Showing papers in "African Affairs in 2005"

To fight or to farm? Agrarian dimensions of the Mano River conflicts (Liberia and Sierra Leone)

Abstract: The wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone have been linked to the condition of urbanized youth. Recent research in southeastern Sierra Leone and northwestern Liberia suggests the rural context is of greater significance. The fighting was mainly in rural areas, involved mainly rural youth, and adapted itself to their local concerns. A model of war as the work of urban criminal gangs, reflecting local student politics in the 1970s and embraced internationally, is ripe for replacement by a model of war as agrarian revolt. This would open up the possibility of a more coherent regional analysis of recent West African conflicts. The key to conflict resolution in the region, it is suggested, is an emphasis on agrarian justice, including reform of customary land and marriage law.

Rewriting the African diaspora: Beyond the Black Atlantic

Abstract: This essay argues that despite the growing popularity of diaspora studies, our understanding of the African diaspora remains limited by both the conceptual difficulties of defining what we mean by the diaspora in general, and the African diaspora in particular, and the analytical tendency to privilege the Atlantic, or rather the Anglophone, indeed the American branch of the African diaspora. It begins by trying to explore the various conceptions of the African diaspora, foregrounded by a critique of Paul Gilroy’s influential text, The Black Atlantic. This is followed by discussions of what the author considers to be the four dominant dimensions of the global African diasporas, namely, the intra-Africa, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, and Atlantic diasporas. Finally, the essay examines the emergence of the new global African diasporas. IN RECENT YEARS, DIASPORA has become a popular term of critical and public discourse, a popularity it shares with narratives of globalization and transnationalism, which seek to contest the old settled identities of nation and race and even of class and gender and celebrate the energies of multiple subjectivities. Once seen as a space of social death, to use Orlando Patterson’s evocative imagery of slavery,1 a kind of ontological void, diaspora is now increasingly invested with new possibilities as a harbinger of globalized futures. While images of the violent ruptures of displacement from Vietnamese boat people to Somali refugees occasionally fill television screens, it is the studies of diasporic agency and originality — of which Paul Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic is a good example — that are valorized in the academy.2 To be sure, these studies offer timely correctives to the older tales of unrelenting diasporic victimization and mimicry, but they are also eulogies to the cosmopolitan intellectuals themselves who produce and peddle these analyses. Professor of African Studies and History, Pennsylvania State University, USA. This essay was first written for, and presented at, the African Studies Seminar, St Antony’s College, Oxford University, 4 December 2003. He would like to thank Cassandra R.Veney and Dickson Eyoh as well as participants in the seminar for their useful comments. 1. Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A comparative study (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1982). 2. Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and double consciousness (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1993). African Affairs, 104/414, 35–68 © Royal African Society 2005, all rights reserved doi:10.1093/afraf/adi001 35 02 Zeleza (bc/s) 1/2/05 9:46 am Page 35

The hidden costs of power-sharing: Reproducing insurgent violence in Africa

Abstract: This article analyzes some factors underlying the spread of insurgent violence in Africa. It focuses on the impact external factors have on power struggles on the continent. The first of these is the unsteady support for democracy from Western donors, which has impeded more far-reaching domestic changes in much of Africa. Second are wider changes in the international setting that dramatically enhanced the international standing of armed movements in the post-1989 period. The article argues that the interplay of both factors has induced would-be leaders to conquer state power by violent rather than non-violent means. This becomes particularly evident in regard to Western efforts to solve violent conflict through power-sharing agreements. The hypothesis is put forward that the institutionalization of this practice for the sake of 'peace', i.e. providing rebels with a share of state power, has important demonstration effects across the continent. It creates an incentive structure would-be leaders can seize

