Abstract

In August 2010, Côte d’Ivoire commemorated fifty years of independence. Local Pentecostal churches likewise celebrated the jubilee, marking the liberation of slaves after seven times seven years of servitude as promised in Leviticus 25: 8–10. This reading of independence was closely linked to the incumbent president’s political project of refondation based on a premillennial understanding of the interrelatedness of past, present and future. In this article, I explore Pentecostal political rhetoric and performances of the past during the jubilee celebrations, and the post-electoral crisis of 2010–2011. Drawing on empirical research into memory at work in Côte d’Ivoire, I question the instrumentalist paradigm used in analysis of religious ways of thinking about the world. By emphasizing performances of the past and collective memory, I explain how being born-again is enacted as politics and how politics are perceived in terms of faith.