Into the House of the Ancestors

Inside the new Africa - by Karl Maier

Published 1998 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. pp 262 ISBN 0 471 13457 X

Written as the latest momentous chapter in African history was unfolding ­ the toppling of Zaïrean despot Mobutu Sese Seko by a coalition of African states Karl Maier's book tries to illuminate the reality of African life without sentiment or prejudice.

A working journalist for more than a decade in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Nigeria, Maier is sympatico with the places and the people. The book starts on that glorious day on 27 April 1994 when millions of South Africans voted in the country's first all-race elections and ends with ruminations on the portents of Mobutu's demise for Central Africa.

This book is not a conventional analysis of the undulations of African politics. Instead Maier reports African life in ways that help explain the continent's peaks and troughs ­ alongside the heroism of Nelson Mandela and the villainy of Mobutu ­ and give clues as to where it's heading. The style is lively and strong on first-hand observation. Most of all, Maier lets Africans speak for themselves, countering the absurd stereotypes and generalisations that too often colour reporting about the continent. In Congo's diamond-rich Mbuji-Mayi, Maier explains how its stridently independent people survived the depredations of the Mobutu years by running an almost autonomous state, with schools, clinics and a welfare system, financed by local commerce and managed by civil society and church groups.

In war-ravaged Mozambique, Maier describes how villagers used spirit mediums to resist attacks by Renamo rebels, a phenomenon which gave urban rationalists in the Frelimo government a new respect for African culture and religion. Thousands of miles to the north in the Sahel, Maier visits a world-class medical research centre led by a group of eminent African doctors. It is a marriage of two worlds: the state-of-the-art research centre working with local traditional healers to tackle the scourge of malaria strains increasingly resistant to conventional drugs such as chloroquine. The centre has produced several effective new treatments derived from local herbs.

Across Africa, Maier looks at the drive for education and self-improvement. Against all odds, children in war zones in Somalia and Angola have been corralled into makeshift classrooms by dutiful parents. This survey also reveals how governments in Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, where so much was invested in schools and universities after Independence, now neglect these institutions as their rulers are increasingly estranged from the citizens.

Recounting the story of Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti, a Nigerian doctor and civil rights activist who has braved threats and gaol terms by successive military regimes, Maier gives life to his assertion that General Sani Abacha's regime is 'virtually at war with its own people'. The strongest chapter, 'New Roads Taken', traces the careers of a Zimbabwean sculptor, a Nigerian computer whizz, a Ghanaian academic tackling the crisis facing Africa's elderly, and a young South African woman combining the twin responsibilities of medical doctor and Zulu chieftain.

In some 260 pages about the continent, there are of course gaps: Africa's economic life ­ how farmers, traders and manufacturers having survived war and recession, are now beginning to see their fortunes rise again. Perhaps a sequel book from the same school of analytical reportage is called for.