Patronage Politics, Donor Reforms, and Regime Consolidation in Uganda

Abstract: Using the state and its resources has constituted a vital form of consolidating power for Africa's rulers. However, donor-sponsored reforms have threatened to curtail the opportunities of African leaders to maintain their regimes in power. Donor reforms introduced under structural adjustment programmes have sought to reduce the size and scope of government as well as to cut state spending and thereby curb the possibilities of state patronage. Reforms have also attempted to contain corruption and improve state governance. In Uganda, however, the relationship between donors and the government has reproduced patronage government. The donors have hailed Uganda as a major case of economic success in Africa. They have provided it with large amounts of financial assistance to support the implementation of reforms. High levels of foreign aid have provided the government with public resources to sustain the patronage basis of the regime. Moreover, in a context where wide discretionary authority was conferred on governing elites in the implementation of reforms, public resources could be used in unaccountable and non-transparent ways to help the government maintain its political dominance. The donors have begun to realize belatedly that they have been propping up a corrupt government in Uganda.

South Africa’s HIV/AIDS policy, 1994–2004: How can it be explained?

Abstract: This article aims to explain South Africa’s controversial post-1994 HIV/ AIDS policy. It isolates two competing sets of policy prescriptions: a ‘mobilization/biomedical’ paradigm that emphasized societal mobilization, political leadership and anti-retroviral treatments; and a ‘nationalist/ameliorative’ paradigm that focused on poverty, palliative care, traditional medicine, and appropriate nutrition. It explains the ascendancy of the ameliorative paradigm in terms of its administrative and political viability in South African conditions. It explores how public sector institutions circumscribed the viability of biomedical interventions, while political institutions and state-society relations reduced knowledge transfer and policy learning. It then investigates the intellectual context that shaped the political viability of each paradigm. Finally it argues that the ANC accommodated proponents of each policy paradigm, and that instrumental calculation of the dangers of an inequitable and unsustainable anti-retroviral programme best explains the government’s continued adherence to a cautious prevention and treatment policy.

ZANU(PF) strategies in general elections, 1980–2000: Discourse and coercion

Abstract: For many analysts, the general election campaign in 2000 showed a new face of the ruling party, ZANU(PF). Against the new opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, ZANU(PF) engaged in violence and intimidation, often relying on youth and war veterans, even as it accused its opponents of subversive violence. Moreover, ZANU(PF) appealed to its liberation war credentials, while dismissing its chief opponents as puppets of British imperialism and reactionary white settlers. After the election, President Mugabe appealed for reconciliation between winners and losers, only to permit violence against those who had voted against the ruling party. For ruling party perpetrators of violence, there was impunity and later a presidential pardon. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the ruling party used remarkably similar strategies in every general election since 1980, notwithstanding striking differences in the contexts, issues, and nature of the chief opposition party. Given this well established pattern of ruling party violence and intimidation and characterization of opposition parties as illegitimate, the article seeks to understand why analysts repeatedly saw in the regular multiparty elections either a democratic system or one that was amenable to democratization.

Who Are the Darfurians? Arab and African Identities, Violence and External Engagement

Abstract: This article examines processes of identity formation in Darfur, now part of the Republic of Sudan, over the last four centuries. The basic story is of four overlapping processes of identity formation, each of them primarily associated with a different period in the region's history: namely, the 'Sudanic identities' associated with the Dar Fur sultanate, Islamic identities, the administrative tribalism associated with the twentieth-century Sudanese state, and the recent polarization of 'Arab' and 'African' identities, associated with new forms of external intrusion and internal violence. It is a story that emphasizes the much-neglected east-west axis of Sudanese identity, arguably as important as the north-south axis, and redeems the neglect of Darfur as a separate and important locus for state formation in northern Sudan, paralleling and competing with the Nile Valley states. It focuses on the incapacity of both the modern Sudanese state and international actors to comprehend the singularities of Darfur, accusing much Sudanese historiography of 'Nilocentrism', namely, the use of analytical terms derived from the experience of the Nile Valley to apply to Darfur.

