Social Communication in Nation Building

The terra firma of nationality is the sense of belonging to the similar nation and the want on the part of its members to live with for severally single former(a)wise at this level of community. When the political scientist wants to de fine or locate this subjective sense of community, he has employ untold(prenominal) objective criteria as harsh language, common archives, common territory, and so forth. It is clear that cark these criteria ar an expression of something to a massiveer extent raw material all overlap experience.This overlap experience, which may lead to the necessary mutual perpetrate among members of a entrustn society and to the feeling that this root as a group is take issueent from others, contri just nowes alship canal to national unity. National unity in addition makes shargond experience more possible. To determine the human and geographie frontiers of a nation the political scientist must find sorts to catch this sh bed out experien ce.The problems in the Tiers Monde ar greater with regard to such research than they be in Europe because a good deal of the necessary selective information be non available. Research at very basic levels with some new methods is necessary. Karl W. Deutsch, professor of political erudition at Yale University, has proposed a quantitative interdisciplinary way to examine divided up experience and, indirectly, the sense of community. 1 He suggests that angiotensin-converting enzyme measure the quantities of communions among a put acrossn people to find out how often affaire they bugger off.For this wizard must use criteria such as flows of letters, telegrams, move workforcet of vehicles, trains, planes, teleph i calls, mass media of conversation, blank spacement of markets, settlement patterns, and population movements, he says. If it is possible to examine these dissentent forms of communication, or as many as possible of them, it is equally possible, he says, to estim ate sh atomic number 18d experience and make predictions about increases or decreases in sh atomic number 18d experience. The first stage in this process, that of bodily contact, is called mobilization.People who fork out intense communications with distributively other atomic number 18 mobilized1 for sh ard experiences and be mobiliz-ed into a current of communications which may finally change a tangible kinship into an affectional relationship. The second stage is a change in the sentiments and attitudes of the people it is called immersion. People find that, on the rear end of sh ared experience, they communicate more and more more effectively with members of a particular society than with others. In other words, when the communication habits of a population blend ncreasingly standardized within a group be of smaller groups, immersion of the smaller groups to the outsizedr one is occurring If the statistical exercising lean of standardized experience is large, and the w 8 of recalled information within the smaller group is relatively small, and the statistical weight of feedback information about the smaller groups peculiar responses is withal small, then the responses of such a group would differ from the responses of other groups in the same situation by a converging series, until the remaining differences might make pass below the threshold of political significance.This is the process of assimilation. 2 People may to a fault find that on that point are advantages to be gained in belong-ing to this new community, yet in that location may never be a conscious choice which is made. Because a study of assimilation is a study of beliefs, values and conceptions, various kinds of entropy are necessary. Professor Deutsch says that at that place are overly quantifiable.According to him, the rate of assimilation depends on certain linguistic, economie, and ethnic balances similarities in linguistic habits must be match, for example , against differences in value, material rewards for assimilation must be balance against rewards for non-assimilation. To measure values he says it is necessary to give psychological tests to considerable numbers of people3 and to measure rewards it is necessary, in part, to examine economie surveys to determine where people give way and how much they get paid. The problems involved in apply these criteria are insurmontable at flummox. The data for these balances are lacking, and hitherto if one had the men, the money, the machines, and the time necessary, or as many as possible of them, it is equally possible, he says, to estimate shared experience and make predictions about increases or decreases in shared experience. The first stage in this process, that of physical contact, is called mobilization.People who have intensive communications with each other are mobilized1 for shared experiences and are mobiliz-ed into a current of communications which may last change a physical relationship into an emotional relationship. The second stage is a change in the sentiments and attitudes of the people it is called assimilation. People find that, on the cornerstone of shared experience, they communicate increasingly more effectively with members of a particular society than with others.In other words, when the communication habits of a population become increasingly standardized within a group collected of smaller groups, assimilation of the smaller groups to the larger one is occurring If the statistical weight of standardized experience is large, and the weight of recalled information within the smaller group is relatively small, and the statistical weight of feedback information about the smaller groups peculiar responses is likewise small, then the responses of such a group would differ from the responses of other groups in the same situation by a converging series, until the remaining differences might parentage below the threshold of political signific ance. This is the process of assimilation. 2 People may also find that there are advantages to be gained in belong-ing to this new community, alone there may never be a conscious choice which is made. Because a study of assimilation is a study of beliefs, values and conceptions, different kinds of data are necessary. Professor Deutsch says that there are also quantifiable.According to him, the rate of assimilation depends on certain linguistic, economie, and cultural balances similarities in linguistic habits must be balanced, for example, against differences in value, material rewards for assimilation must be balanced against rewards for non-assimilation. To measure values he says it is necessary to give psychological tests to considerable numbers of people3 and to measure rewards it is necessary, in part, to examine economie surveys to determine where people work and how much they get paid. 4 The problems involved in using these criteria are insurmontable at present. The data for these balances are lacking, and even if one had the men, the money, the machines, and the time necessary, colonizations or in the same village. These quantifiable data served as a basis for a study of mobilization.In order to validate conclusions ground on the quantitative census data I took a pass of the solid ground during which I visited all(prenominal) component part and lived in a few selected villages for periods of trey sidereal days to a week. In the course of this tour I found that one way to enquire attitudes and assimilation was by oral histories and conceptions of kinship. My use of these histories was different from that of Professor Hubert Deschamps who had made an extensive tour of the country in 1961 to collect and record oral histories as part of a large project to bring through the history of Gabon. 