“Shortcut English” is a pidgin spoken between Zambians and Chinese migrants at a Chinese-operated mine in southern Zambia. Contrary to most historical contact languages, the symbolic valences of Shortcut English favor the Zambian laborers over the Chinese mine managers and owners. In the past, Zambians at Summers have categorized Chinese as bamukuwa/ “whites.” Haruyama analyzes how the racializing dynamics of the new pidgin Shortcut English increasingly result in Chinese being figured as machainizi, a denigrated racial other whom Zambians see as unfit to run the mine, which contributes to sometimes violent resistance.

Conversations around transitional justice often focus on concepts of victimhood and perpetration. Such has been the case in Rwanda in the decades following the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. However, even as Rwandans continue to observe state-led transitional justice reforms which divide them into victims and perpetrators, they simultaneously draw on state discourses of unity to carefully critique and re-work the language and practices which produce such divisions. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Berman illustrates how a new generation of Rwandan youth is transforming political ideology by creatively engaging the discourse of ubunyarwanda (Rwandanness) to forge inclusive post-genocide politics.

Land claims and contests have been central to the construction of political authority across the African continent. South Africa’s post-apartheid land reform program aims to address historical dispossessions, but the program has experienced numerous obstacles and limits—in terms of pace, communal land access, productivity, and rural class divides. Drawing on archival and newspaper sources, Kelly traces how the descendant of a colonially-appointed, landless chief manipulated a claim into a landed chieftaincy and how both the chief and the competing claimants have deployed histories of landlessness and firstcomer accounts in a manner distinct to the KwaZulu-Natal region as part of the land restitution process.

What have been the meanings and meaningfulness of pleasure in Yorùbá thought, practice, and history over the past eight hundred years? Ogundiran draws from literary, archaeological, myth-historical, and ethnographic sources to answer this question in two parts. First, he examines the ontologies, materiality, and sociality of pleasure at the levels of ordinary experience and institutional culture. Second, he demonstrates how pleasurable experiences and things were used to construct social order, define social difference, and build community. Ogundiran concludes that pleasure is not an autonomous experience. Rather, it is embedded in other domains of social life.

One of the major problems for anyone trying to understand United States-South Africa policy and relationships is the long established tradition of double talking. To find the truth it is necessary to penetrate behind the coded language and to recognize a series of myths which serve to cloak a far more unpleasant reality.

A realignment of economic interests in Zimbabwe is fueling broad-based demands for an open, democratic, multiparty society. The shift in alignment comes as a result of the ruling party’s failure to meet the needs and expectations of the majority of Zimbabweans in the eleven years since independence. Under the leadership of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), headed by President Robert Mugabe, the government adopted socialism guided by Marxist-Leninist principles as its ideological philosophy. The socialist agenda, coupled with cumbersome, centralized decision-making by a bloated bureaucracy, discouraged domestic and foreign investment and stymied employment growth.

There is no consensus among students and politicals, particularly in Africa, on the importance of efforts to obtain political and organizational unity in Africa and the role of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). (See Duffy and Manners 1961.) Some scholars follow K. Nkrumah's (1963) views that the continent will he unable not only to rid itself of backwardness, but it will not even be able to live in freedom and peacefully coexist with other nations without unity, considered by them to be a precondition to putting an end to colonialism and imperialism on its territory. Others stress that as in other parts of the world the conditions are not ripe for the realization of this end, and even not for larger cooperation and coordination, and that in Africa, above all, there is only room for limited frameworks between the different sovereign states. However, the latter—according to this approach—may contribute with time to greater partnership and, in spite of differing interests, develop into an important subsystem in international relations (Dekkers 1964, McKay 1963) free from subordination (compare Zartman 1967, P. 545 and Rivkin 1963). Some consider the OAU as absolutely helpless, stressing its failure even to prevent the United Kingdom's open decision of July 1970 on arms supplies to South Africa. Others stress that this decision is, above all, a result of U.N. weakness. Accordingly this has nothing to do with the prospect of the OAU's becoming an important factor in the international arena (Burke 1964).

The major services afforded by local authorities in Kenya are primary education, health, housing, roads and water supplies. Local authorities finance these services from taxes (graduated personal tax, land rates and cesses), school fees, other fees and charges, and government grants. Significant variation in per capita government services in urban and rural areas and the difference in the relative importance of revenue sources of Municipal and County Councils are the dominant features of the expenditure and revenue systems of local authorities in Kenya.

Municipalities spent L8.8 million in 1966 as compared to Lll million spent by County Councils in Kenya. However, more than 90 percent of Kenya's population live in rural areas. The per capita expenditures of Municipalities are more than ten times higher than the per capita expenditures of County Councils. It would be expected that per capita local government expenditures would be higher in Municipalities because per capita government expenditures are directly related to population density and Municipalities have a greater variety of services to provide. The wide variations that exist in per capita expenditures of Municipalities and County Councils in Kenya may reflect also the difference in the fiscal abilities of these major local authorities.