Diaspora and drug trafficking in West Africa: A case study of Ghana

Abstract: This article interrogates the emergence of drug trafficking in contemporary Ghana and West Africa within the context of a global political economy, situated within a deeper historical perspective. It examines the earlier trafficking of cannabis along the coast of West Africa in the colonial period, and the later transnational networks that have emerged to promote international drug trafficking (cocaine and heroin). The article probes how the African diaspora and international travel service these emerging drug networks in Ghana, West Africa, Europe and the Americas. It suggests that the concept of an 'ideological diaspora' could shed light on a shared global popular culture, which constitutes a counter culture and rationalizes criminal activities. IN A RECENT, IMPORTANT ARTICLE ON WEST AFRICAN CRIMINAL NETWORKS in southern Africa, Mark Shaw highlighted the need for academic research despite the difficulty in researching crime - to provide a fuller understanding of African criminal networks, 'not least to provide an independent and strategic overview of developments and the identification of trends'.' Much of the existing literature on the trafficking of illicit narcotic drugs (cannabis, heroin, and cocaine) has been from a policy perspective, funded

Crime, conflict and politics in transition-era South Africa

Abstract: Despite the potentially catastrophic repercussions of South Africa's violent crime epidemic, little progress has been made in understanding why violence has persisted and even escalated since the end of apartheid in 1994. Adopting an historical approach that highlights the persistence of urban violence throughout the twentieth century, this article focuses on the criminal dimensions of the 'political' conflicts of the 1980s and 1990s. The advent of democracy was not in itself sufficient to erase a deeply entrenched culture of violence produced by decades of repressive racial policing, violent crime and social conflict. Moreover, politicized hostilities and the continuing deterioration of law and order structures in the final years of apartheid gave birth to various groups that engaged in criminal violence and provided favourable conditions for well established criminal networks. Such elements were unlikely to put down their guns and relinquish power simply because politicians declared the fighting to be over. Situating transition-era violence within its historic context and broadening the narrow conception of 'political' conflict enable us to better understand both this fractious period and the violence that continues to afflict South Africa. FOR THE PAST TEN YEARS, SOUTH AFRICA HAS AVERAGED more than 20,000 murders and 50,000 reported rapes and attempted rapes annually.' The repercussions of this violent crime epidemic are potentially catastrophic, yet little progress has been made in understanding why violence has persisted and even escalated since the end of apartheid in 1994. Popular explanations typically concentrate on the immediate environment, including poverty and joblessness, a new criminal-friendly constitution, a corrupt and ineffective national police force and the post-apartheid influx of African migrants.2 To the extent that history is considered, the roots of lawlessness and violent crime are often traced back to the 'political' violence of the The author is at Dalhousie University, Canada: gkynoch@dal.ca 1. www.saps.gov.za. 2. In an ongoing study of the impact of crime and violence in Gauteng townships, residents have consistently listed these factors as the most important contributors to high crime rates in the post-apartheid period. Elements within the media often echo these same sentiments. For an indication of township residents' views of crime and policing, see Gary Kynoch, 'Apartheid nostalgia: personal security concerns in South African townships', SA Crime Quarterly, 5 September (2003), pp. 7-10.

