E M O R Y AND THE STATE i67returnofJesus Christ, leadingto the final Day ofJudgement.In anumberof Born-Again discursivepractices, anticipating themoral reordering ofsociety,thepassionateallegorywiththe figure of the apostlePaulprevails(there is no allegory with JesusChrist's life and suffering, asWerbnerrightly hypothesises [Werbner 1997]). The Pauline narrative of the im-mediacyof conversion is combined with the cration of Strangerhood, ofexternality with regard to the convert'spositionin life, in the family, inthe city.Assuming an 'outsider'identity bybecominga stranger toone's'home village', to one'simmdiate relatives, friendsandpeers,isseen toenhance the 'outpouring'of theHolySpirit, while the reverse is also heldto betrue.The power of theHoly Spiritisperceived to rside outside'society', where it remainsunaffected by thepowersof the elders.Exter-nalityis theprerequisitefor the cration of a religious utopia, purified ofallsorts of contaminatinginfluences,which can be reached byestablishinga line of contact with the power of the Holy Spirit.

Like the Pauline expriences of travel, to which many Born-Againmessagesrefer, the crossing of boundaries is considered blissful for theconvert.The individual,by becoming aBorn-Again, isperceived to bepartof anewlyimagined globalCommunityofpeopleon themove- thecrossingofgeographicalandsocial boundaries enhancesone'spurityandreligiousstatus.

In geographical terms,Born-Agains aresupposed to be itinrant, tobe actively engaged in spreading their message from the urban into theruralareas, and even to insert themselves into global arenas (a numberof theyoung Born-Again preachersIstudied managedto proclaim theirmessage in places like Lagos and the central railway station of Amster-dam).In so-called 'crusades' the Born-Again message is promoted fromtheurbaninto themost remote areasof Malawi. Widely spreading themessage is often seen by the Born-Agains as a daring buthighly gratify-ingopration (seevan Dijk 1995).Similarly, the young preachers' rlemodels and authority styles, liketheir end-goal of a wholly purifiedMalawian society, are all based on thethings theyenvisage as coming to Malawi in the prsence of mcreasinglyglobalised contacts. Key rle models for the young preachers are theworld-famous Pentecostal or revival preachers, such as Billy Graham,Jimmy Swaggart and Reinhard Bonnke. Their influence cornes mainlyfromtheir modes of opration, their dress and style, their effective waysofgetngtheir groups organised, the identity they assume, and the successan dprospenty theyseemt orepresent.T he mflux of this type of Anglo-AmencanPentecostalism (Reinhard Bonnke visitedMalawii n 1986,bring-mg with him truckloads of eqmpment for hisgiganticrevival meetings)provided the preachers with an extraneous source for new religious ideas,


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i68 M E M O R Y A N D T H E P O S T C O L O N Ymodesof organisation, dress, styleandgenera identity(on thespreadofPentecostalism in the Southern African rgion, see Gifford 1987, 1991,1993). These were - andstill are - theheralds of a society wheregerontocratie control, manifest in all manner of 'daily' and 'nocturnal'manipulations,is nolonger associatedwith the level of success, prestigeand socioeconomic standing one can attain by relying on inspirationalpower.

Insocialterms, thecrossingofboundaries relatestowhat Born-Againsregard as ablissful aggressiveness,which,in most cases, even leads to aninsulting parody of other forms of inspiration and power. For Born-Agains, there is a strong impetus to mock and scorn key lments of theestablishedsymbolic repertoire and, withit, theguarantorsofritual practiceand power: the elders, the local traditional healers (asing'anga) and the localtraditional authorities. On many occasions, this process of de-mnemonisationhas provoked hilarity, when preachersshowed themselvesvirtuoses atmimickingsuch local authoritiesand theirritual behaviour.Transgressing the boundaries of social respect usuallycarries with it anelementof corporalaggressivenessinspeechandbodily posture (oneofthe Born-Again groups in Blantyre was tellingly called the AggressiveChristianity Mission Training Corps).This'project' ofestrangement fromand moral reordering of society is assertive on the personal and sociallevel, in the sensethatevery Born-Again is expected to share vicariouslyin the task of preaching in increasingly wider social circles. The processof de-mnemonisationcanhencebeunderstoodin part as a flagrant pro-testagainstgerontocratie authority.The Born-Again formof protest inan urban setting has not been fuelled by amnemonic scheme, and cancertainlynot be studiedfromwithina mode of nostalgieculturalanalysis(forthe contrast under apartheid, see Comaroff 1985on there-enactmentof ritualandemotional schemesin newZionist urbanreligieusmovements).

