African Friends and Money Matters, Second Edition. David E. Maranz

themselves and having a right to privilege.28 In other words, these are cultures of high power distance.

      27 Ibid., 5.

      28 Etounga-Manguelle 2009.

      Individuals from high power distance cultures accept power as part of society and regard power and authority as facts of life. With low power distance cultures, laws, norms and everyday behaviors make the power distances as minimal as possible. To low power distance societies hierarchy is an inequality of roles established for convenience; subordinates consider superiors to be the same kind of people as they are and superiors consider their subordinates the same way.

      The Kamba culture of Kenya, like many age-graded societies, exhibits a high power distance, especially in the relationship between the old and the young. Young members of the society must observe all protocol while addressing elder members of the society. Elders have power over the young; any elder from the society can punish any child or youthful member of the community found engaging in inappropriate behavior irrespective of whether he or she is the biological parent. In high power cultures leadership is normally limited to those who are accepted as leaders.

In high power distance societies people with special skills, such as leaders, warriors, wealthy individuals, or people with unique talents, are considered to have a right to privileges as a fact of life.29 If a foreign development agent attempts to put someone from a “powerless” stratum into a leadership role in such a society, a successful outcome will be in doubt.

      29 Ibid., 5.

Robert Thornton reports that in South Africa respect and power occur in an inverse relationship. That is, when people who are in respected positions, such as priests or healers, become politicians or executives in a development project, they lose respect. “In general, then, respect is not accorded to those in power, nor is power accorded to those who are most respected.”30 This seeming contradictory view of respect, where persons in higher positions are afforded less respect, is interpreted by Thornton as a reaction to jealousy, jealousy of the haves by the have-nots. He writes:

      30 Thornton 2005:25.

The process of counteracting jealousy with diffusion of wealth and power generally means that respect and power are exchanged against one another. In other words, those with most respect often have little real power.…Chiefs who are most respected are those who seek only to ‘help’ their communities.31

      31Ibid.

      Respect in this context can be thought of as a kind of capital or disposable resource. When a respected person moves into a higher office, he in effect does so by “spending” his capital. In this culture if a person of wealth wants respect, he must distribute his wealth. Although this dynamic may be pronounced in South Africa, it does seem doubtful, however, that this generally results in a loss of respect.

      Stratification

      Everyone is a sheep to someone and a lion to another.

Wolof proverb32

      32 Sylla 1978:96.

      Another way to look at power and influence in society is to consider how it is organized on social, economic, or kinship levels, that is, its stratification. This approach is concerned with the ways in which people perceive their relationships with classes of others, rather than those that are individual-to-individual. Three types of organization will be looked at briefly: authoritarian, individualistic, and collective.

The first type of organization is authoritarian. In parts of Africa, people believe that there are some individuals or families or kinship groups that are born to lead while others must follow. This is in some ways parallel to the discussion above, where this was called high power distance. In Europe and elsewhere this was distilled in the phrase “the divine right of kings.” The Arabs cite a proverb that refers to the same concept, even if not quite so clearly: “The eye cannot rise above the eyebrow.”33 In these societies those from the ruling family or other elite stratum, are accepted, and even expected, to lead. This applies in political, religious, and military domains.

      33 Samovar, Porter, and McDaniel 2007:157.

      The second type of organization is individualistic. American society is generally referred to as individualistic. There, it is believed that all people should have equal rights and equal opportunities. To hold an opposite view is to disregard the constitution, and some would say, violate the will of God and the dignity of fellow man. Probably few if any African societies could be identified as individualistic, at least not to a significant degree, although people are free, or even encouraged, to express themselves individualistically, such as the way they paint their houses, decorate their personal items, invent personalized victory calls, and so forth.

The third orientation to consider here is called collective. Probably a majority of African societies come under this heading. Some are very collective and even anti-individualistic. The Maasai of East Africa are so strongly collective that “attempts to get Maasai students to raise their hands and participate in formal classrooms are often futile.”34 Children, as well as their elders, do not want to be distinguished from their peers. Although men and women will decorate their jewelry or spears in individualistic ways, the group is more important to them than the individual. The family or other group entity heavily influences decisions regarding marriage, education, and occupation, among others. Children are trained to be sensitive to the larger context to which they belong beginning at a very young age. They are not supposed to eat by themselves, try to do projects by themselves, or make decisions for themselves. Besides Africa, many examples of collective cultures are found in China, India, Native America, Korea, and Latin America.

      34 Ibid., 158.

Like many other African cultures, the Kamba culture, mentioned previously, emphasizes the collective orientation. A striking example of collective behavior is cited by Joseph Mani: “When someone from the Kamba community killed a person, let’s put it accidental in this case, he is not made to bear full responsibility for his act alone, his respective clan takes responsibility for the action and matters of compensation and apologizing to family members of the deceased.”35

      35 Mani 2010:12.

One common effect of rigid stratification is “where social rank was sharply defined, for the lowly farmer to be too ambitious or too successful was to risk punishment by social superiors for attempting to rise above his station and thereby to threaten more highly placed persons.”36

      36 Pennington 1990:130.

      The way the local society is organized—whether authoritarian, individualistic, or collective—will have profound effects on how Westerners should go about establishing rapport with local people, and with project planning and execution. Many specialized publications dealing with these issues are available. This discussion only touches on some of the considerations involved.

      Respect

      The dignity of a man is without price.

Wolof proverb37

      37 Sylla 1978:91.

      Respect is a critically important consideration across Africa. It is probably present, if just below the surface, in most interactions. This applies whether