Let's stick together: understanding africa's secessionist deficit

Abstract: Over the last 40 years, Africa has experienced relatively fewer secessionist conflicts than most other regions of the world, even though it is otherwise plagued with political violence and its countries tend to display a higher prevalence of many of the factors usually associated with separatism. After empirically establishing Africa’s secessionist deficit, this article reviews the few existing explanations for it before articulating a theory which singles out the benefits to African regional elites (and those who depend on them) of weak sovereign states. In Africa as elsewhere, the article argues, regional leaders can be expected to capitalize on local grievances and promote secessions if the potential rewards of a separatist state, in the absence of international recognition, outweigh the potential rewards associated with control or partial control of institutions of the sovereign national state. What distinguishes African elites is the relatively greater material returns to sovereignty that they face. Given the continent’s poverty, the undiversified nature and commodity dependence of its economies, and the relative lack of accountability of state power, Africa offers a significant material premium to internationally recognized sovereignty, tilting the odds for elites in favour of staying within the state, even if they do not immediately benefit from power at the centre. The article then tests the argument against actual African cases of secession, showing that they are usually a function of variations in the relative rewards of sovereignty. In conclusion, it argues that Africa’s weak sovereignty equilibrium has contributed to its failure to develop. IN ABOUT 40 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE, only ten of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 states have experienced a secessionist conflict, and most of these have been short-lived, quite minor in scope, and unsuccessful. In contrast, over the same period, 30 African states have provided the stage for at least one nonsecessionist domestic conflict, many of which have been drawn out and quite

Malice in Maasailand: The Historical Roots of Current Political Struggles

Abstract: Current struggles for power, land and resources in Kenyan Maasailand can only be understood in a one hundred-year context, by returning to the forced moves and land losses of the 1900s and closely examining subsequent complaints about their alleged illegality and long-term impacts. Drawing upon archival research and oral testimony, this article explains why the Maasai community's sense of loss and betrayal is so enduring. Maasai grievances stem from a feeling that they have been betrayed by the British, from the political ambitions of particular Maasai leaders, and from historical divisions between different groups of Maasai. Entangled with all these reasons for grievance is the use of history and myth in constructing nationalist and bounded identities.

Entertaining Repression: Music and Politics in Postcolonial Cameroon

Abstract: This article examines the relationship between musicians and political power in Cameroon in order to make a case for understanding the dynamics of agency and identity politics among musicians It argues that politicians in Cameroon have tended to appropriate musicians and their creative efforts as part of their drive for power Some musicians have refused to be at the beck and call of politicians and have tended to criticize and ridicule those in power Others have seen in such invitations an opportunity for greater recognition and respectability Some have sought to straddle both worlds, serving politicians while also pursuing their art in the interest of other constituencies Their different responses notwithstanding, there is evidence that the fortunes and statuses of musicians have been transformed with changing political regimes and notions of politics THE MANNER IN WHICH MUSIC IS PRODUCED AND APPROPRIATED, by whom and how, is inseparable from power relations: political, cultural, economic andL gendered1 In the case of Africa, music has historically been appropriated by social actors with a variety of interests Through Veit Erlmann2, we gather how South African music has served contradictory Western perceptions of Africa as 'civilized' and 'uncivilized'; and through Johannes Brusila,3 how the category of 'world music' permits the West to construct Francis B Nyamnjoh (FrancisNyamnjoh@codesriasn; nyamnjoh@yahoocom) is head of publications at CODESRIA, Dakar, Senegal Jude Fokwang (judefokwang@utorontoca; jfokwang@yahoocom) is a doctoral student in Anthropology at the University of Toronto, Canada 1 S Longwe and R Clark, Woman Know Your Place: The patriarchal message in Zambian popular song (ZARD, Lusaka, 1998); J Brusila, 'Musical otherness and the Bhundu Boys: the construction of the "West" and the "Rest" in the discourse of "World Music"', in M E Baaz and M Palmberg (eds), Same and Other: Negotiating African identity in cultural production (Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala, 2001), pp 39-56; J Brusila, 'Jungle drums striking the World Beat: Africa as an image factor in popular music', in M Palmberg (ed), Encounter Images in the Meetings between Africa and Europe (Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala, 2001), pp 146-61 2 V Erlmann, 'Africa civilized, Africa uncivilized: local culture, world system and South African music', in K Barber (ed), Readings in African Popular Culture (James Currey, Oxford, 1997), pp 170-7 3 Brusila, 'Musical otherness and the Bhundu Boys' and 'Jungle drums striking the World Beat'

