[Windhoek, 1977]…fellow-workers…the weak point we have [to remedy] in order to change the system is unity and co-operation. And we must not distinguish whether some workers are sleeping in a compound and some are staying in the single quarters and some in the so-called locations. All of us who are exploited, we blacks, we must know that we are all workers. We workers want to be in unity. We workers in Namibia, we want to unite. It doesn't matter what kind of work he is doing, each and every worker should come into that union. After such unity and co-operation have been established, it is only then that it will be possible to campaign for better working conditions, for higher wages and to embark on any other action which will change the working conditions.

Without political freedom there can be no cultural freedom; a programme of cultural emancipation is dependent, therefore, on national liberation, and one would like to believe that this ‘therefore’ influenced the determination by the American Society of African Culture to focus more sharply not only on cultural exchanges but on the political battle for the mind of southern Africa. This fourth international conference, held at Howard University under the title ‘Southern Africa in Transition’, was ‘aimed at focusing widespread attention on the complex and difficult problems being faced by those struggling for freedom in this troubled area’. It was attended by an impressive group of Afro-American, white American, and European Africanists, together with African leaders of countries from the Congo to the Cape.

Discussion of industrial activity in capitalist Third-World countries has usually centred on a series of dualistic frameworks, most recently the opposition between the so-called ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ sectors of an economy. Such dichotomies attempt to divide the activities of labour as cleanly as possible into two groups sharing common characteristics. The categories that emerge – modern/traditional, large/small-scale, formal/informal – overlap to a considerable degree because, in effect, they all attempt, with varying crudity, to compare the socio-economic characteristics of those dominant capitalist enterprises which are based on intensive capital, high-level technology, and a large scale of production, with those activities in the economy which are not based on such features. As such, the second category tends to have both negative and residual components.

Most analyses of the problems of collective production in Tanzania have focused upon the political, social, and cultural contexts within which attempts to establish that organisational mode took place.1 Economic dimensions have taken a central place, as well, but the primary concern here has been the socio-economic and the political-economic i.e. the influence of stratification and of the opposing interests of the various classes. That brand of conventional western (‘neo-classical’) economics which preoccupies itself with theoretical questions of individual behaviour and choice has played no real rôle in analysis and research. This fact can probably be attributed to two causes. First, given Tanzania's socialist orientation, and the impact which this has had upon the staffing and research interests of its University faculty, non-radical economics was held in low esteem by most researchers and writers working in Tanzania, particularly by those who concerned themselves with socialist development issues. Second, owing to the fact that western economics has traditionally offered ideological support to private enterprise, it could easily be assumed that this discipline would have nothing constructive to say about ujamaa.

On 22 October 1966, 393 students, all but 70 of them from the University College, demonstrated in Dar es Salaam against the Tanzania Government's proposals for National Service to be compulsory for students completing their education at Form VI level and above.1 Marching through the streets of the capital to show their disapproval, and carrying banners some of which read ‘Colonialism was Better’2 they were diverted to State House, where they had to deliver their ultimatum to the President, Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere, in person. Flanked by his Ministers, he listened to their demand that unless the terms of the National Service were changed they would not accept the scheme in spirit: ‘Let our bodies go, but our souls will remain outside the scheme’. In his reply, the President made it clear that he had no intention of forcing anyone into National Service against his will. But since these students were unwilling to serve the nation, they should be returned immediately to their parental homes. Whereupon the demonstrators were rounded up by waiting (and obviously prepared) police, finger-printed, and despatched under armed guards to their homes throughout the country.

The security services of every state are determined by two overlapping imperatives: a functional one flowing from actual or perceived threats to the country's safety, and a societal one stemming from the dominant ideologies, structures, and institutions prevailing within the state. Thus defence policy is not produced in a vacuum but in the context of a set of circumstances – historical and contemporary, external and domestic – which influence the policy-makers and their advisers. Decisions regarding the appropriate levels, patterns, and time-frame of security spending are not purely political, since they are also about the allocation of resources and about competing claims on public expenditure.

This symposium was organised by the Inter-African Committee on Linguistics—a committee of C.C.T.A. whose chairman is Professor M. Guthrie. It was planned to coincide with the second meeting of the Committee, which accepted responsibility for implementing the recommendations of the symposium after approval by member governments of C.C.T.A.

This U.N.E.S.C.O conference proved to be a most valuable complement to the Addis Ababa conference of May 1961, which had dealt with African education in general. Delegations attended from 31 countries, as well as observers from 13 non-African states and from international organisations and private foundations. Interest was concentrated mainly upon university development.

Stephen Ellis's response can be divided into two parts. One concerns my interpretation of the violence of rebel movements in Africa; the other relates to my misunderstanding of his position. With respect to the former, Ellis raises four objections. I will start with these.

I suggest that the recent furore over Gilley's article on colonialism raises at least three distinct issues both within academia and the wider space of public debate. The first concerns the category of ‘offence’, who can be offended and by what. The second concerns the nature of colonialism, its contemporary understanding and why that remains politically controversial. The third concerns possible continuities between certain aspects of colonial rule and current forms of Western intervention in Africa. In each case I make some very tentative suggestions as to why one journal article attracted so much attention and antagonism.