All this forms the ground layer upon which the subtle rerouting oftemporal orientation takes place.Crucially important here is thenotionof ku-ombe^a .Ku-om b e^ a is the exploration of therootcauses of personaland socialeviland misfortune, and it is redirectedintoa profound inter-estin importedthings. Theseareseenascoming to theimagined globalCommunityof Born-Agains, of which the Malawians have become part.Instead of pursuing a diagnostic line of thinking which evokes the past,reinstates those root causes of evil and would make individuals verymuch aware of their past expriences, the Born-Agains, rather, questionpeopleon their awarenessoftheir immdiatefuture, their prospects foranimproved moral standing and location m a morally reordered society.Particularly at so-called 'nights of prayer ', th meetings were geared inreligiousecstasy towards the almost literalexpectationof the new dawn

P E N T E C O S T A L I S M , M E M O R Y A N D THE S TA TE 169:),and seen as safehavens in which a new puritan order is already

in effect. Unaffectedby the powers of the night, such sessionspromotedth sense of animminent, idal end-state of society bycreatingaveryspcifie sense of time and temporality. By presenting an almost invertedrealityofthsocial- livingandprayingatnight,andspeakingintonguesinstead of ordinary speech the imposed power of the past and of'society' at such occasions was converted into an imagined reality of afuture idealCommunity.Prognosticismwas combined withanti-nostalgia,andits surreptitious message forthpostcolonial project of Bandacouldhardly be misread by those involved. In th next section I follow thmeaningof th 'non-nostalgie' religious discourseand practice of Born-Againism,andshowitslocation mpostcolonial Malawi.On that basis,Iadvancethcultural analysis of thnostalgie andthutopian bytheoreti-cally conceptualising th 'non-nostalgie'.

Postcolonial Power,StateCulturalNostalgiaand thNkhoswe

In view of th rupture that Born-Againism prsents in th subjectivesense of cultural continuity, th question is: how did this affect theindividuallivesof believers in the context of postcolonial Malawian societyunder Banda?4 The project of cultural discontinuity so unambiguouslypreached bythBorn-Again leaders led to spcifie constructions of sub-jectiveidentity, but it clashed with Banda'spoliticalproject of reinstatingchosenculturalpracticesas a framework for national identity formation(further empirical vidence isgivenin van Dijk and Pels 1996). Withinthlimitsof thischapter, I briefly discussthsignificance of this clashbetween thfundamentalists'deliberatecultural amnesiaon the onehandandthpoliticalmachiner/sprojectof recallingandselectivelyconstitutingcultural practicesin th national, public sphreonthother. I focusononeparticular case which demonstrateshow antithetical th Born-Agains'project of rupture was to the national project of cultural nostalgia.

InMarch 1989,a cardroveupto thesmallhouseofDennis Tembo,atwenty-year-oldBorn-Again leaderliving in theM achinjiriDistrictof Blantyre and anactivepreacher fromthe LivingWatersChurch. The carbelongedtothsecuritystaff of thPresident'sStateHouseinZomba,towhich th driversummonedDennis. Overwhelmed by surprise and fear, andembarrassedby his rathershabbyappearance,Denms wentalong, to be receivedby th head of security.To his amazement, instead of being treated harshly, he wasoffered admner,more lavishthan h hadever seen,and wasthen ushered into abedroomwitha bed softer than anyhhad eversleptm. Hisbewildermentgrewfurther whe nhlater overheardmen inthree-piecesuitsdiscussmgwhether this boy was the


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172 M E M O R Y A N D T H E P O S T C O L O N Ysocieties, a 'brotherhood'of men marned into the villages and a forcethat formed the backbone of chiefly authority in matrilineal societies,cameunder heavy attack fromantagonistic mission policies. In the mean-time, the migration of young couples to urbanand peri-urban settle-ments, particularly after the war,brought it home to the entire oldergnration that their struggletoretain hegemonie control of theyouthwas fast petering out (see also Mandata 1990). The newly developedsectorsin theeconomytowhich mission ducationwasprovidingaccesseffectivelyshatteredthehegemonyof the chikamwiniSystem.The churchesalsomanaged to'seclude'the youngeffectivelywithina range of mission-organised youth organisations which rivalled those orms of youthorganisation that village society allowed for (see Schoffeleers 1973).

