Showing papers in "African Studies Review in 2003"

Engaging Postcolonial Cultures: African Youth and Public Space

Abstract: La violente irruption de la jeunesse africaine dans les spheres publiques et domestiques semble avoir eu pour consequence la construction de leur comportement comme menace, et semble avoir provoque dans l'ensemble de la societe une panique a la fois morale et civique. Les arguments invoques sont les corps des jeunes gens et leur comportement, qui echappent aux contraintes de la construction sociale ; leur sexualite et leur plaisir ; ainsi que les codes regissant leurs actions et leur presence en tant que jeunes acteurs sociaux. Cette nouvelle situation a des consequences dans plusieurs domaines, les plus importants d'entre eux etant la redefinition des relations entre identite et citoyennete, prises dans le tourbillon de la globalisation ; les metamorphoses des processus de socialisation ; la production de nouvelles formes d'inegalite, accompagnees de leurs representations et de leur imaginaire specifiques ; et l'extraordinaire mutation des constructions chronologiques et psychologiques du passage de la jeunesse a l'âge adulte.

"Whiteness Just Isn't What It Used to Be": White Identity in a Changing South Africa

Abstract: ANTHROPOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY Melissa Steyn. "Whiteness just Isn't What It Used to Be": White Identity in a Changing South Africa. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. xxxix + 228 pp. References. Indexes. No price reported. Paper. Melissa Steyn's "Whiteness Just Isn't What It Used to Be" is an interpretation of white South Africans' narratives of their whiteness. It is based on the analysis of a questionnaire pertaining to the implications of being white. In comparison to the situation in Europe or North America, whiteness in South Africa no longer carries social privilege. With black political leadership and increasing African social and cultural assertiveness, white identity is challenged to adapt to new circumstances. Steyn identifies five narratives that try to come to terms with these new conditions. The first two are based on the Eurocentric belief in white superiority and never question the existence of a white identity that is in a dichotomous relationship with a denigrated blackness. The first narrative is unapologetic about the superiority of white culture and identifies with the paternalist task of "furthering the progress of humankind" (67) in South Africa; the second bemoans the injustice of the new social order and looks upon whites as the victims of a reversal of fortunes. The remaining narratives accept to varying degrees that white identity may change. Still projecting a strong affiliation with white identity, the third narrative concerns the possibility of using qualities supposedly inherent in white culture to succeed in the new South Africa. The more pragmatic version, which is based on liberal humanism with its trust in the individual and the belief in racial equality and democratic pluralism, seeks common ground with the black leadership. White guilt is acknowledged by way of critical self-observation, and such introspection has the potential to "envision possibilities of new forms of subjectivity within more inclusive structures" (99). The fourth narrative denies that whiteness has any implications in relation to people of color. Instead, an unproblematic white African or a South African identity is asserted. A lifelong commitment to racial equality culminates in the claim that color blindness has been achieved. Authors of this narrative are those who supported the struggle and in some way or another resisted apartheid. It is understandable that they find it particularly difficult to review their attitude to whiteness since they, after all, lived with the ideal of nonracialism. …

The African Imagination: Literature in Africa and the Black Diaspora

Abstract: F. Abiola Irele. The African Imagination: Literature in Africa and the Black Diaspora. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. xviii + 296 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. No price reported. Paper. Abiola Irele's critical examination of African literature is an interesting collection of essays written from 1981 to 1994. Published in 2001, these essays come across as a nice way to review some of the essential literary and cultural events that have influenced contemporary African literature. In other words, Irele is not breaking new ground, but rather refreshing one's memories. His intellectual insights, as always, are well worth the reading time. In the preface and again in chapter 1, Irele informs us of his purpose in putting together The African Imagination. The work responds to two ways of looking at African literature. The first is to challenge the view of the African experience, both on the African continent and in the New World, as a collective experience, a type of cultural monolith. This position, he notes, has been taken by Europeans such as Janheinz Jahn and by those Africans who garner their literary experience from the negritude movement or who have at least been influenced by this Francophone phenomenon. The other cultural monolith he notes is the Black Aesthetic movement of the 1960s found primarily in the United States. A second group that Irele challenges comprises the contemporary literary critics of the 1980s and 1990s who have grown out of structuralism, deconstruction, and Marxism. These critics, he explains, are more interested in literature as a form of sociological development than of aesthetic expression. He does not ignore or deny these other positions, he comments, but he will not pursue them for their own sake. He has decided, rather, "to explore the terrain of African literature in the widest acceptance of the term and to arrive at a sense of its possible boundaries" on both the African continent and in the New World (4). Further, he maintains that the term "African imagination" is more appropriate than "African literature" because it allows for a "wider scope of expression of Africans and people of African descent, which arises out of . . . historical circumstances" (7). Chapter 2 addresses the issues of orality and literacy and their relation to the two interpretations of African literature, Western and African. Irele allows Ruth Finnegan, Jack Goody, and Walter J. Ong to state the European view of the orality-literacy connection, while the African perspective is conveyed by D. O. Fagunwa, Thomas Mofolo, J. P. Clark-Bekederemo, and Irele himself. This discussion sheds light on the cultural complexity of literature, especially on the African continent with its hundreds of languages. Often the critics that Irele questions in the preface, especially structuralists and poststructuralists, lose sight of this complexity because of their own redefined cultural perspectives. …

Military Patrimonialism and Child Soldier Clientalism in the Liberian and Sierra Leonean Civil Wars

Abstract: L'A. utilise un modele weberien du patrimonialisme afin d'analyser les roles clientelistes et l'emploi tenu par les enfants soldats au sein des regimes militaires des guerres civiles au Liberia et en Sierra Leone. Il examine ainsi les aspects institutionnels de l'identite et du comportement de l'enfant soldat qui ne sont pas abordes dans d'autres modeles traditionnels de l'enfant soldat, en tant que victime forcee, idealiste revolutionnaire, ou opportuniste delinquant. Il detourne l'attention de l'analyse du patrimonialisme d'Etat-nation pour se tourner vers les dimensions patrimoniales des regimes rebelles. Il situe les enfants soldats a l'interieur d'une organisation sociale de domination et de reciprocite basee sur une violence structuree par des liens de patronage avec les commandants militaires. Il identifie les fonctions de l'emploi tenu par l'enfant soldat au sein de l'administration d'un regime patrimonial. Une approche weberienne focalisee sur l'institutionnalisation et les strategies de domination et de dependance corrige les approches qui exotisent les enfants soldats, decontextualisent leur comportement, ou essentialisent leur jeunesse comme principe d'explication.

