This article explores the question of how well South African defense policies and investments during the apartheid and postapartheid era have supported the country's overall political objectives. Perhaps not surprisingly, the single-mindedness of mission during apartheid contributed, in many ways, to a defense strategy that was more cohesive than that of the postapartheid era. In the postapartheid era, opportunities for using the country's defense assets to achieve political objectives and overall national priorities have not been fully exploited.

On 6 June 1975, 46 countries, 37 African, 6 Caribbean, and 3 Pacific signed the Georgetown Agreement establishing the African Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP). This agreement represents the culmination of months of cooperation and coordination among these countries in their negotiations to establish a new model of economic cooperation between themselves and the European Economic Community (EEC). Whatever the merits or demerits of the Lome Convention in specific economic, political, and institutional terms, there is general agreement that the protracted negotiations provided an opportunity for the 46 countries to forge links that have had and will continue to have far reaching implications for the efforts at mutual cooperation and effective action between Third World countries, particularly between those in Africa and the Caribbean, on the international scene. Isebill V. Gruhn (1976: 241) has suggested that:

To the extent that the emergence of the ACP is regarded as one of the most important outcomes of the Lome negotiations, the available evidence tends to support that interpretation.

The ACP marks a significant milestone in the years of endeavor to establish an institutional framework for Afro/Caribbean collaboration in international relations. It has long been accepted that on several of the major issues confronting the international community such as imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism, apartheid, and the restructuring of the international system, Africa and Caribbean have had similar interests. While these interests have been articulated by the various states at different international meetings, they have lacked an institutional arrangement for their harmonization and joint orchestration.

Establishing an African studies program at a historically Black college or university (HBCU) may seem to make as much sense as carrying coals to Newcastle. In fact, though, very few of these institutions have African studies programs. Howard University is an important exception and was the first HBCU to establish an African studies program. That program, which was led initially by Rayford Logan, was created in 1953 following a $50,000 Ford Foundation grant in 1952. Anthropologist Melville Herskovits established the first African studies program in the United States in 1948. Howard University remains one of the few, if not the only, institution in the United States with an African Studies department that has its own faculty and that offers a doctorate in African studies.

This article examines the early history of disability rights activism in Kenya. The transitional years from colonialism to independence were a period of great expectations. For persons with disabilities in particular, decolonization held additional possibilities and potential. National independence promised not just majority rule but also an all-inclusive citizenship and the commitment to social justice. Among the visually impaired of Kenya, such collective aspirations led to the birth of the Kenya Union of the Blind in 1959. In 1964, after years of futile correspondence with government officials, the Union organized a street march to the prime minister's office to attract attention to its grievances. The result was a government panel, the Mwendwa Committee for the Care and Rehabilitation of the Disabled, whose published report became the blueprint for social and rehabilitation programs. The government possessed limited resources, and the reforms that ensued were long overdue. Yet the sociohistorical dynamics behind the march are of particular significance. From the social historian's point of view, they affirm not only the historical agency of persons with disabilities, but also the need to recast and broaden the scope of African social history.

Advocates of the Green Revolution for Africa (GR4A) argue that the best way to address malnutrition is to incorporate smallholders into the global food economy via value chains involving the use of improved inputs, production technologies, and access to markets. Moseley and Ouedraogo critically assess these tactics using a feminist political ecology lens to analyze GR4A efforts in southwestern Burkina Faso which target female rice farmers. They examine the nature of the GR4A rice value chain, the degree to which a GR4A project is impacting the nutrition of participating women, and the influence of gender roles on GR4A rice project outcomes.