State-BackedGerontocracy,Surveillance andDfiantYouthFrom theinceptionof hisrule,Banda called himself the 'Nkhoswe NumberOne', and embarked on a social programme to bring the youth backunderproper gerontocratie control (see Williams1978;Lwanda 1993:69).In hisview,the younger gnration had to bemadeinto 'the nation'sworkhorse', 'the spearhead of progress' - aposition thatwouldnot bemuchdifferent structurally fromwhatit hadbeen in theChewa chikamwinimodel. Two youth organisations on a nationwide scalewere set up: theparamilitaryMalawi Young Pioneers (MYP)and thepoliticalwing of thesolegoverningparty,theLeagueof MalawiYouth ( A y u f i in thevernacular).The MYP,clothed in khakiuniforms, were explicidygiven the taskofrenewing agriculturalpracticein programmes emanatingfromMYP train-ing bases. TheAyuf i , in red shirts and green trousers orskirts,were giventhe task of assisting in the organisation of the public fonctions of thepartyand itslocalparty chairmen.

Soon after 1964,Banda brought bothyouth organisations under hisdirect command, turningtheminto instrumentsof control and coercionwith unprecedented liberties to act. In 1965 h announced the MalawiYoungPioneers AmendaientAct, which placed this youth organisation,withasecret service wing, above thepolice,andgaveit immunity fromarrest. In all twenty-fourdistricts of Malawi, MYP training camps wereestablished from where innovations were to be mtroduced in adjacentruralareas. Their purpose was to see to it that, as in theage-old chikamwinisystem,the young would once againbe supporting agricultural production.Every yearthousands of secondary-school students and volunteers wererecruited to the camps to be taught innovative agricultural skillsas wellasthe basics of paramilitary training. Recruits to the standing MYP elitetroops fromthe brief introductory training programmes received extensive

P E N T E C O S T A L I S M , M E M O R Y AND THE STATE 17 3benefits,andaftersome time were returned to society as'civilians'in jobsleft vacant on a compulsory basis in trade, industry and governmentservices.

Withinashort spanof time,Bandagainedahardened and, above all,loyalbodyofyouthwho hadpledgedanoathof allegianceto the'fatherand founder ' of the Malawi nation, Nk ho sweNumber One. Just as Bandaplaced himselfat the top of thetraditionalhierarchyofauthority (ascend-ing from local village headmen through group village headmento tradi-tional authority [chiefj), so alsodidlocal party leaders place themselvesabove local village headmenandgroupvillage headmen.Theselocal partychairmenhad oneinstrument attheir disposai whichthelocal traditionalauthoritiessimply lackedin the furtherexcutionof their powers:thelocalbranchesof the MYP and theLeagueof Malawi Youth.At the level oflocal society, both youth bodies succeededin developingintodeeply fearedinstrumentsof control andcoercion. Party membershipwascompulsory,and the YouthLeaguers ( A y u f i ) inparticularwerefrequentlyused to checkonpossessionof party cardsand on thecompulsory attendanceatpartymeetings. Entry into such public places as markets, hospitals and busstations waspermittedonly afterthe showing of a party card to the Ayuf imember blocking the entrance.Members of these organisations wouldmingleincivilian dotheswith local sports groups, visitors to bars andrestaurants,andgatheringsat funerals to record anyformof dissent orprotest againsttheregime'sheighteningsupervision andintolrance. Theyouth groupsandtheir related secret bodieshadbecomeso effective thatby the late 19808Malawi had been transformed into one of the mosthighlysupervised countries on the African continent, with state powerrepresented in virtually every corner of society through an astoundinglyintricate network of informants, training camps, teachers, roadblocks,Checkpointsandpartymembership,whichin itseffectiveness,for acountrystillbelonging to the tenpoorestin theworld,wasbeyond imagination.6

Other bodies, suchas the mission churches, wereno longer aowedtoorganise young people in independent youth organisations, and theiropportunities togain direct access to theyounger gnration inMalawisteadily diminished after independence and the 1965 Amendaient Act.The mission youth organisations, such as the Scouts and the Brigades,were disbanded (Lamba 1985).The mission schools were put under thedirect control of thegovernment, which decidedon theintakeof pupilsand theappointaientof teachers. All other matters concerning youth andyouthorganisationswere referred to theMinistryof Youth,and to thecommanders mcharge of the two official youth organisations: MYP andthe Youth League. Christian student and workers' organisations wereheavilymonitored for the political content of their activities.