County Councils in Kenya have only one major tax source, the graduated personal tax, and derive only 29 per cent of their revenue from taxes. Municipalities, on the other hand, collect 55 per cent of their revenue from taxes and have two major tax sources, graduated personal tax and land rates (taxes levied on the site value of land).

This paper is designed to explore the theory which relates the one-party state ideology to the class conditions prevalent in African societies. It is not my intention to argue against the one-party state and for the multiparty system because the latter seems inappropriate for Africa at its present stage of development. This article is an attempt to analyze critically one aspect of the African one-party state ideology rather than to evaluate the whole doctrine that only one-party states can lead African states toward rapid development and national unity.

Many African leaders defend the one-party system on the Marxist ground that political parties are part of the political-social super-structure which articulates basic economic class interests. They argue that there are no distinct economic classes in Africa and that, therefore, there is no justification for the existence of more than one party. Multipartyism in Europe, the United States, and even such developing countries as India is regarded as an outgrowth of class struggles which took place in the past and continue today.

African leaders suggest that in Africa there never were classes in the Marxist sense nor do they exist today. The Nigerian priest B. Onuoha states: “The idea of social classes, of a closed group, whose privilege it was to enjoy the best of everything and an underprivileged group for whom anything was good enough is foreign to Africa” (Onuoha 1965, p. 34). Most African leaders agree with him. Even the General Federation of African Trade Unions, which would presumably represent a specific working-class interest, declares that there is no class differentiation in Africa and that there are no large discrepancies between the living standards of Africa's major social groups (Friedland and Rosberg 1964, p. 22).

Barack Obama's election was an extraordinary event in American and world history, but already in his second year as president, the luster and the popularity of the Obama administration has faded, even among many who mobilized to elect him. In addition to righting two wars, Obama is attempting to fix a broken health care system in the context of a nationally contentious electorate and Congress. He also is coping with a mounting debt burden from seeking to recover from an economic collapse and public anger at an environmental disaster of mega proportions, requiring him to rein in the banks and corporations that were unleashed from public regulation during the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton years. In addition, he is commander-in-chief of the U.S. military and its rapidly expanding U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).

This was an administration elected on “hope for change.” Indeed, Obama's election raised expectations across the U.S. and throughout Africa that a man of African heritage, indeed a global person, could be and had been elected. This quintessentially optimistic, intelligent, and gifted American is the product of a Kenyan father and an internationally engaged mother, a multicultural childhood, and a global education as graduate of a private secondary school and elite American universities, and he has been pinned simultaneously with American, biracial, African American, African, and even global identities (see Zeleza 2009).

It is something of an understatement to say that the historiography of Islam in Africa came of age during the period 1960-1970. Looking back on this decade of active scholarship, and contrasting it with a previous era of “darkness” (a sort of jāhiliyya, at least for Western scholars), one cannot help but be astonished by the comparison. Before 1960 there were no university centers devoted to the study of Islam in Africa; there was only a handful of scholars fully engaged in Islamic studies, and of these very few trained in the historical discipline. With such a serious shortage of trained scholars, it is not surprising to note the absence of suitable historical monographs pertaining to the history of Islam in Africa.

The last decade has told a rather different story. Several prominent centers of African studies have been established, and while a serious shortage of Arabist-historians continues, it is encouraging to note that each of these centers has placed high priority upon the acquisition of scholars in African Islamic studies. Importantly, to stand Professor Trevor-Roper's argument on its head, it is no longer possible to speak of the “unrewarding gyrations of barbarous” Islamic peoples “in picturesque but irrelevant corners of the globe.” The good Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford has had to consume much humble pie over this unfortunate statement, and it is not intended here to cram his palate much further. Suffice it to say, however, that the Jāhiliyya has always been an area of rewarding research, and despite Trevor-Roper, even “darkness” is a subject of legitimate historical study.

The African writer has been very much influenced by politics, probably because the African intellectual is a part of the political elite. The writer is a sensitive point within his society. Thus, African literature has tended to reflect the political phases on the continent. Chinua Achebe is a very suitable example. Beginning during the colonial days his writing spans the succession of political crises which has beset Nigeria. Also, more than any other Nigerian writer, he has made statements on the role of the writer in his society. His conception of the writer's duty has also tended to change with the political situation in his country. By examining both his creative writing and his pronouncements, we can obtain an interesting picture of how the quality of a literature can be directly influenced by the degree of the writer's political commitment.

Achebe's first statement on the social responsibility of the African writer was made in a lecture entitled “The Role of the Writer in a New Nation,” delivered to the Nigerian Library Association in 1964. Although he had cast the title of his lecture in rather general terms, Achebe talked specifically about the role of the writer in what he called the new Nigeria. The major problem all over the world, he said, was the debate between white and black over black humanity, a subject which presented the African writer with a great challenge:

In Sub-Saharan Africa there has been a steady rate of urbanization. First, there are the large burgeoning cities which are in most cases industrial, commercial and administrative centers with a population ranging between 500,000 to 3,000,000 or more. Second, there are cities with populations between 100,000 and 500,000. Some have industrial, commercial and administrative activities. Third, there are medium sized towns with a populations between 20,000 and 100,000. Some are district or provincial centers. Fourth, there are small sized towns with populations below 20,000 which are dotted in the countryside.