Associational life in African cities : popular responses to the urban crisis

Abstract: This book is about the multitude of associations that has emerged in African cities in recent years. In many cases, they are a response to mounting poverty, failing infrastructure and services, and more generally, weak and abdicating urban governments. Some associations are new, in other cases existing organisations are taking on new tasks. Associations may be neighbourhood-based, others may be city-wide and based on professional groupings or a shared ideology or religion. Still others have an ethnic base.

Seed Provision and Agricultural Development: The Institutions of Rural Change

Abstract: Robert Tripp. Seed Provision and Agricultural Development: The Institutions of Rural Change. London: Overseas Development Institute/Oxford: James Currey/Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 2001. viii + 174 pp. Tables. Notes. References. Index. $64.00. Cloth. The aim of this book is to provide a comprehensive overview of the nature of seed provision, a topic the author, Robert Tripp, situates at the forefront of contemporary debates on rural development in the global south. Tripp astutely links this topic to larger theoretical discussions by using "seed provision as a lens through which to examine the broader subject of agricultural development" (2). More specifically, "the book examines how the institutions of seed provision developed in industrial economies and assesses the performance of contemporary seed institutions in the South" (10). A major thesis of the volume is that efficient information exchange is required for development of the seed sector and that institutions (rules and organizations) are important for facilitating such exchange. While the author frequently uses examples from the African continent (particularly Anglophone Africa), he explores seed provision and agricultural development in a variety of contexts (Africa, Latin America, Asia). Although the study engages theory, it is written in straightforward prose, employing academic jargon only where it is helpful and when it has been explained. The book is organized into eight chapters. The first offers an introduction and a discussion of agricultural development. In the second chapter, the author argues for a focus on institutions and incentives as a way to approach the study of agricultural development. Tripp suggests a pragmatic combination of new institutional economics and new economic sociology in order to do this. In chapter 3 he reviews the factors that motivate a farmer's selection of seeds and crop varieties, and the biological aspects of plant breeding and seed production. Chapter 4 describes the organization of farm-level seed provision, including farmers' seed management and selection of crop varieties, seed flows among farmers, and the problem of imperfect information. The evolution of the commercial seed sector is described in chapter 5. As farm level and commercial seed systems expand, the government often becomes involved in tasks that are difficult to organize independently. This public-sector involvement in seed systems is assessed in chapter 6. Donor and government interventions, particularly seed development projects, are discussed in chapter 7. Finally, chapter 8 summarizes the book's findings and makes suggestions for seed system development. …

Differential responses to disappearing transitional pathways: Redefining possibility among Cameroonian youths

Abstract: Dans le sillage de la crise economique camerounaise et de la disparition des voies transitionnelles pour les jeunes qui l'a accompagnee, l'incertitude politique et economique s'est transformee en une nouvelle forme de certitude sociale pour la jeunesse. Inspiree par des modeles d'excellence et de succes a l'echelle mondiale, et se percevant comme la generation sans limites, elle a reagi en se tracant de nouvelles trajectoires biographiques. Tout en epousant des strategies contre le systeme, elle a opte pour l'emigration a l'Ouest, considere comme dernier port d'escale, a un moment de conjoncture historique ou les pays de l'Ouest renforcaient la severite de leurs mesures d'exclusion et d'expulsion. A ceux qui ne pouvaient pas emigrer, le cyber-espace a offert un nouvel espace de rencontres. Dans le but de s'emparer du surplus d'energie des jeunes non-migrants, les entrepreneurs politiques ont cree des groupes cherchant a infiltrer l'Etat. En regle generale, les jeunes ont eu tendance a remettre en question une hypothese de base de ce qui a ete appele le champ des possibles- selon laquelle le succes est determine par le capital ou le bagage culturel

The Politics of Peace in Mozambique: Post-Conflict Democratization, 1992-2000

Abstract: Carrie L. Manning. The Politics of Peace in Mozambique: Post-Conflict Democratization, 1992-2000. Westport, Conn.: Praeger/Greenwood, 2002. xii + 230 pp. Bibliography. Index. Map. $66.95. Cloth. Carrie Manning has provided a focused analysis of party politics in Mozambique in the years following the implementation of the 1992 Peace Accord. She has organized her study within the political science concept of "elite habituation" (4), which refers to the ways that political leaders and other elites learn to behave in particular political modes. This framework serves her well as a window into the internal dynamics of Frelimo and Renamo (respectively, the ruling party since 1975, formerly the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique, Frente da Libertacao de Moaambique; and the primary opposition party, the Mozambique National Resistance, Resistencia National de Mocambique) . However, there is little attention paid to other political actors, such as the mass organizations of women, youth, and trade unionists, nor is there any extended mention of religious institutions or other associations that have had an impact on recent politics in Mozambique. Manning begins with a brief chapter of background on Mozambique in the 1970s, but quickly proceeds to discuss the negotiations during the 1980s peace process. Subsequent chapters deal with Renamo's transition from guerrilla movement to political party, the impact of the move to multiparty politics, and the elections of 1994 and 1999. Her broadest insights suggest how the experience of negotiating for peace led to the perpetuation of practices that have hampered the development of a strong democratic tradition. Renamo continues to be overly reliant on international actors such as donors and diplomats, and continually turns to boycotts and disruption rather than bargaining as equals whenever political discussions do not proceed as they wish. The inability of Renamo party members to advance their democratic practice may reflect a recognition of their own weaknesses. Fearing they would lose any parliamentary discussion or vote, they avoid such confrontations rather than risk defeat. Frelimo, on its side, has turned to a legalistic approach, sometimes, as Manning indicates, an excessive legalism designed to prove that they are more democratic in practice because they are willing to rely on civic structures, government bodies, and the courts to gain their point. Renamo leaders dismiss outcomes from such proceedings because they believe that these structures continue to be dominated by Frelimo supporters, yet at the same time they refuse to get involved in the process of governing in a way that might integrate Renamo party members. The result is that Renamo continues to want extrapolitical negotiations over every dispute, all the while complaining about the "tyranny of the vote" (169). President Joaquim Chissano and Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama have been forced to negotiate over mundane as well as important issues rather than relying on other individuals and entities to make the decisions. …

