State Collapse and Social Reconstruction in Africa

The collapse of Mobutu's Zaire in May this year and its replacement by the Democratic Republic of the Congo under Laurent Kabila, is a symptom of much broader contemporary social, economic and political currents in Africa. Ruled in a malign and authoritarian way for 32 years by Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire's state was a mechanism for the self-enrichment of a clique which surrounded the president. Contrary to Western notions of the state, which stress impartiality and the public interest, Zaire, a huge Central African territory which was once the Jewel in the Crown of the Belgian colonial empire, was moulded to serve the interests of the few. It remains to be seen