It is a common belief, both within and without Nigeria, that in 1967 there was a sharp reversal in Nigerian foreign relations. That year, it is claimed, marked the end of Nigeria's pro-western and anti-Soviet stances. At the extreme, proponents of this view seek to ridicule Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the first prime minister, as essentially a Western stooge and, conversely though unwittingly, to laud the post-1967 Gowon regime as a veritable independent actor, guided solely by objective requirements of the national interest. This claim (and stereotype-creating) is based on asymmetirc evidence and unsystematic analysis: asymmetric, because it relies on Nigeria's image of and attitude towards the Soviet Union to the exclusion of the corresponding Soviet image and attitudes which might have conditioned Nigeria's Soviet policy in the first place; and unsystematic, because it eschews the political, economic and ideological milieu in which Nigerian-Soviet relations operate. One danger, especially for policy making and policy outcome, is the possible exaggeration of superficial and ephemeral changes to obscure fundamental and enduring continuity in relations. This paper aims to put Nigerian-Soviet relations in a perspective that avoids this failing and, in the process, to underscore the factors of continuity which, it is believed, will determine the future prospects.

Nigerian-Soviet relations, Douglas Anglin (1964: 257) once observed, are determined by “the images which each country has of the other.” Before Nigeria's independence on October 1, 1960, these images were far from flattering. All evidence indicates that Nigerian leaders, like their counterparts in other developing countries, had a morbid fear of communism and communist infiltration and subversion (see indications in House of Representatives Debates, henceforth HRD, August 1, 1958: 85; February 12, 1959: 210; and March 1959: 46-48).

A meaningful understanding of the causes of political violence in South Africa and youth’s role in its dénouement must consider some of the historical background to the national struggle for human rights and youth’s specific involvement thereof. The phenomenon of adolescent marchers and activists who characterized the resistance to Apartheid over the last decade has had sequelae and antecedents that reflect the core of the South African dilemma.

A curious state of uncertainty existed, still exists, and may never be wholly removed, as to the extent of land alienated by the chiefs of the Gold Coast during the concessions scramble which occurred during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The degree of uncertainty is at once brought out by the following two views on the matter. On the one hand, it is said (Belfield's Report, 1912: paras. 38-50) that the area of land alienated was only a fractional proportion of the total area of the Gold Coast, amounting to no more than one twenty-seventh of the area. On the other hand, it is said (WALC Draft Report, 1916: paras. 157 and 161) that the chiefs of the Gold Coast alienated an area which actually exceeded the total area of the territory itself. The objects of this article are three: first, to describe the nature and character of the concessions scramble which occurred in the Gold Coast during the period under consideration; secondly, to examine critically the opposing views as to the extent of land alienated and show where the truth is likely to be; and thirdly, to describe the interesting social and economic problems which resulted from indiscriminate alienation of land in the Gold Coast during the period, and the reaction of British officials to such problems.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Gold Coast received great publicity in Europe as a great producer of gold. Prospectors and concession hunters flocked to the area. They entered negotiations with the chiefs and elders, who were induced by offers of “big money” to execute documents granting mining and other rights over vast territories of stool land, in which all the stool subjects had an interest.

Regime transition programs have played contradictory roles in Nigerian politics, from the end of the colonial era to the present. The latest transition program is scheduled to culminate in the installation of a civilian regime in mid-1999. An analysis of this process, through reviewing recent academic writing on this subject, reveals that transition programs play a contradictory role in Nigerian politics. Some observers see the possibility of designing a political system that will force Nigeria's rulers to heed popular interests and lessen politicians' use of public office for personal gain. Others regard transition programs as elaborate ploys to entrench private privilege under new institutional guise. The analysis in this essay finds more support for the latter view. The essay identifies elements of the latest transition program that point to continuity with previous politics. This development now results in the appearance of factional conflicts and political violence common to other countries such as Congo, Sierra Leone, and Liberia that have suffered “state collapse.”

Understanding how Westerners have been perceived by the African cultures they are ostensibly studying constitutes an instructive reversal of the classical subject-object relationship in Africanist research. By examining the perception of the White Man as embodied in Hausa folklore pertaining to the colonial era we gain a firmer grasp of the indigenous perspective on this period of Nigérien and Nigerian history and better appreciate the significance of clientship as a factor in the colonial relationship. We also find confirmation for the contrast school of colonial historiography which argues that the differences between French and British modes of administration were substantively important for the Africans directly affected by them. While specifically related to African-European relations during the colonial era, the lessons gleaned from an investigation of Hausa ethno-ethnohistory may be generally applicable to the even more ambivalent relationship between social scientist and host community in contemporary Africa.