"This Matter of Women Is Getting Very Bad": Gender, Development and Politics in Colonial Lesotho

Abstract: Marc Epprecht. "This Matter of Women Is Getting Very Bad": Gender, Development and Politics in Colonial Lesotho. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 2000. ix + 281 pp. Biographical sketches of informants. Notes. Bibliography. Index. R190. Paper By challenging existing orthodoxies about gender roles and women's accomplishments in the development of Lesotho, Marc Epprecht has made a major contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of that small country and of the regional environment in which it is situated. Like any work that emphasizes a previously neglected factor, however, it occasionally creates new interpretive problems by making that selected element the master variable in situations in which it was just one relevant element among many. Epprecht builds his analysis of women's roles on the previous efforts of Elizabeth Eldredge, judy Kimble, Colin Murray, and Eddie Maloka to provide a gendered historical analysis that complements the more male-centered analyses of Leonard Thompson and Peter Sanders. Epprecht's most important insights concern the twentieth-century phenomena about which he developed new primary data from the many interviews conducted during the research for his doctoral dissertation. While not a theoretical discourse on gender, the book is an application of such materials to Lesotho and is quite accessible to the serious reader. The high quality of the study belies Epprecht's unnecessary apologies in his introduction for being a white, expatriate male writing about African women. Epprecht is at his best in describing and evaluating hitherto neglected women's kopcmos, namely, homemakers' and church organizations that allowed women to assume new voices and greater control of their destinies in both secular and religious domains. he also does a first-rate job in explaining the social reforms initiated by the Roman Catholic Bishop Joseph Bonhomme, which coexisted, paradoxically, with an oppressive and restrictive view of appropriate female roles. While he redresses prior scholarly neglect of Catholic groups, his range of interviews seems to have been somewhat skewed, so that Protestant voices are not given an equivalent hearing. His portrayal of Regent Paramount Chieftainess Amelia 'Mantsebo Seeiso as a proponent of democratic consultation and solidarity and as a protofeminist reverses earlier, overly negative and sexist evaluations of her, but it ignores the substance of unfavorable assessments of her reign. …

Legacies of Engagement: Scholarship Informed by Political Commitment

Abstract: Scholar-activists, by virtue of their critical engagement in the central issues of the day and their role in the production and dissemination of knowledge, have a unique opportunity to challenge the inherited orthodoxies in the academy and in the larger world in which we live. Within the field of African studies they have served as powerful critics and have broken new substantive, conceptual, methodological, and epistemological ground. To sustain this thesis, this essay explores three interrelated issues. First, it critically assesses the concept of value-free research-a notion which is commonly used to dismiss engaged scholarship as inherently flawed. Second, it documents how a number of African American scholars, passionately committed to social justice and to an end to racial oppression, produced pioneering work on Africa well before the field of African studies gained academic legitimacy in the post-World War II era. Finally, it highlights some of the critically important contributions that activist scholars have made to the study of Africa. The intellectual biographies of six prominent Africanists-Claude Ake, Basil Davidson, Francis Deng, Susan Geiger, Joseph Harris, and Walter Rodney-illuminate how political commitment can fuel theoretical and methodological innovation. Resume: Les chercheurs universitaires activistes, de par leur engagement critique dans les questions centrales actuelles et de par leur role dans la production et la dissemination du savoir, ont une occasion unique de remettre en question les orthodoxies dont nous avons herite dans le milieu universitaire et dans le monde plus vaste dans lequel nous vivons. Dans le domaine des etudes africaines, ils ont servi de critiques puissants et ont produit des innovations substantielles au niveau conceptuel, methodologique et epistemologique. Pour appuyer cette theorie, cet article examine trois questions intimement liees. Tout d'abord, nous procedons a une evaluation critique du concept de valeur-recherche libre-une notion couramment utilisee pour discrediter la recherche universitaire engagee en la considerant comme naturellement imparfaite. Ensuite, nous documentons la facon dont un nombre d'universitaires africains americains passionnement engages dans la lutte pour la justice sociale et la fin de l'oppression raciale ont produit des travaux innovateurs sur l'Afrique bien avant que le domaine des etudes africaines n'obtienne sa legitimite universitaire dans la periode qui a suivi la deuxieme guerre mondiale. Enfin, nous soulignons une partie des contributions importantes que les universitaires et chercheurs activistes ont dediees a l'etude de l'Afrique. La biographie intellectuelle de six importants africanistes-Claude Ake, Basil Davidson, Francis Deng, Susan Geiger, Joseph Harris et Walter Rodney-illustrent la facon dont l'engagement politique peut alimenter les innovations theoriques et methodologiques. Editors' note: This article is a lightly edited version of the address that Alien Isaacman, as president of the African Studies Association, delivered to a plenary session of the ASA at its 45th annual meeting, December 4-8, 2002, Washington, D.C. While preparing this essay, I was struck by how many recent presidents of the African Studies Association have used this occasion to stress the crisis that confronts our field (Berger 1997; Greene 1999; Hyden 1996; Mikell 1999; Robinson 1994). Although their presentations differed in detail, they have highlighted an interrelated set of financial, epistemological, and political factors, which, taken together, contribute to the vulnerability of African studies.1 The inclination among influential funders, university administrators, and many senior scholars who favor a global perspective to devalue area studies has provided the intellectual rationale for downsizing African studies (Robinson 1997; Robinson forthcoming). Disagreements within the profession about who has the power to define the categories, content, and direction of future research have compounded the field's problems. …