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174 M E M O R Y A N D THE P O S T C O L O N YThispervasive state surveillance was, in bief,the situation in theearly

19708,when the young preachers began to appear on the streetspro-claimingBorn-Againfundamentalism and organising their adhrents intosmall fellowships and ministries. Inhiscapacityas N k ho s weNumber One,Banda reflected amodelof gerontocratie authority which, evenat alocallevel in thecities,was strongly endorsed by party officials and thepoliti-calmachinery. However, it would be amistake to ignore attempts ofpostcolonial innovation,of which Born-Again Pentecostalism is apart,and to allow Banda's manipulation of 'tradition' to explain the apparentsubmissionof Malawiansto thenkhoswemodelofauthority (fora criticaldiscussion of postcolonial innovation in the rural areas, see Englund1996). Within the urban Born-Again groups, the gerontocratie nkboswemodel of authority was the subject of bitter scorn.

Asthe case of Dennis shows, when a marriage was to be imposed, hdid not turn to the cmkhoswe in his farmly, whom h should havecon-tacted. Instead h had this position of authorityfilled by his religiousleader, who promptly reacted in a way that reflects kutsirika: the 'sealingoff' of the individual from further involvement with an 'abhorrent'cul-turalpractice. Both a cultural and apoliticalrupture was created here atone and the same time by this Born-Again leader. He flouted the author-ity of Dennis's local family a n k h o s m , and in his refusai to accept theimposed marriage hshowed contemptfor the political practice of trans-lating the nkhoswemodelintothenational power structure. Even thoughthe marriage was to have beensubjectto theapprovalof N k ho s weNumberOne, Stanley Ndovi defiantly turned it down.

InterprtationandConclusionThe colonial and postcolonial projects of state power and mainlineChristianity in Malawi fostered the idea of continuityin their pursuit ofhritage and legitimacy (Kaunda 1995 ; for similar observations on theZareanpostcolony,seealsoDevisch1996).Against that nostalgie under-pinningduring the Banda era, however, the urban movement of Born-Againism advanced a subtle anti-nostalgie critique. The mainstreamprojectswereandstillareinversely mirroredin theA b a d m a Mwatsopano asa counter-movement: fromsocial continuity to idiosyncratic discontinuity;from an emphasis on rgulation and time control to free flow of char-ismaticinspiration couchedin timelessrvlation and ecstasy; from thegraduai acquisitionof skills,training and authorityto instant, spontane-ous 'mfilling'withthealmightySpirit fromwhencetheauthoritytospeakoriginales; from religion of the Book to immdiate inspiration from theWord;from teachingandadvice fromone'selders (miyambo,smg.m w a m b o ,

P E N T E C O S T A L I S M , M E M O R Y A N D T H E STATE 17 5the adviceand instruction given atmarriage and initiation to come tokhalidive that is fulfilment of one's responsible socialrleand person-hood) tointrinsic moral control by the youth.As Devisch (1996) con-cludes for comparable religious movements in Kinshasa, postcolonialsociety is confronted by ltsmirror-image, resultingin the Malawian casein a profound sense of cultural and personal discontinuity. Contrary totheZarean case, however, the Malawian postcolonial state which is mir-rored by theAbadwa Mwatsopanowas very different in terms of itscontroland power duringtheregimeofPresident Banda. Althoughin bothcasesthese urban religious groups arecomparableas counter-movements, thediffrence nevertheless is that each mirrors an alternative condition: inZaire thecollapse of thestate- hence thenostalgia for alost villagemoral order; in Malawi atotalisingstate on the march hence the obvia-tion of memoryand the embracementof a non-contextual utopia.