Western treatment of African history has evolved through several distinct phases. The first phase can be characterized as outright denial: Bereft of textual references to, or other corroborative documents from, the dark continent, the West generally denied that Africa had a history. This myth of a static, timeless, ahistorical Africa eventually gave way to the second, more substantive phase in which precolonial empire formation and dissolution was documented and archaeologically verified. African scholars, such as Diop, were instrumental in this renaissance of African historicism in the West.

This article examines the effect of geographical proximity on targeting patterns during Ebola-era xenophobic outbursts by Senegalese against a migrant Peul population of Guinean origins. It highlights the limited extent to which epidemics shape the micro-dynamics of outbreaks of xenophobia during public health crises, demonstrating that epidemics are not defining events that inflect inter-group relations. They mostly reinforce long-persisting patterns of exclusion. The conclusion is that the contours of xenophobia in contexts marked by public health crises and in those situations in which these issues of public health do not constitute a major concern tend to mirror each other.

It pains me to see that three and a half years after Independence there is not a single Zambian-owned business in Cairo Road. There is not even a resident expatriate business or a foreign controlled business or any business for that matter with a Zambian manager in Cairo Road. (Kaunda, 1968: 30)

Few African countries have much effective control of their economies. Foreign and alien minority interests are still dominant. Many have proclaimed policies to remedy this situation, usually including some mixture of prohibition of aliens in business, aid to indigenous businessmen, and seizure or establishment of businesses by the government or government-controlled agencies. Countries as diverse as Ghana, Kenya, Zaire, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia have such policies, aimed at increasing indigenous control of the economy. Such policies and programs are seen as assertions of “economic independence.” Indeed, “indigenization,” the replacement of aliens with locals, is certainly a prerequisite to economic independence, if not independence itself (Ghai, 1973: 21-42).

This paper will examine the new policies designed to indigenize the Zambian economy and their actual impact on private indigenous business. Two questions must be answered. How successful have the policies been, as proclaimed and implemented by the government and ruling party? And, what factors have contributed to this result? Many proclaimed or hoped for consequences have not occurred. The growth of private African enterprises has been to some degree stymied by these new policies, called “economic reforms,” while foreign or alien-owned businesses continue growing, though at a slower rate.

The recent debates among scholars on hegemony and race in African Studies are very exciting. Realities that African-American intellectuals know quite well—that there was a Black tradition of scholarship on Africa in the Americas long before 1948 and that peoples of African descent have been marginalized within the African Studies establishment—are finally getting a much needed airing. Although some of the opinions, such as those expressed by Phillip Curtin in the Chronicle are difficult to swallow and no doubt the cause of great unease, many of us are not surprised and are in fact elated. Silences on issues of racism are never golden, only a resolve to expose and fight them are.

It is frequently argued that ethnic groups across Alrica retain homogenous preferences stemming from a sense of collective identity and shared destiny, and that they unvaryingly prefer the same outcomes in zero-sum competitions for scarce resources. This article presents results from comparative field surveys examining these claims in Sierra Leone and Liberia following postconflict elections. In contradiction with conventional expectations, the results show corroboration on several issues across voters from several ethnic groups as well as heterogeneity in preferences among voters from the same ethnic groups in both countries. The implications for democratization and conflict resolution in Africa are discussed. E-mail: fbatty@colgate.edu

After a long spell of description and prescription, the study of local government in the English speaking Third World has begun to find a historical context (see, for example, Mawhood, 1983; Okpala, 1982; Rowat, 1980, 1983; Bonney, 1982). This is not surprising given the reality of the decline of local government everywhere. That local government escaped rigorous analysis for so long is due in part to the grounding of the study of local government in administrative practice; practitioner-scholars were committed to the principle of local government, and thus the questions asked revolved around how to make it work, rather than around its precise nature in the colonial and postcolonial context.