Writing a Wider War: Rethinking Gender, Race, and Identity in the South African War, 1899-1902

Abstract: Writing a Wider War presents a dramatically new interpretation of the role of Boer women in the conflict and profoundly changes how we look at the making of Afrikaner nationalism. African experiences of the war are also examined, highlighting racial subjugation in the context of colonial war and black participation, and showcasing important new research by African historians. The collection includes a reassessment of British imperialism and probing essays on J. A. Hobson; the masculinist nature of life on commando among Boer soldiers; Anglo-Jewry; secularism; health and medicine; nursing, women, and disease in the concentration camps; and the rivalry between British politicians and generals. An examination of the importance of the South African War in contemporary British political economy, and the part played by imperial propaganda, rounds off a thoroughly groundbreaking reinterpretation of this formative event in South Africa's history.

Women in African colonial histories

Abstract: Jean Allman, Susan Geiger, and Nakanyike Musisi, eds. Women in African Colonial Histories. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. 338 pp. Photographs. Notes. Maps. Index. $54.95. Cloth. $24.95. Paper. Reaching into the interior spaces of African social life, the authors of the thirteen chapters in this volume of pathbreaking research reveal the lengths to which the agents of colonialism were willing to extend their authority. The great distinction of the collection, however, lies in its central problematic: women's modes of adjustment, negotiation, and resistance. Maintained throughout, this theme permits a close view of women's encounters with colonialism in the various regions of sub-Saharan Africa. The scrutiny the authors bring to bear on these encounters, the wide range of resources they employ, the attention they devote to context, and the combination of methodologies they apply, all underscore the complexities of women's experience in colonial Africa and provide a link to contemporary scholarly issues. As the editors explain, "The specific topic of a chapter becomes the door through which the reader encounters an overarching theme in the literature" (4). Not the first historical study of African women, the anthology is located within "a burgeoning historiography" (2) which the editors review concisely as they assess the field of African women's history. Each chapter raises several themes or issues, and these echo throughout the volume. Particularly prominent is the issue of spousal relations or marriage. Though societies varied widely in how relations between the sexes were arranged, maintained, and/or dissolved, several chapters show that everywhere in Africa the agents of colonialism were preoccupied with regularizing marriage and defining women's position within it. In his study of the colonial courts in the Northern Territories of Ghana, where marriage was considered by the colonial administrators to be the "ever recurring problem" (119), Scan Hawkins argues that the greatest challenge to British colonial rule of the LoDagaa was the relative autonomy women enjoyed outside of the courts, in spite of the concerted efforts of colonial administrators to impose Western-style forms of marriage. Commenting on colonial courts as his resource, he considers them to have been at the heart of the exercise of colonial power. Hawkins integrates the classic anthropological studies carried out in the Northern Territories with legal concepts and historical methods applied to the court documents to explain categories of sexual offenses and to show that men gained a new proprietorial sense of control over wives as a consequence of the colonial courts. …

The Women's Movement in Uganda History, Challenges, and Prospects

Abstract: Aili Mari Tripp and Joy C. Kwesiga, eds. The Women's Movement in Uganda: History, Challenges and Prospects. Kampala: Fountain Publishers Ltd., 2002. Distributed by African Books Collective Ltd., The Jam Factory, 27 Park End St., Oxford 0X1 1HU UK. xiii + 235 pp. Photographs. Bibliographies. Appendixes. Index. $27.95. Paper. In its thirteen thematic chapters, this book discusses the challenges and successes of the women's movement in Uganda. Most of the authors are Ugandan women scholars who draw on their own extensive research and on literature not available outside of the country to analyze the impact of the movement in various spheres. The work serves as an excellent contribution to the literature on African women, providing readers with a new and exciting body of information regarding women in Uganda today, both rural and urban. The individual authors examine the roles of various women's organizations and their impact on the themes under discussion. At the same time, they successfully balance the often opposing themes of Ugandan women as victims and as active agents of change. The first two chapters provide an overview and history of women's activism throughout Uganda, the variety of organizational structures, and women's efforts to overcome archaic and patriarchal practices as they make their voices heard from the household to the national level. Chapters 3-11 then focus on specific areas in which the women's movement has played a powerful role in advocating for change: education, health care, women with disabilities, the economy, agriculture, conflict resolution, land issues, religious institutions, the media, and literature. Perhaps the most dynamic chapters are the three that address themselves to economic empowerment, agricultural production, and efforts to guarantee women's ownership of land. The final chapter of the book is a very helpful summary of research on women in Uganda compiled by Margaret Snyder. all chapters conclude with excellent bibliographies that will be useful for historical and contemporary research alike. This volume does not an attempt to be comprehensive, but the editors are to be commended for selecting topics that are relevant not only to the situation of women in Uganda in the twenty-first century but also the situation of women throughout the continent. The book would be highly appropriate for courses on current African issues, on women in international development, or on the history and status of women in Africa generally. …

