In: The journal of modern African studies: a quarterly survey of politics, economics & related topics in contemporary Africa, Band 53, Heft 3, S. 415-450
This paper explores reactions to election results in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana from the perspectives of the politics of belonging debates – the distinction citizens of the same nation-state make between those who belong and those who belong less in one of Ghana's highly competitive electoral regions. It argues that multi-party democracy has intensified or given rise to social and political tensions or conflicts in some local communities rather than enhance democratic ideals and peaceful coexistence
This article examines the transboundary water challenges among riparian states in and around the Nile river basin. The article argues in agreement with the Collier-Hoeffler conflict model (1998) which claims that Africa's natural endowments, such as diamonds, gold, copper, bauxite, and oil, are strong predictors of violent conflict in Africa. This article further posits that these natural economic endowments, such as natural resources and geographical locations which include the Nile river basin, are potential triggers of conflict in the horn of Africa.
This study attempts to understand the choices made by Muslim political leaders in general, and after independence in particular. Muslim leadership has been broadly classified into two categories based on their respective agendas. This paper looks critically at the choices made by Muslim leaders, as well as some state concessions that could have contributed to growing Islamic fundamentalism. It finally suggests some measures to the current problems of (North and East) Muslims: socio-economic concessions and local power-sharing.
On March 23, 1849, Henry Brown climbed into a large wooden postal crate and was mailed from slavery in Richmond, Virginia, to freedom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. "Box Brown," as he came to be known after this astounding feat, went on to carve out a career as an abolitionist speaker, actor, magician, hypnotist, and even faith healer, traveling the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada until his death in 1897.The Many Resurrections of Henry Box Brown is the first book to show how subversive performances were woven into Brown's entire life, from his early days practicing magic in Virginia while enslaved, to his last shows in Canada and England in the 1890s. It recovers forgotten elements of Brown's history to illustrate the ways he made himself a spectacle on abolitionist lecture circuits via outlandish performances, and then fell off these circuits and went on to reinvent himself again and again. Brown's stunts included creating a moving panoramic picture show about his escape; parading through the streets dressed as a "Savage Indian" or "African Prince"; convincing hypnotized individuals that they were sheep who would gobble down raw cabbage; performing magic, dark seances, and ventriloquism; and even climbing back into his "original" box to jump out of it on stage.In this study, Martha J. Cutter analyzes contemporary resurrections of Brown's persona by leading poets, writers, and visual artists. Both in Brown's time and in ours, stories were created, invented, and embellished about Brown, continuing to recreate his intriguing, albeit fragmentary and elusive, story. The Many Resurrections of Henry Box Brown fosters a new understanding not only of Brown's life but of modern Black performance art that provocatively dramatizes the unfinished work of African American freedom
The state of community life in general, and of education in particular, in Africa south of the Sahara (henceforth also referred to as the sub-continent) seems to indicate that Africans have failed somewhat in their efforts to provide for themselves lives of good quality. Malala's (1) complaint that the African century has failed to dawn can be ascribed inter alia to the fact that sub-continental Africans seem not to have mastered the art of peaceful coexistence. (2) Life in this part of the world has for decades now been characterized by wars, violence, soaring crime rates and delinquent behavior, also in the more subtle forms of sexism, xenophobia, selfishness, collapse of family life, a growing gap between the rich and the poor, corruption and racism. (3) Such conditions are detrimental to the quality of personal and communal life. (4) Similar conditions prevail in schools. In many areas, life in schools has been characterized by violence, destruction of property, laziness, a lack of punctuality, weak performance, learner and teacher delinquency and self-centredness--in brief, by a general lack of moral literacy. (5) This portrayal of life on the sub-continent does not sit well with the precepts of the traditional African philosophy of life known as Ubuntu (in the Nguni languages; Botho in the Sotho languages, Hunhu in Shona, Bisoite in Lingala-Baluba, Ujamaa in Kiswahili, Harambee in Kenya). (6) According to Ubuntu, a person is who s/he is only because of the existence of others and because of his/her coexistence with them. If this is indeed the world-view according to which the people of the sub-continent live, why do we then find the inhabitants of the Sudan, Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Western Sahara, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Guinea-Bissau (to mention only a few of the hotspots) to seemingly have lost sight of this sentiment? Why has Ubuntu failed to inspire the people of the sub-continent towards peaceful coexistence and democracy? Failure to live according to the precepts of Ubuntu constitutes a threat to the freedom of the people. (7) Similar perpetrations also occur in other parts of the world. They are a function of how the respective life-views impact on people, their morality and their behavior. Unfortunately, we have to confine our attention to the situation in Africa. It is not the purpose of this article to harp on the negative conditions prevailing on the sub-continent or on the perceived failure of its inhabitants to live according to the tenets of Ubuntu. Neither is its purpose to once again proclaim the already well-known virtues of Ubuntu as a potential contributor to enhanced quality of life. Instead, the purpose of this paper is to consider the possibility of Ubuntugogy being a more suitable approach for sub-Saharan Africa than typical Western-style colonial education. While having borrowed the term 'Ubuntugogy' from Bangura, (8) I shall follow his lead only partially. I shall argue that two sets of changes have to be made to render Ubuntugogy more amenable to the demands of the modem, globalized, urbanized and industrialized circumstances on the African subcontinent. Firstly, Ubuntu, that is the life-view that forms the sub-stratum of Ubuntugogy, has to be updated, modernized or reconstructed to put it more in line with the demands of 21st century life. Secondly, while the notion of Ubuntugogy in itself remains attractive as a return to the classic past of Africa, it also needs filling with more appropriate content. It needs a global format to be able to address the needs of modern sub-continental Africans. (9) Because of their traditional tribal limitations, a simple return to Ubuntu and Ubuntugogy will not pass muster in modern African societies. Pedagogical input from the northern hemisphere has to be included in the new approach. Ubuntu and Ubuntugogy also need filling with new moral content. … ; https://www.questia.com/library/p62095/journal-of-third-world-studies
