Other important links in Africa's chain of communication remain little examined by scholars. Studies about clandestine tracts or leaflets for example, are very few. The topic usually is considered in passing, and often dismissively. William J. Foltz, for example, has written that tract literature typically is not well-suited for much more than pursuing a personal vendetta or for "creating a vague feeling of insecurity within the regime. 58 But even a vague sense of insecurity can be quite irritating and unsettling to a single-party regime such as that of Côte d'Ivoire during the 1970s and 1980s.59 The significance of clandestine tracts in sub-Saharan Africa as forms of alternative political communication and as antecedents to above-ground newspapers probably is as underestimated as it is understudied.

A somewhat larger, although still modest, body of scholarship 60 has emerged about the intriguing, informal, word-of-mouth network known in francophone countries as radio trottoir 61(or, in Côte d'Ivoire, as Radio Treichville).62 Radio trottoir has been colorfully characterized as "discourse in camouflage,"63 as a nunor mill awash with political commentary, affording what James C. Scott has described as "an opportunity for anonymous, protected conimunication,"64 little of which is complimentary to those wielding state power. Indeed, radio trottoir thrives "on scandal in the sense of malicious news, and rarely has anything good to say about any prominent person or poli-tician."65 As Jean-Francois Bayart has observed, "There is no official policy which is not immediately deciphered in the back streets, no slogan which is not straightaway parodied, no speech which is not subjected to an acid bath of derision, no rally which does not resound with hollow laughter."66

Linkages between Africa's independent press and radio trottoir—that press reports feed the informal, oral networks and vice-versa have been suggested in a few studies.67 Naomi Chazan has noted that non-official newspapers and radio trottoir share the objective of seeking "to bypass state monopolies on information."68 Richard Carver has suggested that radio trottoir is "a highly effective means of conveying accurate information on important events,"69 and Monique Glasman, in a passing reference to Abidjan's Radio Treichville, identified it as a popular means of "tempering the absence of freedom of information" in Côte d'Ivoire during the l980s.70

The bite of radio trottoir—its "language of political derision"71—may have as its closest print relation the often-scalding satiric press of francophone Africa. Although titles are comparatively few, the satiric press is striking for its imagination, wit, and, at times, for its disclosures of official misconduct. Le Cafard Libéré [The Liberated Cockroach] in Senegal is regarded as one of the most aggressive in ferreting out corruption, much like the Parisian satirical weekly Le Canard Enchainé.72

The satiric newspapers certainly are the most irreverent, breezy, and even whimsical elements of Africa's independent press. Titles are often imaginative and self-deprecating, as suggested by Le Cafard Libéré and La Cigale Muselée [The Muzzled Cricket] in Mali.73 Satirical newspapers often make what are unequivocal nods to the oral components of the chain of communication. Journal de Jeudi in Burkina Faso, for example, regularly includes a column written in pidgin French and offering "home-spun wisdom" of a character called Gouina, who purports tongue-in-cheek to be "a man of the people."74 The column carries instructions that it must "be read at the top of one's voice."75

A Burkinabè sociologist, Moussa Ouedraogo, has speculated that the satiric press is inspired by the tradition in some African cultures of turning to biting humor when confronting hardship. Such a tradition, he writes, "allows the humble to blast those in power with their invective and deliver some much-needed home truths with impunity."76

In practice, however, impunity is not routinely extended to Africa's satirical press. Mocking humor and searing satire have, to be sure, enraged authorities such as Omar Bongo, the diminutive head of state in Gabon and a frequent target of barbs in the satirical La Griffe. Bongo has warned: "Let the insults, attacks and provocations stop. Let the press confine itself to what is worth knowing."77 Among the ugliest episodes of govermnent repression in the 1990s were those directed at journalists for satirical newspapers. Abdoulaye Drahame Sangard, publication director of La Voie and of the now-defunct satirical weekly Bol Kotch, was summoned in 1995 to the office of General Gaston Ouassdnan Kond, the Ivorian security minister. Kond ordered Sangard stripped to the waist and beaten by four truncheon-wielding policemen. The incident was sparked by a brief item in Bol Kotch containing a popular swearword—which the official took as a personal insult.78 Laurent Dona-Fologo, secretary general of the ruling political party in Côte d'Ivoire, dismissed the assault on Sangard, saying: "Africans have been beaten for fifty years. They are used to being smacked. It is a common practice among us. Colonists got us used to that. "79

THE PRESS AND DEMOCRATIZATION

Africa's emergent independent press was unquestionably buoyed by the wave of political liberalization and democratization in the early 1990s.80 Whether, or to what extent, the press was a stimulating force for democratization has become a subject of mild debate and contradictory analysis. Some analysts have maintained that the press was a crucial independent variable in Africa's wave of democratization. For example, Francis Kasoma has written that "multiparty democracy would not have come to Africa in the 1990s and certainly could not last without the enabling role of the independent media."81 Eric Chinje has argued: "The success of the democratic experiment in Africa may well depend on how the press articulates the concept of democracy."82 Some African journalists have likewise asserted the press was singularly vital in the emergence of democratic pluralism. Ismaël Y. Soumanou, founder of contemporary Benin's first non-official newspaper, La Gazette du Golfe, has boasted: "It is we who built this democracy."83

The Press at the Periphery

Such claims appear to rest more on argument than empirical evidence, however. Most analyses of political liberalization and democratic transitions in Africa have accorded the press a subsidiary or reinforcing role—if they consider the press at all.84 Larry Diamond, for example, has written that the movement toward democracy in Africa "results from a unique conjuncture of remarkably broad and deep historical forces,"85 among them the widespread economic decline ot the 1980s, the general failure of authoritarian regimes, and the development of civil society.

The non-official press, international shortwave radio broadcasts, and domestic radio trottoir may have combined to heighten "consciousness in dramatic ways," Diamond wrote,86 but they were very much contributing or secondary factors. Wiseman's analysis of the role of the independent press in Africa's democratic openings is particularly well articulated:

In assessing the role of the indigenous media in the struggle for democracy it is necessary to see it as both a dependent and independent variable; as effect and as cause. The proliferation of pro-democracy newspapers free from government control, for example, can be seen as resulting from the new political space created in the struggle for democracy. Once in existence, however, [the newspapers] can be seen as a significant component of the struggle.87

As an example of the non-official press acting as a dependent and then as an independent variable, Wiseman offered the case of Zambia, where the nascent political opposition in 1991 successfully challenged strict government press controls, allowing independent newspapers to emerge. In its reporting, the independent press in turn promoted Zambia's transition to political pluralism, and the ruling party of Kenneth Kaunda was voted from power in 1991.88 Newspaper exposés describing abuses in Kaunda's regime no doubt contributed to his subsequent repudiation.89

Benin also illustrates the dynamic of the independent press securing a toehold and then expanding the realm of political debate and discussion. La Gazette du Golfe and Tam Tam Express, the first non-official contemporary newspapers in Benin, emerged in 1988 in one of the first signs of the coming collapse of a nominally Marxist dictatorship. The independent newspapers, which were soon joined by other titles, reported extensively about the regime's corruption and human rights abuses, further undercutting its legitimacy.90

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NOTES