The Rise and Decline of a Special Relationship: Israel and Ghana, 1957-1966

Abstract: The "special relationship" between Israel and Ghana that began with the latter's attainment of independence in March 1957 endured only three years. At the January 1961 Casablanca Conference, Ghana joined in a sharp condemnation of Israel, marking the end of Israel's brief but extraordinary influence in Accra. Despite this downturn, Israel continued to fund aid and assistance projects in Ghana and to conduct civilian training programs. This article reviews the policy origins of Israel's entry into Ghana, demonstrates how both countries exploited a brief "honeymoon period," analyzes their diverging paths, and explains why Israel did not use the fall of Nkrumah in 1966 as an opportunity to reestablish the special relationship. Resume: La "relation speciale" entre Israel et le Ghana, inauguree lors de la declaration d'independance de ce dernier en mars 1957, n'aura dure que trois ans. Lors de la conference de Casablanca en janvier 1961, le Ghana s'est joint a la condamnation severe d'Israel, marquant ainsi la fin de l'influence breve mais extraordinaire d'Israel a Accra. Malgre cette regression, Israel a continue a financer des projets d'aide et d'assistance au Ghana, et a diriger des programmes de formation de la population civile. Cet article examine les origines politiques de l'entree d'Israel au Ghana, demontre comment ces deux pays ont exploite une breve periode de « lune de miel », analyse leurs chemins divergents, et explique pourquoi Israel n'a pas profite de la chute de Nkrumah en 1966 pour essayer de retablir cette relation speciale. Israeli Archival Sources and the Context of Israel's Engagement in Africa This article is based primarily upon documents in the Israel State Archives in Jerusalem and at the Israeli Defense Force Archives in Givatayim.1 Records in the Israel State Archives are released in accordance with a thirty-year law governing their declassification, and the files that have been opened shed much light upon both the history and policy-making process of Israel's foreign relations. These documents have, over the past two decades, facilitated a growing literature on important aspects of Israeli foreign policy. Yet Israel's role in Africa remains a little-explored subject, and this article makes extensive use of that archival material in order to begin filling a large gap in that literature. Despite the thirty-year law stipulating the release of documents, nearly all files at the Israel State Archive dealing with Israeli arms procurement and other defense and security affairs remained classified. Moreover, the law governing the opening of files at the Israeli Defense Force Archives permits the public to view only those documents belonging to the period up to 1956. In certain instances, it is possible to obtain special authorization to view material pertaining to later periods, but this is on a selective basis and at the discretion of the authorities at that archive. The documents on Israeli military involvement in Africa cited in this work were obtained with that permission, and they add a dimension to the broader scope of Israel's aims and activities on the continent. Israel's initial goals in Africa were to establish relations that would ameliorate its diplomatic isolation, garner support at the United Nations, achieve greater international legitimacy, and create economic opportunities mainly for Israeli government concerns but also for private business interests. Accra was a center of diplomatic activity, and aid projects in Ghana impressed African countries that reached independence in the early 1960s about the advantages of ties with Israel. For that reason, Israel invested much in order to maintain assistance programs in Ghana even after the downturn in relations that followed the 1961 Casablanca Conference. Yet by the early-to-mid 1960s, Israel had turned greater attention to combatting Arab and Eastern Bloc influence that threatened its interests in the sub-Saharan African states. …

Deutsche Herrschaft üBer Afrikaner. Staatlicher Machanspruch Und Wirklichkeit Im Kolonialen Namibia

Abstract: ment of the \"natives\"). Instead, Walther seems to have a preference for \"mainstream\" literature. He also fails to explore the analytical avenues entered by postcolonial studies. That these have value to offer for the (psycho) analysis of early settler colonialism has been demonstrated by Rosa Schneider's recent thesis Um Scholle undLeben (2003). Creating Germans Abroad is more descriptive than analytical. This is not to say that its insights are misleading or wrong, but that Walther fails to offer a fresh and provocative look at the creation of a settler society a century ago. Events that took place then will be remembered and reflected upon critically during 2004 in both Namibia and Germany, with differing and conflicting ideological perceptions. This in itself illustrates that history is far from being past. Walther has missed an excellent opportunity to make an impact on the continuing debate. Henning Melber The Nordic Africa Institute Uppsala, Sweden

Language, Education, and Public Policy in Eritrea

Abstract: After an Eritrea nationalist movement gained Eritrea's independence from Ethiopia in 1991, the newly formed government introduced a national educational policy based on the use of mother languages as the medium of instruction in all public schools. The stated purpose of the policy was to foster national unity, identity, and development while respecting cultural diversity. Nine different languages are spoken in Eritrea, among a population that consists equally of Christians and Muslims. The government has shown considerable flexibility in applying its language policy, particularly in its response to resistance from some predominantly Muslim segments of the population. Yet the implementation of the educational policy shows that three languages—English, Arabic, and Tigrinya—have come to dominate the majority of schools in Eritrea. This article examines how the state carried out its language policy from 1991 to 1997 and explores the problems it confronted in implementing the policy.

