Fear and fainting in Luanda: paranoid politics and the problem of interpretative authority in Angola

This article unpacks the events and reactions surrounding a mysterious ‘fainting wave’ that swept through Angolan middle high schools from early 2011 on. By attending to historicity materiality of fainting wave, investigates why strong conviction took root dark political intentionality behind this inexplicable phenomenon, conspiratorial interpretation prevailed over alternative explanations more psychological or spiritual bent. Through this, contributes disaggregating seemingly monolithic, neo-authoritarian state. More importantly, it points limitations analyses pivoting on an idea opposing rationalities, while at same time demonstrating how historically attuned, deep ethnography can help us overcome limits ‘scientistic’ explanations. Peur et évanouissements à Luanda : politique paranoïaque problème de l'autorité interprétative en Angola Résumé Cet examine les réactions réponses une mystérieuse « vague d'évanouissements » qui sévit dans collèges lycées d'Angola au début 2011. En prêtant attention l'historicité la matérialité d'évanouissements, l'article analyse manière critique raisons pour lesquelles plupart des Angolais ont développé profonde qu'une intention néfaste était l’œuvre derrière ce phénomène inexplicable, pourquoi cette interprétation conspirationniste pu l'emporter sur d'autres explications d'ordre plus psychologique ou spirituel. Grâce cela, contribue déconstruire l’État angolais, néo-autoritaire monolithique apparence. D'autre part, le texte met avant limites reposant l'idée rationalités opposées, tout démontrant même temps comment ethnographie profondeur, attentive l'histoire, peut nous aider dépasser d'explications psychologiques scientifiques ». Gina11 Unless they are public figures speaking record, all interlocutors have been anonymized. lay thin foam mattress in her room, saline drip stuck back hand, feeling ‘very feeble’. The sister one my regular research interlocutors, Gina was but countless victims April September These desmaios (faintings) affected scores teenage school girls, usually twenty 100 per episode, also, few cases, some male students teachers. had class when she classmates heard shouting running corridors. ‘When our friends started fainting’, told me, ‘we knew we get out, otherwise something even worse would happen us’. Victims like typically reported horrible ‘kind rotten’ smell, cold sensation, unexplained mist halls, shortness breath, dizziness, loss consciousness. herself collapsed outside gates after saw ambulances arrive take away. She taken health centre, then discharged home family with recommendation drink lots fluids. Like broader grip anxiously awaiting results tests ‘competent authorities’ were carrying out discover what unknown substance gas caused faint. And, significantly, shared widespread belief someone be attacks: ‘It only person who is this. There no other reason, justification for No knows, segurança [state security service] do not know’. wave technical schools, ninety fainted PUNIV (pre-university) Nova Vida, around Cazenga politécnico (polytechnic school) days later. Because these newly built laboratories, because first ‘smell gas’, thought ‘unknown gas’ fainting. authorities reacted swiftly: rushed hospitals by ambulance, where administered drips, Criminal Investigation Service (Serviço Investigação Criminal, SIC) launched forensic investigation into nature gas, declaring group malfeitores (evildoers) using toxic create panic destabilize country. police conducting investigations identify as well people responsible attacks, state media reported. As spreading across Luanda's stepped up their response: armed units canine brigades set entry checks gates, searched any suspicious items cosmetics confiscated. isolation wards blood analysis, though treatment available ultimately administration Leading lights ruling MPLA – Popular Movement Liberation (Movimento Libertação Angola) appealed calm. Sebastião Bento Bento, party secretary Luanda, deplored ‘general climate instability’ state-controlled newspaper Jornal Angola, demanded ‘vigilance’ citizens denounce ‘unmask evil-doing individuals service crime interests alien people’. He added he doubt ‘mobilize youth realize … demonstrations disorder, intrigue, offence government entities’ also criminal acts (Jornal 2011). Still gained amplitude. Having now majority Luandan reached Caxito, provincial capital neighbouring Bengo; reports coming distant provinces, Cabinda, Uíge, Namibe. In July, peak news agency ANGOP reported, ‘Over last twenty-four hours, [there been] 570 cases provinces Namibe’, affirmed still searching it: ‘Until now, type has identified, nor authors those practices repudiated society’ (ANGOP appeared unable put stop interpretations attacks circulating. Yes, said, deployed evil intent, surely if Angola's ‘the most powerful world, stronger than CIA’, friend's cousin asserted managed it, obviously itself attacks. Only Ministry Interior capacity import such dangerous substance, testing innocent girls means crowd control. run-up elections, scheduled late August 2012, surmised darkly. Phenomena mass fainting, hysteria, ‘mass psychogenic illnesses’ (in parlance) pose problem interpretation, directly them, closest relatives, society large, but, I develop below, anthropological scholarship. metaphorical rumour moral panic, distinct physicality historicity. Taking Angolans’ claims about causes seriously (cf. Littlewood 2016) sheds light recent history. Returning history allows