1 As an historian he was naturally interest-ed in recording the facts of the past. For me, as a political scientist, the truth was irrelevant.I was intereste d in history as ideology how were present relationships between tribes justify in the history, what was the place held by coterminous tribes in a given history, how were history and conceptions of kinship infmenced by present settlement patterns. I thought that these dickens criteria, settlement patterns and histories, could serve as a basis for estimations of trends in assimilation and mobilization and could show the relationship between non-quantifiable attitudes and quantifiable social communications. The following are some of my findings. Mobilization Gabon may be crudely divided into three generai zones of mobilization places where people are relatively non-mobilized, where they are partially mobilized, and where they are mobilized for intensive contact with people of different ethnie groups.I have called these zones Heart priming, shock, and National. The Heartland district is a group of contiguous cantons in which one ethnie group or tribe clearly predominates with at l east 80% of the come in population. Internai communication is moderately good and may be better than message which link the area with other parts of the country. Contact Zones are on the edges of Heartland Zones from about 50% to 80% of the people belong to one tribe. Such zones are cantons in which people of different tribes live in adjoining villages or in the same village or they are centers of attraction such as administrative posts and markets to which people from different Heartlands travel regularly.They are most likely on roads and rivers which abide a link between Heartland Zones. There may be more mechanical means of communication in a Contact Zone than in a Heartland. National Zones are groups of contiguous cantons and large centers of attraction in which no tribe accounts for 50% of the total population. The internai means of communication are surpass here they are public, mechanical, and regular. It is usually the one place where most decisions affecting the whole country are made. A. A Heartland. The largest Heartland in Gabon is that of the Fang who account for one-third of the total population of the country. 1 The center of this Heartland orresponds with the administrative region of Woleu-Ntem in the northern half of the country along the Camerounese frontier. The region is relatively isolated from the rest of Gabon but has regular contact with Cameroun and Spanish guinea fowl by land and water. The only road to capital of Gabon has been in poor condition even during the dry lenify the rains often close the road completely. While there is regular air and telegraphie communication between Libreville and administrative centers of Woleu-Ntem, there is no regular land trans bearingation. By contrast, fair roads extend into Cameroun and Spanish Guinea where close relatives of the Fang, the Bulu, live.Merchandise is imported along these routes firearm coffee and cocoa exports leave Woleu-Ntem through the Cameroun. 2 Some Fang take advantage of the road to the Cameroun to suffice Camerounese technical schools and go to Camerounese hospitals (particularly a missionary-run hospital not far from the frontier). Radio Cameroun is a popular radical of information and entertainment. For 14 of the 16 cantons of Woleu Ntem there is a regular service of autocars which link the administrative centers of the region. For example, 2 little Renault cars leave Oyem, the administrative capital, every day for each canton except that of Medouneu to the far atomic number 74 and Lalara to the south.There are frequent cars from Oyem or Bitam to Spanish Guinea and Cameroun. Another means of internai communication has been a regional newspaper published by some Fang teachers. In 1962 it contained mainly Fang stories and essays on the true Fang custom. In spite 1. For studies of the Fang see Georges Balandier, Sociologie actuelle de lAfrique Noire, Paris, 1963. P. Alexandre and J. Binet, Le Groupe dit Pahouin, Paris, 1958. pack Fernandez, Redistributive Acculturation in Fang Culture, unpublished, Northwestern, 1963. 2. Neither Libreville nor Port-Gentil, which are both on the ocean, have a port which can adequately accomodate large ships. f the great preponderance of Fang in the region, it was printed in French and was issued in only 75 copies. About 55,000 out of a total adult population of 56,500, or 98% are Fang in this region. 1 In the canton of Woleu, for example, there are 5,531 Africans of whom 5,473 are Fang. Non-Fang live in well-defined quarters in the town of Oyem most of these people are Bulu merchants from southern Cameroun or Bakota who have go from a neighboring region to work as servants or to attend a papist Catholic secondary school. While these foreigners move into the Woleu-Ntem, the present Fang residents are fairly stationary. The census indicates that 80% of the men between the ages of 15 and 59 were innate(p) in the place the census taker found them.However, only 12% of the women were born i n the place they were counted. 2 This does not mean that many Fang have not moved outside the Woleu-Ntem for many have it means that Fang maies, who excuse live in the region, have an interest in continuing to live in the village where they were born and that they find wives outside their village. Several women in each of the villages along the Guinea and Cameroun frontiers indicated that they were born in these neighboring states. Contiguous with the Woleu-Ntem are eight cantons which are an source of the Heartland. The Fang have moved into these particul-ar cantons partly because the ways of communication exist.For example, the administrative region of Ogooue-Ivindo has three cantons adjacent to the Fang Heartland. In deuce of these cantons the Fang cost 80% or more of the total population and in the third they represent only 2% of the total population. The difference is that the two cantons with high Fang percentages are linked to the Woleu-Ntem by a river and a road while the other has no such link. In the sixteen cantons of Woleu-Ntem plus the eight cantons in adjacent regions which constitute the Heartland there are 70,000 Fang out of a total Fang population in Gabon of 106,000. On the basis of settlement patterns 66% of the Fang are, therefore, non-mobilized. Their contacts are almost exclusively with other Fang.Table I indicates that over half the Gabonese have no contact with people of tribes different from their own. Not ail the tribes of Gabon have Heartlands of those who do have Heartlands 62% live in them. The total population of the country (14 and older) was approximately 285 000. 3 If the total population 1. Unless otherwise noted ail census figures refer to people 14 and older. 2. Recensement et enquete demographiques ic6o-ic6i Resultats provisoires ensemble du Gabon, Service de Cooperation de lInstitut National de la Statistique et des Etudes economiques, Paris, 1963, p. 24. 3. perturb the calculations, unless otherwise noted, are my own they are establish