Antiwitchcraft Shrines among the Akan: Possession and the Gathering of Knowledge

Abstract: This article examines the epistemological certainties and uncertainties of Akan spirit possession and witchcraft knowledge. It is based on fieldwork carried out between 1990 and 1999 in Dormaa-Ahenkro, Brong-Ahafo region, Ghana. The article examines the transcendental knowledge found among antiwitchcraft shrine gods and their priests and how the sacred knowledge of gods is utilized to counter witchcraft in the modern postcolony. This, it is argued, is an ambiguous process, involving the "partial" knowledge of the shrine priest versus the "complete" picture of events held by the god. However, it is suggested that antiwitchcraft practices are very popular among priests because this type of knowledge allows the priest to manage uncertainty at first hand. The witch confesses directly to the priest, and this knowledge is not mediated through a god. Resume: Cet article se propose d'etudier les certitudes et les incertitudes epistemologiques de la possession par les esprits et du savoir en sorcellerie chez les Akan. Nos recherches se basent sur une enquete de terrain effectuee entre 1990 et 1999 a Dormaa-Ahenkro, dans la region de Brong-Ahafo au Ghana. Nous examinons le savoir transcendantal decouvert chez les dieux des lieux de culte anti-sorcellerie et leurs pretres, et nous montrons comment le savoir sacre des dieux est utilise pour contrecarrer la sorcellerie dans la postcolonie moderne. Nous soutenons que ce processus est ambigu car il oppose le savoir "partial" du pretre du lieu de culte a la vision divine des evenements, qui, elle, est "totale." Nous suggerons cependant que la pratique de la sorcellerie est tres populaire chez les pretres parce que ce type de savoir permet au pretre de gerer l'incertain a la source. Le sorcier (ou la sorciere) se confesse directement au pretre et ce savoir ne passe pas par l'intermediaire d'un dieu. Introduction In recent anthropological writing, the association of African witchcraft discourses with primitive thought, tradition, and superstition has been supplanted by the view that witchcraft practices are dynamic and wide-ranging and that they crystallize the experiences of the modern world (Comaroff & Comaroff 1993, 1999; Geschiere & Meyer 1998; Moore & Sanders 2001). Witchcraft has become an authoritative symbol of the experiences of modernity and the effects of an "invariable source, globalization" (Englund 1996:259). It is seen as a critical comment on, for example, the accumulation of "good" and "bad" wealth (Meyer 1998), international migration and smuggling (Masquelier 2000), immoral consumption (Parish 2000), and illicit production and accumulation (Sanders 1999; Shaw 1997:2001). In this way, witchcraft invokes an imagery of new forms of modernity, reflecting the dialectic between the modern and tradition in a modernizing nation-state and expressing social conflicts within the postcolonial economy (Geschiere 1998; Geschiere & Fisiy 1994). While global witchcraft complexes in Africa provide a medium for exploring the new images and objects of modernity associated with overseas wage labor, remittances, and flows of value, the specialist body of esoteric knowledge communicated through witchfinders also articulates and dramatizes the contradictions of a changing economy, as in the case of the Atinga cult of southwest Nigeria during the 1950s (Apter 1993). Increasingly, in the postcolonial economy, possessors of sacred, secret knowledge are also international salesmen and women responding to the anxieties of modernity and employing the symbolism of commoditization and the free market (Ashforth 1996; Sanders 2001). Auslander (1993), for example, examines the symbolic politics of Ngoni witchcleansing in Zambia and the ways in which it employs modern imagery of the state and market (for example, passports) to invoke the reality of the postcolonial landscape. Yet in spite of the association of popular Ghanaian witchcraft commentaries with all things new and contemporary, Akan antiwitchcraft shrines, often located in remote rural villages, have remained something of an anachronism. …

Human rights of women : international instruments and African experiences

Abstract: * Part 1: Human Rights of Women - International Instruments * 1. International Human Rights Law - The Relevance of Gender - Christine Ainetter-Brautigam * 2. Human Rights of Women at the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations - Dorota Gierycz * 3. Charter-based Activities regarding Women's Rights in the United Nations and Specialized Agencies - Dorothea Gaudart * 4. The Prohibition of Gender-specific Discrimination under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - Manfred Nowak * 5. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women - Andrew Byrnes * 6. Women and Humanitarian Law - Francoise Hampson * 7. The European Human Rights System in Comparison with other Regional Systems - Wolfgang Benedek * Part 2: Human Rights of Women - African Experiences * 8. Introduction to the African System of Protection of Human Rights and the Draft Protocol - Henry Onoria * 9. Women's Rights under Islam - Khadija Elmadmad * 10. Women, Culture and Human Rights with Special Reference to the Practices * of Female Genital Mutilation, Polygamy and Brideprice in Africa - Esther M. Kisaakye * 11. Modern-Day Missionaries or Misguided Miscreants? NGOs, the Women's * Movement and the Promotion of Human Rights in Africa - Joe Oloka-Onyango * 12. Women in the Armed Forces in Uganda: Human Rights Issues - Apollo Makubuya * 13. Women Prisoners and Female Staff in Uganda Prisons - Kurt Neudek

Constitutionalism in Africa : creating opportunities, facing challenges

Abstract: LAW Joe Oloka-Onyango Constitutionalism in Africa: Creating Opportunities, Facing Challenges Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 2001 Distributed by African Books Collective Ltd, The Jam Factory, 27 Park End Street, Oxford OXl 1HU xi + 345 pp Index $4195 Paper The growing interest in African law is long overdue Political scientists, for the most part, abandoned law in the 1970s when military coups rendered the study of law seemingly irrelevant With a new spurt of constitution writing, we should expect more scholarly output on this topic in the future This volume of eighteen papers, edited by Joe Oloka-Onyango, the former dean of the Faculty of Law at Makerere University, has its origins in a 1998 conference held in Uganda Readers will benefit most from the chapters on gender and contemporary constitution writing Unfortunately, the earlier sections of the book, "New Challenges, New Opportunities" and "Ethnicity, Identity and the Role of Civil Society," suffer from a degree of vagueness that limits their usefulness The central weakness is an apparent unwillingness to define constitutionalism This is not a call for a common definition to be carried throughout the volume Rather, in view of the diverse backgrounds of the authors, attempting to wrestle with this murky concept could have served as a focal point for discussing the meanings of constitutionalism in the African context, how those meanings relate to the specificities of African politics and society, and why constitutionalism might take a different path in Africa from the one it has taken elsewhere As it is, the links between particular qualities of African politics, such as ethnicity, and constitutionalism, are not always clear There is also a ten- ;' dency to equate paper constitutions with constitutionalism I was particularly intrigued by the inclusion of Rwanda in two of the chapters on ethnicity Does ethnicity make constitutionalism in places like postgenocidal Rwanda unlikely, or is constitutionalism an instrument for preventing ethnic conflict? It is not clear whether it even makes sense to talk about constitutionalism in Rwanda Kamatali does, however, talk briefly about the consequences of indirect rule on Rwandans' attitudes toward the law He suggests that the ability of traditional authorities to resist the legal orders of colonial officers left the impression that "the law was not obligatory and enforceable by itself Rather, it depended on the attitude of the authority who enforced it" (112-13) I am hoping that he has written more expansively on this elsewhere because what people think about the law matters immensely …

Conflict, peace, and the history of natural resource management in Sussundenga district, Mozambique