In terms of urban studies, the first and second categories usually attract the attention of scholars (Mabogunje 1980; 1968; Coquery-Vidrovich 1991; Okafor 1988, 253-63). The third and fourth categories are left out as being insignificant in terms of urbanization, population size, commercial activity and administrative importance. They are lowly rated in terms of importance to urban studies.

Although they vary in size and population, small- and medium-sized towns play similar and crucial roles in the economic, social and political development of the areas in which they are located. They serve as links between the urban centers and the rural countryside. They also act as centers of innovation and diffusion of ideas from the urban areas to the countryside and vice-versa. From the urban point of view, small- and medium-sized towns are seen and treated as forward bases for the domination of the countryside. In the rural view, they are seen and treated as either markets or distribution centers at which the produce of rural areas are collected, marketed and absorbed in the local, regional or export market economy. In short, they are seen as points at which capitalist and peasant economies meet and co-exist.

Contemporary critics of Portugal's presence in Africa charge that economic exploitation is the basis of Portuguese colonialism. They often emphasize, to the exclusion of other factors, economic reasons for Portugal's past and present stake in the tropics. These arguments contrast the actual and potential mineral wealth, agricultural produce, and abundant sources of hydroelectric power in Angola and Mozambique with the lack of them in Portugal. The Portuguese goal is often characterized as making the African dominions yield a profit on investments, furnish raw materials, and provide protected markets for metropolitan industries (Hance 1967, p. 23). In a recent issue of Africa Today, Jennifer Davis concluded that “the prospects for profit are exciting. Small wonder that the Portuguese want to keep their colonies now” (1970, p. 6). John Gellner, in a special to the Toronto Globe and Mail (1971), wrote: “Thus the strategic aim of the Portuguese is to hold what is worth holding.…Angola is a very rich country.”

African revolutionaries and their sympathizers reiterate these economic explanations of Portuguese behavior in a steady stream of books, pamphlets, and leaflets. Marxist in outlook, the authors couch their analysis of Portugal's colonial motives almost exclusively in economic terms. With the exception of revolutionary leaders such as Amilcar Cabral and Eduardo Mondlane, who identified other reasons for Portugal's retention of African colonies, many of those favorable to African liberation emphasize the economic rationale for Portuguese colonialism. (For representative accounts, see Chaliand 1969, pp. 5-12; Dependency…, pp. 3-6; Davidson 1969, pp. 25-28.)

Obama’s rise to the U.S. presidency in 2008 gave many supporters of Africa the false hope that U.S. policy toward Africa would become more progressive. When such a shift failed to transpire, advocates argued that the major economic crisis in the U.S. monopolized the president’s attention and that his second term would create new opportunities for the continent. These claims failed to take into account the deep-rooted U.S. interests that dominate Africa policy with or without Obama. In addition, most of the Africa advocates have ignored the influence of the new breed of African Americans who staff key positions in the Department of State and whose priority is their own careers rather than a just policy toward the continent. Finally, most African leaders have not advocated for African interests and instead have pursued their particularistic agendas, leaving Africa vulnerable. Given this context, it is unlikely that Obama’s second term will introduce an Africa-friendly policy.

After gaining their independence, African countries followed various industrialization policies. Kenya and Tanzania, up to the Arusha Declaration in February 1967, pursued industrialization via private enterprises. Uganda and Nigeria followed a mixed pattern, that is, investments by both private and public enterprises; Ghana, since 1961 and up to the coup in February 1966 by the National Liberation Council (NLC) that ousted Nkrumah, relied primarily on public-enterprise investment (see also Grayson 1970, 1971ab, 1972).

Ghana started out along the Kenya and pre-Arusha Tanzania pattern, both before independence, with Nkrumah already in power, and after independence (in 1957) up till 1961. During that period Nkrumah set out to create an investment climate favorable to both private foreign and local capital. It was only after 1961 that Nkrumah embarked on large-scale public investments in manufacturing. (For an account of the political climate in the early 1960's, see Genoud 1969.) Aside from ideological leanings and a desire for prestige, the main economic considerations motivating Nkrumah were (1) his judgment that Ghanaian entrepreneurs were unable or unwilling to enter the modern manufacturing sector and (2) to break the economic power of the large foreign firms operating in Ghana.

This paper illuminates the marginalization or absenting of the female from transformational processes in Nigeria evident in male-authored works, specifically the novel. This has engendered the woman writer’s creative response to the need for consciousness raising towards female capabilities, by redefining the female as an achiever in multiple transformational spaces—cultural, social, economic, educational, political. The paper argues that literature has played and is still playing a major role in female consciousness raising towards the transformation of Nigerian society.

Consciousness denotes awareness. Thus, to be conscious is to attain a state of awareness. Given that “the locus of consciousness [is] the psyche,” consciousness raising should re-educate and re-structure the psyche towards a growing awareness. Transformation connotes change in all spheres of life—the cultural, social, economic, educational, political, etc.