understand might specific form moment. suggest material reality its effect people's bodies, echoed previous experiences horrible, events, disappearing people, state's violence against population. At time, there unruliness resists simple, instrumental explanations, and, detail following, invites rethink capacities supposed unity purpose regimes beyond, revealing both dominated dominant caught webs paranoia. specificities case open interrogations interpretative authority itself, strengths, especially juxtaposed facile culturalist pop comparable phenomena. argument here largely based twelve months ethnographic fieldwork (2010-11), during which tried ways MPLA's continued dominance social life socially reproduced renegotiated (Schubert 2017). When started, connotations made centrally relevant questions interested in. However, power, memory, delicate subjects post-conflict environment Angola's, talking politics was, long almost impossible. Accordingly, interview official accessing proved much difficult. On due formal hurdles: schoolteachers directors felt could openly reveal foreigner, happened, competent investigating. despite long-standing familiarity ties Angola,22 See Schubert (2017: 20-2) longer note engagement Angola. best-placed freely talk young women fainted, vice versa, necessarily ease discussing bodily afflictions me foreign, white, university-educated man, unmarried twenties. such, access oblique, old select contacts cultivated before careful hearsay, rumour, reporting media. This, challenging explain nine years feel position properly start thinking writing it. attempts instrumentalize phenomenon purposes. place competing popular sociohistorical context propose nefarious intent never doubted, authorship was. next section considers authority. show neat mapping onto binaries examining authorities’, too, paranoid politics, serves disaggregate monolithic article's final engages wave's gendered dimension, concluding reflections stake power After episodes Vida Cazenga, quick ascribe enemies nation. Political leaders, commanders, Televisão Pública (TPA, broadcaster) propagated blamed evildoers’, dissidents, ‘enemies’ seeking fear (e.g. Mendes many ways, followed classic playbook, instrumentalizing happening appeal calm, vigilance, upholding post-war status quo stability reconstruction. aggressive rhetoric ‘enemies peace’ (above) comes surprise, nip bud challenges February seen, decades, call anti-government demonstration, anonymously internet. explicit reference ongoing Arab revolutions Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, drawing parallels between dictatorships North Africa situation resignation President José Eduardo dos Santos, thirty-two years. initially circulated restricted circles scepticism, gaining wider notoriety reacted, visible nervousness, two weeks announced. State denounced proposed demonstration attempt country threaten ‘gains peace’.33 elsewhere 2015), weaponized discourse shut down anyone questioning quo. Government officials high-ranking members publicly spoke arguing need protest things fine. Moreover, irresponsible confusão (confusion, disorder) instability ahead 2012 elections VOA build-up tensions bellicose rhetoric, Independence Square dawn 7 March. All including four journalists, immediately arrested. They released later evening, stating protesters custody own protection. And yet visibly rattled, activists eventually lumped together under epithet ‘youth revolutionaries’ called further demonstrations, which, 2017, increasing judicial prosecution. It thus hardly surprising ideologues evildoers stability, foreign agents corrupting inciting them criticize Comrade President. Wielding ‘stability’ repress possible reassert is, all, standard practice authoritarian regimes. Identifying traitors within certainty face uncertainty, ‘make claim try boundaries permissible exert constantly shifting affiliations’ (Thiranagama & Kelly 2010: 3). Karen Kroeger, example, AIDS rumours Indonesia 1990, reveals government, instead dismissing rumours, characterized ‘politically motivated’, implicating undefined ‘anti-establishment groups’, reappropriated narrative, aiming re-establish government's experts ‘protectors good’ (2003: 252). Here, see clear control narrative fashion. But unstoppable physical unruliness, resisted straightforward instrumentalization. Our so efficient, really wanted end immediately. monkeys SINFO intelligence refuse work! It's PIR [Rapid Intervention Police] [i.e. suspected gas], demonstrations. being used importing PIR, creating confusion. think distract approving new electoral laws. Lucas Pedro, quoted above, ran independent online portals, Club-K, sinister plan wave. Either, simply ‘restore order’ credit elections. Bela, Gina's sister, expressed similar sentiments ‘This will towards elections’, without, however, able specify feeling. questioned capabilities, decrying incompetent, reinforcing image all-powerful apparatus alleging design events.44 Lucas's use ‘our police’, element proprietary pride ‘stronger indicating complicity length (2017). history, begin untangle meaning attached singular event, reality. often historical phenomena superficially glossed superstition (Bernault 2006; Ellis 1989; Sanders 2008). several underlined, tangible reality, just myth after-effects anyway, ‘impossible 2,000 pretend faint’. Didier Fassin writes South African medical experiments population, way did ‘plots actually conceived, horrifying stories partially disclosed circulated’ (2008: 324). Simukai Chigudu compellingly argues cholera outbreak