Abstract: . This article examines the nature of conflicts over natural resources in the postwar period in Sussundenga district, Mozambique, as contextualized within a broad history of natural resource management in Mozambique from the colonial period through the postindependence and war years to the present day. The evidence suggests that the notion of a simple transition from wartime conflict to post-war sustainable development needs revision. Instead, some patterns and practices of resource use predated the war and have outlasted it, some began and ended with the peace agreement, and others accelerated or were initiated after the end of armed hostility. Throughout these periods, there have been social conflicts between and within different groups of resource users at all levels. Armed conflict did change patterns of resource use in some respects, but the result was not entirely negative for the natural resource base; forest resources in some areas actually regenerated during the war years. These conclusions build on arguments in environmental history and political ecology demonstrating that there is no deterministic relationship between humans and the natural environment. Rather, there is a range of possible interactions depending on locally varying contexts as well as broader social and political structures. Resume: Cet article examine la nature des conflits portant sur les ressources naturelles dans le district de Sussundenga, en Mozambique, pendant la periode d'apres guerre, mise en perspective dans une plus grande histoire de la gestion des ressources naturelles en Mozambique depuis la periode coloniale, tout au long des annees de post-independance et de guerre, jusqu'a nos jours. Les temoignages suggerent que la notion de transition simple du conflit du temps de guerre au developpement durable d'apres guerre doit etre revisee. Plus precisement, certains modeles et pratiques d'utilisation des ressources ont ete etablis avant la guerre et y ont survecu, certains ont commence et fini avec l'accord de paix, et d'autres se sont acceleres ou ont ete inities apres la fin des hostilites armees. Tout au long de ces periodes, des conflits sociaux ont eclate entre et parmi differents groupes d'utilisateurs de ressources a tous les niveaux. Les conflits armes ont effectivement modifie les modeles d'utilisation des ressources dans une certaine mesure, mais le resultat ne fut pas entierement negatif pour l'origine des ressources naturelles: les ressources forestieres dans certaines regions se sont en fait regenerees pendant les annees de guerre. Ces conclusions se basent sur des arguments en histoire de l'environnement et en ecologie politique, demontrant qu'il n'y a pas de relation deterministe entre humains et environnement naturel. Il existe plutot un champ d'interactions possibles dependant de contextes variant au niveau local, ainsi que de structures sociales et politiques plus larges. Introduction The end of three decades of war in Mozambique in 1992 brought expressions of hope from politicians and planners alike that development would now be able to resume unimpeded. The elections held in 1994 were a symbol of a new political order, which purported to promote decentralization of power to the local level in order to "make priorities and decisions on the utilisation of resources closer to the reality of Mozambican life" (Abrahamsson & Nilsson 1995:176). The style of the development agenda to be pursued in the postsocialist era would be the one that has been in fashion internationally over the last decades, namely "sustainable development" (Bryant & Bailey 1997:81 ).1 Explicit consideration of ecological issues was made for the first time in Mozambique in the 9 1990 Constitution (Ferraz & Munslow 1999b:99). Optimistic commentators held that the "greatest single impediment to building a future of sustainable development has been removed: war has been replaced by peace" (Ferraz & Munslow 1999a:l). …

Maghrebian mosaic : a literature in transition

Abstract: Mildred Mortimer, ed. Maghrebian Mosaic A Literature in Transition. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001. vii + 325 pp. Bibliography. Index. $59.95. Cloth. This volume focuses on Maghrebian literature of French expression in Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, exploring the works of Maghrebian writers who negotiate their colonial legacy in literature. These writers, according to Mortimer, "use the colonizer's language as a revolutionary tool to express an ideology and aesthetics of difference" (3-4). Berber speakers and writers are several times removed from a Francophone context, as Arabic is the official language of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, competing with French. The volume deals with two eras: the movement of resistance to colonialism, and the postcolonial search for identity. Especially important in these essays is the issue of cultural pluralism, which is palpable in each of the four sections dealing with identity, internality, women's views, and Algerians resident in France. In "Inscribing a Maghrebian Identity in French," Farida Abu-Haidar examines cultural plurality in French, Arabic, and Berber contexts in both content and mode of expression. She demonstrates that the French-Arabic struggle leaves Maghrebian fiction outside the realm of a wider Western context, in which English is now the dominant language. Some Maghreb writers lack fluency in Arabic, while others Arabicize French in their writings, creating a Maghrebian French word order resembling Arabic syntax. Other authors feel free to express themselves in Arabic, unconstrained by cultural prohibitions against self-revelation inherent in the language of the Qur'an. Rachid Boudjedra's novels often appear in both languages, with versions of the novel differing according to its mode of expression: "Dialogue in Arabic tends to be longer... [and] family matters are given in detail in Arabic but not in French... [while] names of well-known Europeans... are usually omitted in the Arabic" (17). Abu-Haidar also cites examples of the symbolic use of colonial language in the works of several other Maghrebian authors, explaining the ways in which language depicts multiculturality and characters respond to a variety of cultural and historical influences. Richard Serrano's chapter on the novels of Rachid Boudjedra underlines the difficulty of separating culture from language; translation involves a shifting of concepts into different cultural contexts. In exploring the bilingual success of Boudjedra's French and Arabic writings, Serrano raises the crucial question of language as the key to cultural access, as a political tool, and as the determinant of personal identity. His incisive analysis of metaphors working more successfully in one language than another illuminates the cultural limitations of a range of related terms and clarifies the need in translation to create parallel multivalent images in the second language. This means that translation is effective only to the degree that the work's context is understood in the culture of each language. Translation's limits occur at the points of cultural divergence. Having understood this makes the success of Boudjedra's translations of his own French works into Arabic and Arabic works into French all the more remarkable. One hesitates to wish for an English translation after experiencing Serrano's energetic explanation of the complexity of the translation process. Boudjedra's work is described further, along with that of the Moroccan writer Abdel Kadir Khatabi, in Giles Carjuzaa's essay on the confluence of modernity and tradition. Defining tradition as what comes from within a culture and modernity as what is imposed from without, Carjuzaa offers a rich array of examples in which the Maghrebian writers draw on the past to reinterpret their contemporary circumstances, particularly in terms of women's roles, rebels' activities, and the realization of linguistic/cultural autonomy in a culture. …

