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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Ivory Coast
Index
Despite official descriptions of their society as
"classless"
and egalitarian in the 1980s, Ivoirian citizens were
acutely aware
of the distinction between the rich and the poor. People
perceived
"temporary distortions" in the social fabric--as social
inequities
were described by the president--as continuing trends.
They
attributed these distortions to a variety of factors but
rarely to
the role of the government in maintaining and subsidizing
the
elite. Regional and international competition in commodity
markets
was cited as a source of economic recession and hardship
in
general. Within Côte d'Ivoire, regional inequities were
often
blamed on mismanagement by presidential advisers but not
on the
president himself. Cabinet ministers, in particular, were
often
blamed for poor policy decisions and implementation and
were often
subjected to invidious comparisons with presidential
wisdom and
imagination.
Ivoirians were also adept at generalizing about each
other and
about immigrants to their nation, placing blame for social
ills on
ethnic groups more often than on socioeconomic forces. The
Baoulé,
the president's own constituency, were "too dominant"
among high
officeholders, in their critics' view. The related, and
rival, Agni
often expressed anti-Baoulé sentiments, while the Agni
themselves,
because of their tradition of hierarchical organization,
were
criticized for elitist attitudes toward other ethnic
groups. Groups
that avoided centralization among indigenous polities,
such as the
Bété, were stereotyped, in turn, as "unsophisticated." The
Lobi and
related groups from the northeast were similarly
stereotyped.
Non-Africans, even those born in Côte d'Ivoire, were
blamed for
"draining the wealth from the nation." Within the foreign
work
force, Mossi farm laborers were looked down upon, whereas
French
white-collar workers were both despised and emulated.
These and
other social reactions served to legitimize popular views
of
Ivoirian society and to confirm ethnic pride.
At the same time, Ivoirian society was permeated with a
sense
of apathy about social development, except among those in
or very
close to political office. Even those who acknowledged the
nation's
strengths often did not feel like active participants in
its
development. The large foreign presence within the
economy, the
entrenched political machine, and the relatively
unchanging living
conditions among the poor contributed to this sense of
alienation
from the overall progress that has marked Côte d'Ivoire
since
independence.
Data as of November 1988
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