The purpose of this article is to explore the ideologies and political practices which illuminate the structure of local government in Kenya, and which in turn are rendered intelligible by that structure. Underlying this effort is the development of a new framework within which local government may be conceptualized: one that goes beyond the description of structures and the chronicling of events (often with little analytical link between the two), to contribute to a more comprehensive political economy of the post-colonial state. Such a political economy view the branches of the state, including local government, as sites of class competition: hence it considers knowledge of “subnational” political processes, and in particular of the local central competition manifest in local government politics, to be necessary for an understanding of class formation in the post-colonial state.

Early in this decade a political observer, looking at one of Africa's least known and most sanguinary states, described Equatorial Guinea as “Cambodia minus ideology” (Pélissier, 1980:13). During the eleven year presidency (1968-1979) of Francisco Macias Nguema, up to half of the population was liquidated or went into exile. Little is known on the internal workings or ideology of the regime. However, just as we can no longer say that there are peoples without histories, we can no longer assume that there are rulers without ideologies. Much statistical and other information on Equatorial Guinea is fragmentary or missing. It is possible, however, to trace the lineaments of the rise and fall of the first post-independent government. It is the purpose of this essay to examine that development. We shall seek an explanation, although it be a partial one, of the ideological and economic conditions which provided the context for the creation of a mass concentration camp in the tropics.

Since the nineteenth century, the materialist/idealist dichotomy has been at the center of much historiographical debate. A sub-theme has been the role of the individual in history. An increasingly wide range of scholars have used material conditions as the basis for their analysis. The individual is not an automous historical force, but rather represents a class and its interests as the class acts to maintain or establish its hegemony. Others, on the contrary, continue to maintain that the individual can, under certain circumstances, mold history to his or her will. It can and has been maintained that the idiosyncratic behavior of a leader can be an important independent variable in history.

The Nigerian military has been engaged in a program of transition to democratic rule since 1985. The country’s military rulers developed “transition politics” into a strategy of transitions without end, a ruse to prevent democratization. Hopefully, Nigeria is now at the crossroads. One of the most important issues posed in the transition has been the ethnoregional one: Would entrenched ethnoregional forces allow political power to shift from the North to the South? It is not a new question in Nigerian transition politics.

Two broad issues surface when ethnoregional domination emerges as a political issue in Nigeria: control of political power and its instruments, such as the armed forces and the judiciary; and control of economic power and resources.

The modern human rights movement, as it is known today, is largely the product of the horrors of the mainly European war of 1939-45. Its rise is mostly a direct result of the abominations committed by the Third Reich during that war. Drawing on the Western liberal tradition, the human rights movement arose primarily to control and contain state action against the individual. The two principal documents of the movement—the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)—largely establish negative rights that either limit or prohibit altogether government intrusion into the so-called “private realm.”

This article explores questions of decolonization, in part through analyzing Belgium’s Africa Museum. Bernal considers the role of academia and knowledge production, as well as the technological developments that may create new concentrations of power faster than decolonial projects can dismantle established hierarchies. She concludes that decolonization must address material questions of reparations and restitution, and that digital media have been transformative in ways that bring northern models of social existence closer to African ones. Having lived under colonizers, despots, and states of exception, Africans bring important knowledge and experience to twenty-first-century global struggles.

Christian churches play sharply contradictory roles in African societies, both helping the ruling classes maintain their domination of the masses and helping the masses resist domination. An analysis of Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo reveals that various social groups vie to use the churches to support their political programs. In Rwanda, for example, both supporters and targets of the genocide received assistance from the churches. Churches have no predetermined relationship to structures of power, but represent important sites of political contestation, a fact that challenges the view that civil society, in which churches are a vital segment, necessarily serves the interests of the society as a whole.