The theoreticalinterest in this Malawian case springs from the factthat social memoryandnostalgie modes have been contested,mainlybythe offer of afuture-oriented time-frame,on thesociopoliticalas well asthe personal level.On thesociopolitical level,comparedwithotherreli-giousgroups found inMalawi's cities, theBorn-Again preachers provedquiteexceptionalin the rupture they created with cultural practice and itspolitical translation. The mission churches in particular often sufferedrebukes for their 'permissive' or 'lukewarm' attitudes towards local cul-tural practice. These churches showed respect for the local forms ofauthority as bestowed on the local ankhosive .However, the fact that 're-ligion',as the preachers wouldpejoratively callit, lent itself as an elementof the national project of identity formation under Banda certainly playeda part in the Born-Again critique. While religious leaders werepledgingtheir allegiance to Banda from time to time, turning up at nationalfestivities to open the ceremonies with prayer,or participating inpartymeetings of the solegoverningMalawiCongressParty,Born-Again leadersneverdid such things.7While religious leaders were helping to createanational identity by highlighting Malawian 'national' culture and itshritage, theyoung Born-Again leadershadanother 'agenda'entirely.Ifsomeone from within Born-Again groups was appointed, even in-voluntarily, to one of the many political organisations (for men, women,youth, orwhatever), that personwasperceived forthwith as anoutcast:someone who, for access to political power, defiledthe treasure of beingborn again.

The interprtation offered here is thus thatm challengmg both thepostcolonial projects of state power and established mainline ChristianityinMalawi, the A b a d w a Mwatsopano did not develop a mode of syncreticnostalgia. Nostalgia, there-creationof communities byevokinglments


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j76 MEMORYAND THE POSTCOLONYof a perceived past, and the empowerment which may result from it,played nopartin thedevelopmentof the A badwa Mwatsopano. Instead,theempowerment which theBorn-Againmovement provided for challeng-ing the postcolonial and mainline Christian projects was derived from amodel of anticipated moral reordering of society. True Born-Again be-lievers aresubjectivelyconstructed as strangers to both theirown societyand their immdiate social environment. In contradistinction to being'bom free' under the postcolonial predicament, the A b a d w a Mwatsopanopropounda discourse of being'bornagain' under the aegis of a morallyreordered society.Theliteral meaningof abadwa mwatsopano- being'borninthenow', 'being born in theimmdiatepresent'- alreadyembodiesasense of estrangement fromany participation in national projects of socialmemory.

On the personal level, this estrangement transforms the subject, frombeing locked within the bonds withone's family,its ancestral past and theforcesthatstillrun through such natal ties,tobecomeaperson freeofsuch constraints (see Meyer, below). However, in critique of those studiesthat locate wholeness of identity, fully embedded in social relations, inpremodern society and individuality and disembeddedness in the projectof modernity(see critiques by Lambek 1995 ;Werbner 1996;Lambek andAnzte 1996), one could say that Pentecostalism is not caught in thisduality. The analysisof Pentecostalism shows that it crtes a texture oftemporalities in which there is room for alternate modalities of person-hood counterposing the project of a nation-state which attempted toconstruct identity as single, centred, bounded and located in a regulr,directed, temporal trajectory. In the case of Dennis (reported above), theposition of the Pentecostal leader as his nkhoswecertainly severedDennis'sties with his family, promoted individuality and ran counter to theboundedness of identity which the nkhoswe model of state authorityim-plied. WhenDennis rejectedsuch relations with his family and the stateasbelongingto adenounced past,andturnedto thePentecostal Church,however,a new form of embeddedness emerged. His leader became thenew nkhoswe, uncontrolled by state and family, hence constituting newbonds and ties which were thus shaping his immdiate future relations.In otherwords, while the cry'make a complete break with your past',often heard in African Pentecostalism nowadays, may lead apersonjntoindividuality, the urge to establisTi a future-oriented moral reorderingprovokesa search for new bonds which signal a prsence of new^sqcialrelations and commitments that shape identity.

ITiaveargued here that both the prsence and the absence ofjiostalgiaandutopia,of mnemonics andprognostics,need t o_beclticay^e^m-ined,bearing inmindAppadurai's (1981)adage that 'pasts'or'histories'

PENTECOSTALISM, MEMORY AND THE STATE 177cannot be created in boundless variety. Neither canprognostic idologiesbe'invented'ininfinitdiversity. The problems represent achallenge forcritical theory. Anthropologists in particular hve yet to develop thnecessaryconceptual tools toanalysehowsocial memories relateto 'socialfutures'(on th anthropology of thefuture,seeWallman 1992).My prsentanalysis contributesto this newly emerging field of inquiry through thexamination of contested reprsentations of time in urban religious move-ments in Malawi and elsewhere in Southern Africa.