The Anglophone Cameroon-Nigeria boundary: Opportunities and conflicts

Abstract: Recent studies of African boundaries have tended to focus either on the growing number of border disputes between States or on frontier regions that are said to offer local inhabitants a wide range of economic opportunities. This article combines both approaches and demonstrates the ambiguous nature of the Anglophone Cameroon-Nigeria border. On the one hand, the border has been subject to regular skirmishes between Cameroon and Nigeria, culminating in a protracted war over the sovereignty of the Bakassi peninsula - an area rich in oil reserves. On the other hand, it has for historical and economic reasons never constituted a real barrier to cross-border movements of labour and goods. The large Nigerian migrant community in Anglophone Cameroon, in particular, has been able to benefit from formal and informal cross-border trade for a long time. Unsurprisingly, its dominant position in the host community's commercial sector has been a continuous source of conflict. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]

Reasons for sub-Saharan Africa’s development deficit that the commission for Africa did not consider

Abstract: Despite a substantial amount of aid (much larger in per capita terms than provided to any other region), sub-Saharan African countries, with very few exceptions, have regressed since independence. The general history of Africa since achieving independence has been one of development failure. Some protagonists point to signs of change that argue for more aid. This article suggests that aid to Africa has not worked because human, social and institutional capital not financial capital poses the binding constraint. In that context, doubling aid to Africa from $23 billion in 2004 to $50 billion annually by 2015 seems a questionable proposition. This commentary suggests unconventional ways of dealing with the problems involved in importing the essential ingredients that Africa needs. It concludes with the observation that the aid community's current obsession with poverty reduction and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) may be harming rather than helping the cause of development in Africa and argues that the focus on growth and development should be restored. OUR COMMON INTEREST,1 the report published in March 2005 by the Commission for Africa convened by the UK government as background for the July 2005 G8 summit, begs two questions: are false hopes being raised again about the development of sub-Saharan Africa being revived with more aid? Will more aid help or hinder Africa? The commission's report appears to be based on wishful thinking of the kind that donors have indulged in for three decades. It fails to be candid about what inhibits development there. Percy Mistry (oxfordintluk@aol.com) is chairman of Oxford International, which has private equity investments in emerging markets. He is an investment banker who has worked in the private and public sector in developing countries, particularly in Asia and Africa. He was with the World Bank in the 1970s and 1980s. 1. Report of The Commission for Africa (Department for International Development, UK Government, London, 2005).

Shifting geographies of social inclusion and exclusion: Secondary education in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

Abstract: The urgency of South Africa's political transformation provides social scientists with an opportunity to monitor an encounter between idealism and reality in post-apartheid policy-making. Education policy appears to derive from political symbolism divorced from the material realities of macroeconomic policy. The extent and nature of desegregation and redistribution on the ground are investigated in 18 secondary schools in Pietermaritzburg, supplemented by interviews in the Provincial Education Department and the Pietermaritzburg Regional Office. Considerable desegregation has occurred, especially in the state sector, but only at the upper end of the traditional racial hierarchy. Provincial resources allow minimal capital spending and limited non-salary expenditure, whilst differential fees in state schools preserve apartheid inequalities of provision. Parents of all races keenly seek the best education they can afford for their children. Radical change requires changes in macroeconomic policy towards a more developmental state, but measures are proposed to encourage limited progress towards greater equity within current macroeconomic constraints.