Vilimani: Labor Migration and Rural Change in Early Colonial Tanzania

Abstract: Introduction: peasant & worker agency in Tanzanian history - Industrialisation & the labor question in German East Africa, 1885-1914 - Slavery & the genesis of colonial labor relations - Labor migration & the erosion of the plantation imperative - Environmental collapse, household disruption & rebellion in Rufiji district - An antidote to the plantation labor shortage? The peasant cotton campaign in southeastern Tanzania - Migrant labor & the shaping of plantation work culture - 'Wamekwenda Vilimani!': transformations in rural society - Epilogue

The Movement to Decriminalize Sex Work in Gauteng Province, South Africa, 1994-2002

Abstract: This article explores the movement to decriminalize sex work in the Gauteng province of Johannesburg from 1994 to 2002. In particular, I examine the actions and statements of the provincial Ministry of Safety and Security and other ministries in the decision to de facto decriminalize prostitution using the international language of human rights. This article illustrates that the movement to decriminalize sex work in the postapartheid period is not a sharp departure from the past. Rather, as early as the 1970s there were minority contingents that advocated a legalization or decriminalization of sex work, arguing for the public health or policy benefits that would follow. What is new in the postapartheid period is the justification for decriminalization, which now is based on the international language of human rights. Also new in the postapartheid period is the inclusion in the debate of voices that were not heard during apartheid, when the media was dominated by white South Africans. There is now a counterdiscourse opposing decriminalization, based on religion and on the argument that sex work is “un-African.”

Islamic-Hausa Feminism Meets Northern Nigerian Romance: The Cautious Rebellion of Bilkisu Funtuwa

Abstract: This study of contemporary Hausa literature analyzes a northern Nigerian body of popular fiction currently referred to as Kano market literature and known to Hausa speakers as Littattafan Soyayya (books of love). The popularity of this genre of romance rests firmly upon its subject matter one that has proven controversial within the conservative Muslim environment of Hausa society. On the surface the novels are preoccupied with love and marital relationships depicting the ordeals faced by courting lovers or married couples. However on a deeper level the novels have become an explorative territory for the socially culturally and religiously loaded issues of polygamy marriages of coercion purdah and the accessibility of female education. In effect Kano market literature reflects the rapid social change confronting Hausa society and positions itself as a voice offering a new perspective on gender relations. This article examines closely the works of arguably the most celebrated woman writer Bilkisu Ahmed Funtuwa. Acutely aware of her rigid social and religious milieu Funtuwa offers suggestions to young women who desire a greater level of control over their familial relationships and educational direction. (authors)

Power Inequalities and the Institutions of Senegalese Development Organizations

Abstract: The focus on decentralization and civil society in Africa demands that scholars examine the factors that affect the institutions (i.e., rules and procedures) of local development organizations. Using two case studies from rural Senegal, this article investigates how the preferences of group participants, the authority positions of group actors, and the alternatives that individuals have shape the institutions of local organizations. The article then illustrates how the rules that emerge through institutional bargaining affect the decisions local organizations make about issues such as resource allocation and the implementation of development projects. Resume: Se concentrer sur la decentralisation et la societe civile en Afrique demande aux chercheurs d'examiner les facteurs affectant les institutions (c'est a dire les reglements et procedures) des organisations locales de developpement. En se basant sur deux cas d'etude dans le Senegal rural, cet article examine comment les preferences des participants au groupe, la position d'autorite des acteurs du groupe, et les alternatives proposees aux individus et offrant les memes benefices que ceux de l'organisation, faeonnent les institutions des organisations locales. Cet article illustre ensuite comment les reglements emergeant des negociations institutionnelles affectent les decisions prises par les organisations locales sur les problemes tels que l'allocation des ressources et la mise en oeuvre de projets de developpement. Introduction Since the 1980s, many sub-Saharan African governments and international donors have decentralized authority structures and emphasized community associations as a means of fostering development and grassroots democracy (Conyers 1983; Mutizwa-Mangiza & Conyers 1996; Wunsch & Olowu 1990; Ribot 1995; Tordoff 1994).J In addition, international aid agencies have directed more funds to local organizations (van de Walle & Johnston 1996). Despite these efforts, development in many sub-Saharan African countries has stagnated, as evidenced by weak agricultural production, declines in overall economic growth, increasing debt levels, and poor export production (New York Times, june 1, 2000; World Bank 1997). In addition, there is little evidence to suggest that decentralization has fostered democracy. Although these various problems cannot be blamed fully on ineffective governance, I believe that it is necessary to examine the institutions of local development organizations and the power inequalities that they often reflect in order to better understand the continent's problems. This article applies insights from various theories of "new institutionalism" to case studies from rural Senegal. The purpose of the article is twofold. First, I examine how three variables affect the formation of institutions for local development organizations.2 These variables are the preferences of participants, the authority positions of the actors, and the opportunities for members to achieve the same benefits elsewhere. Though development organizations and their institutions are intricately connected, the primary focus of this article is on the institutions (i.e., the rules and procedures). Organizations are created with purposive intent, but it is institutions that shape organizational outcomes and the behavior of individuals within the organization (North 1990:5). The second purpose of the article is to illustrate that institutions have an enormous impact on development organizations. In the language of new institutionalism, one might say that institutions "matter." I do not assume, however, that institutions that emerge from bargaining are necessarily as efficient, democratic, or effective as they could be. The lessons of the case studies have widespread applicability for state officials, international donors, and nongovernmental organization (NGO) officials who seek to design effective development initiatives. Scholars have approached sub-Saharan Africa's underdevelopment using several explanatory variables, including class, ethnic, and gender cleavages, as causal factors influencing underdevelopment (Fatton 1995; Horowitz 1985; Parpart & Staudt 1990). …