Zimbabwe 2008/9, notion poison water supplies convincing many, precisely resonated substantive citizenship: houses demolished, aid withheld, opposition supporters crushed, overall uneven provision services (Chigudu 2019: 420, 428). For sixty brutal Angolans every reason distrust emblematic signifier ‘coup attempt’ 27 May 1977, shadow loomed landscape since post-independence days. disputed amongst historians alike: according reading, factionalists led Nito Alves backed masses musseques (shantytowns) planned coup overthrow assassinate Neto. Participants, mostly demonstration. morning groups nitistas, putschists subsequently labelled, seized central São Paulo prison National Radio, band detained killed eight important commanders. Cuban forces in, retook proceeded hunt neighbourhoods Sambizanga Rangel. result, brought internal purge party, killing imprisonment dissidents While talked 200 deaths, advocacy 40,000 82,000 aftermath (Cabrita Mateus 2007; Francisco Pawson 2014). Much trauma Maio fact primarily citizens, arbitrary character arrests summary executions, torture, bodies returned families burial. Already Portugal's counterinsurgency war (1961-74) wide network informants dreaded secret police, PIDE (Polícia Internacional e Defesa Estado), corrosive effects communities families. Now, deploying strikingly tactics supporters. commonly afterwards left somehow purges. key perpetrators purges remained positions until today including, allegedly, Santos himself (Kassembe 1995: 152). civil rival former liberation movement UNITA South-Africa Union Total (União Nacional para Independência escalated, ‘enemy’ everywhere, very impossible 1977. when, following round 1992 distributed arms population unleash deadly wartime opponent, main UNITA, minds Luandans revealed pithy saying: ‘Blood flowing Kinaxixe [a square] again’. good reasons suspect wanting physically harm obliterate having so. Events 1992/3 killings traces absences lives impact understood looking disappearances, ascribed becomes existentially true (Scheper-Hughes 1996: 9; Humphrey 2003: 185). period, rarely acted relatively marginal malcontents demonstrators onwards, memory threat large imagination. sense, routinization everyday actualized violence, learned, embodied experience potential violence. combined living surveillance state, deeply engrained habits suspicion caution. Linda Green's landmark study ‘fear life’ Guatemalan highlands, spectacle tortures death massacres disappearances past become inscribed individual collective imagination constant sense threat’. Fear ‘chronic condition’ pervades destabilizes relations thrives ambiguities innuendos, suspicions denunciations (Green 1994: 227). taboo violent past, logic Given baggage, tempting fall analytical trope. commentary attributed easily interpreted of, resistance to, indeed accounts counter-hegemonic tend Comaroff 1985; Scott 1990; Thomson From vernacular small step interpret Scottian ‘weapon weak’ (Scott 1985), normally voiceless female express unease approaching (see Ong 1988). My first, instinctive reaction act resistance, unspeakable. Todd justly his ‘seductive analytics’ occult, line somewhat ‘anthropological orthodoxy’ conforms, ‘intuitive plausibility, seductiveness persuasiveness’, ‘broader sensibilities’ 108-9): innate sympathies powerless. None hinted possibility resisting overbearing power. Students Polytechnic rejected stress, saying happened blue, hadn't studying exams time. suspects apprehended brother segurança, unconscionable product students. If mentioned obliquely, themselves (though they, socialized culture steeped political). anthropology's light. anthropologists, certain thinly veiled metaphors else. Vampire Puerto Rico are, logic, ‘a modernity risks perceived’ (Derby 2008: 292), zombies criticism ‘millennial capitalism’ (Comaroff 2003; Geschiere 1997; Niehaus 2005 critique). Spirit visitations Malaysian garment factories unconscious beginning idiom labor discipline control’ (Ong 207), rural Mozambique spirit possession offers ‘practices suited cope past’ (Honwana 72). Similarly, epiphenomena laughter epidemics present anthropologists ‘with task deciphering covert messages embedded incidents’ 1988: 33), accordingly diagnosed ‘somatization pathology body politic’ (Kroeger 254; Green 248). literature ‘spirit possession’ Boddy 1994 overview) inspiring, does require leap make authoritative statements somatization ‘real’ underlying phenomenon. Anthropologically informed analysis rightly translating hysteria’ term long, sexist history) ‘conversion disorder’ avoid producing ‘commensurability European non-Western conceptual categories’ (Seale-Feldman 308-9). One mode resorts juxtaposing different ‘rationalities’ ‘traditional’ ‘modern’ stand tension, asserting tension somatized culturally resonant registers. manifestly presented worlds, ‘traditional field’ evades undercuts ordering (Bertelsen 2016). should invite whether, analysing repertoires culture, binary tradition heuristic value. Ugandan girls’ school, Letha Victor enjoins leave uncertainty experiencing: ‘In definitively idiomatic metaphorical, tool subconscious critique, lived lost’ (2019: 399). unsatisfying, discounting vectors propagation, wary arrogating ourselves may shaped larger sociopolitical dynamics play. doing so, opens insights imaginary circulation, inherent tack, am inspired Donna Goldstein Kira Hall's motor tics among Le Roy, New York. Hall (2015: 641), diagnose disease (thereby reducing single, explanation), rather account others explaining Roy case, elaborate, affliction neurologists ‘co