Libya's foreign policy in flux

Abstract: This article provides a brief assessment of Libya's often unpredictable foreign policy with regard to Africa. The first section presents a brief historical background to Libya's involvement on the African continent and Colonel Gaddafi's military interventionism in Africa. The next section assesses the 1990s and Muammar Gaddafi's popularity during this period as well as his often extravagant economic involvement in Africa. The third section considers Gaddafi's ambitious role in the African Union and his efforts to secure a united Africa. The fourth section assesses Gaddafi's dramatic foreign policy shift from rogue criminal to responsible statesman, following his historic decision to relinquish his country's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and an almost enthusiastic willingness to welcome the West back after decades of antagonism and the subsequent wave of international praise as a consequence. Finally, it gives a brief assessment of the future of Libya's foreign relations. LIBYA'S FOREIGN POLICY HAS PRODUCED AT LEAST TWO INFLUENTIAL SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. The first approaches the matter from the point of view of the psychological determinants of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's personality, typically viewing the Colonel as an irrational megalomaniac, whose hegemonic ambitions are limitless and who lacks all sense of perspective and reality. Gaddafi's military adventurism secured him such titles as 'rogue criminal' (in the words of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger).1 President Gaafar Nimeiri of Sudan described the Colonel as someone suffering from 'a split personality - both evil'.2 Even Fidel Castro dismissed Gaddafi as a 'reckless adventurer' while U.S. President Ronald Reagan branded Gaddafi 'the mad dog of the Middle East'.3 A second school of thought analyses Gaddafi's ideological preferences and views him as a more

From state collapse to duty-free shop: Somalia’s path to modernity

Abstract: FOLLOWING THE OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR AND SIYAD BARRE'S DEFEAT IN 1991, popular discourse on the trajectory of Somalia and its people has gradually become mired in stereotypes. As fighting and statelessness continued after the United Nations' (UNOSOM) intervention (1993-95), Western narratives of the Somali 'crisis' became increasingly one-dimensional. International organizations, development agencies, political analysts, and journalists alike perceived Somali politics and warfare through a spectrum oscillating between cultural essentialism, social anomaly, and

Briefing: The Zanzibar election

Abstract: this October is that whatever the result, it will be controversial. Democratic elections on the islands have always been hotly contested. This will be Zanzibar's third election since the return to multiparty politics in 1995. The elections of 1995 and 2000 were disputed and deemed to be not free and fair by international observers. The 2000 elections were cancelled and the rerun boycotted by the opposition but the official margin between the parties in 1995 was 0.4%. Before that, the last elections held on the Islands under a British mandate in 1963 precipitated a revolution. So what are the roots of the tension on Zanzibar? What

Japan and the development of Africa: A preliminary evaluation of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development

Abstract: From the early 1960s to the late 1980s, relations between Japan and subSaharan Africa were very low-key. This, Japanese policy-makers proclaimed, was because Japan had no history of colonial involvement in Africa, and the lack of historical guilt exempted their country from participating in Africa's economic development. Since the early 1990s, however, Japan has been reassessing its relations with the countries in the region and now seems to have decided on a more pro-active approach to African affairs organized through the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). THIS ARTICLE ATTEMPTS TO BRING INTO FOCUS JAPAN'S RECENT INITIATIVES towards Africa as orchestrated through the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). The latter is perceived as a process, in conformity with what Chris Alden rightly refers to as Japan's 'allencompassing approach to growth and development',' having integrated into its wider dimensions aspects of neo-liberal stipulations for good governance and economic progress. Officially, the TICAD is defined as a 'regional initiative for Africa' initiated by the joint effort of the government of Japan, the United Nations and the Global Coalition for Africa (GCA), and it 'involves a variety of stakeholders including all African countries, international agencies and the civil society'.2 There is therefore a great deal of emphasis within the TICAD framework on its inclusive orientation as well as on the idea of the ownership by African nations of the development process within their respective countries. According to Japanese policy-makers, the TICAD is Japan's way of highlighting Africa's developmental problems, and of reminding the international community that the continent's problems did not melt away with Kweku Ampiah teaches at the University of Stirling, Scotland. This article benefits from interviews conducted in Tokyo in January 2004 with African diplomats and Japanese officials. 1. Chris Alden, 'The chrysanthemum and the protea: re-inventing Japanese-South African relations after apartheid', African Affairs 101, 404 (2002), p. 383. 2. See the TICAD website, www.gca-cma.org/eticad.htm. 97