NotesAfirstdraft of this chapter waspresentedat the AAA panel on 'Memory and thePostcolony. African Anthropology and the Critique of Power',San Francisco, 21November 1996. The author wishes to thankth econvenors,RichardWerbneran dSally FalkMoore, for their stimulating comments and suggestions.

1. Baumansuggeststhatinprojects of modernity such asmissionisation,colo-nisation and postcolonial state formation, 'before' came to mean 'lower'and'inferior', while the future wa s represented as 'superior'. Abattleground thusemerged between the superior future and the inferior past whereby, inthis arena,superionty w astested an dprovedin victory; inferiority in defeat (Bauman 1993:2 2 6 .

2. In thiscontext Daneelargues: 'It would be avalidconclusion that the urbanZionistand Apostle Churches are in the first place extensions of the ruralcongr-gations and act as a spiritualharbour forthosememberswhooccasionally live intown.... Sermons deal with ruralproblems or with urbanproblems from a ruralpoint ofview'(Daneel 1974: 23,24).3. One of the best-knownpreachersof thegroup of thirtythatIstudied(vanDijk i993b, 1995) in Blantyre was ayoung woman of twenty-four named LinleyMbeta, whoclaimedthatshecouldsee a hand coming down fromheaven to pointout to her the sinners among her audience. She became a national figure,knownfor her effective anti-witchcraft campaigns,following a rebirth sheexperienced inApril 1985.Owing to her cleansingpowersand her adamant calls for confessionand conversion,h er preachingsessions aremuch in demand nationwide. In manyplacesherconduct hasprovoked resentmentamongolderpeople,because- as iscommoninth entiremovement - she openly holds thisgnrationresponsiblefor thexistenceand salience of witchcraft insociety. At one of her sessions sherebukedthem:Wheredo you think youwillgo to, you fools,with those charms [ i t i t m i i > a ] thatwere left you byyour grandparents? You,you are learners today.It takes youhours to bewitch somebody, but you still cling to your witchcraft [ a f i ] ,)ustbecause your forefathers handedthcharmsdown to you Youfools, if thsecharms were things thatcould lead someone into th Heavenly Kingdom, Idoubtif yourgrandparentscould hve left them toyou,but because they leadsomebody tohell, that'sw hy they handed them overbefore theydied.Only toincreaseth number of peopleaccompanying them on their way to hell4. In 1994dmocratie lectionstookplacewhich meant the end of theBandae r a . Th e oppositional UnitedDmocratie Front obtained a majority in th


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I78 M E M O R Y A N D T H E P O S T C O L O N Yrestructure parliament and its leader, Bakili Muluzi, wa s elected as the newpresident.5. Thepositionof theyounginpolitical culture- particularly thatof youngmen - in the Northern patrilinealsocieties suchas the Tumbuka was slightlydifferent. Although youngm en were certainlycontrolled by gerontocratie powerrelations throughwhichtheir labour power was exploited, the fact that they werepart of the samefraternal interest societymeant that their prospects of eventuallyachieving an autonomous position were better.6. Hre I do not raean to equatesupervisionwithviolence. Other regimesinAfrica have been notoriously violent,bu t they lackedtheleve of supervision overtheentire society that was so evident in Malawi. Mdard has written, tnockingly:'KamuzuBandaa russiimposer sonpaysleplus haut degr dedisciplinee nAfrique: les voitures s'arrtent mme au feu rouge. Cette discipline, qui faitl'admiration des experts en tout genre, rend l'atmosphre singulirement triste,touffante et oppressante. [Kamuzu Banda has succeeded m imposmg on hiscountry the most rigid disciplinei n Africa; cars even stop for a redlight. Thisdiscipline,which excitesth admiration of ail th experts, makesth atmosphreremarkably melancholy, stifling and oppresssive.] (Mdard 1991: 99)7. An important exceptionhre is the young preacher Linley Mbeta, whoacted for some time as Prsident Banda's personal healer (seeV an Dijk 1993^.

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