Bibliography: leaves 74-78. ; With the ending of the apartheid regime and the transition to power of a government of national unity, South Africa is now a legitimate member of the international community. It has joined the Organisation of African Unity, the British Commonwealth, and the Southern African Development Community, and it is busily fostering trade links with Europe, North America, the Far East, and Latin America. Its diplomats have worked to mediate conflicts in Angola and Mozambique, and its president is widely seen as an international statesman and a moral leader of almost unprecedented repute. Yet the new· government continues to operate within South Africa's traditional international paradigm and has not yet developed a unique global role that reflects the country's internal "negotiated revolution". As a result, substantial challenges face efforts to forge a new south African approach to the world. From outside the country, forces unleashed by the fall of communism and the rise of a truly global marketplace mark a volatile and uncertain transition in world history. From the inside, political transition has sparked a redefinition of what it means to be South African, but this has not been reflected in new policies. The Foreign Ministry is widely recognised as a bastion of old-guard stalwarts; the ANC and NP have done little to reconcile their past international experiences; and. the information flow on international political and economic trends has barely improved since April 1994, leaving interest groups and private citizens in the new democracy generally uninformed and therefore unable to help pressure policy. The result is a foreign policy over the past year that has had little vision and few cohesive threads, and has left a score of unresolved issues. The 'new' South Africa's relations with Cuba and China, its policies on illegal immigration, and regional development plans are all issues that require visionary, decisive leadership but for which none has yet been provided. What energy or vision, for example, has South Africa brought to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) since it joined last August? In the global peacekeeping debate, and again with Cuba and China, South Africa has made little effort to recognise more pro-active roles for which it is well equipped. Why is it not asserting itself? Who actually is in charge of its foreign policy? Few thus would deny that a paralysis has settled in on South African foreign policy. A recent analysis in the Weekly Mail lamented, "We are not consistent. We have not formulated clear principles. The formulators of our foreign policy do not consult with the people. The new appointments to our foreign ministry complain of being sidelined. There is no clear break with the past". At the core of this inaction is the fact that policy makers have failed to reconceptualise the way international issues are seen and policy is made. The world has changed and South Africa has changed, both dramatically; yet Cold War debates still divide the policy framework, old style security thinking still dominates higher ranks, and most importantly, the growing inter linkages between domestic and foreign policies in a post-Cold War world have gone largely unheeded. It is thus appropriate to sound a note of urgency: change and uncertainty in the world and dramatic transformation at home combine to make this an inopportune, even dangerous, time to have a directionless foreign policy. The broad purpose· of this paper is to identify the salient external and internal factors that will drive a new South African approach to the world. The first chapter presents a synthesis of dominant global trends, and sets them against the backdrop of major structural changes in international relations. The second chapter discusses change in South Africa in relation to world changes, new state objectives and shifting interest groups, and considers these implications for three major foreign policy areas. The third chapter looks at the policy framework and the ability of policy makers to conceptualise these dual changes and to formulate effective policies. The final chapter offers a 'road map' of policy options towards a true postapartheid, post-Cold War foreign policy.
"This book asks how governments in Africa can use evidence to improve their policies and programmes, and ultimately, to achieve positive change for their citizens. Looking at different evidence sources across a range of contexts, the book brings policy makers and researchers together to uncover what does and doesn't work and why. Case studies are drawn from 5 countries and the ECOWAS (west African) region, and a range of sectors from education, wildlife, sanitation, through to government procurement processes. The book is supported by a range of policy briefs and videos intended to be both practical and critically rigorous. The book uses evidence sources such as evaluations, research synthesis or citizen engagement, to show how these cases succeeded in informing policy and practice. The voices of policy makers are key to the book, ensuring that the examples deployed are useful to practitioners and researchers alike. This innovative book will be perfect for policy-makers, practitioners in government and civil society, and researchers and academics with an interest in how evidence can be used to support policy making in Africa"--
Studies race, especially the white race, in relation to working-class politics. The works of Alexander Saxton, The Rise and Fall of the White Republic (1990), David Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness (1991), & Theodore Allen, How the Irish Became White, study whiteness with class struggle to try to explain why some act in the interest of race rather than class. While Eric Arnesen's rejection of the whiteness issue in class politics is critiqued, neither Saxton nor Roediger adequately explains why a non-property-holding white is motivated to support racism. Allen provides a more careful explanation of racial oppression as allowing the most degraded member of the privileged group to be above any member of the oppressed group; documents the rise of racism to the colonial period; provides a materialist explanation; & attributes white privilege as the main reason for the failure of the working class to accept socialism. While many African Americans have broken the color line, there is a growing oppression & marginalization of much of the black population. L. A. Hoffman, 15 References. Adapted from the source document.
As part of an increasing international trend highlighting the 'singularity' of the subject of study and arguing that so-called universal theories of society and culture do not fit, communications have been increasingly conceptualised in terms like 'Asian', 'African' and 'Islamic'. Some researchers have been eager to play up difference between Eastern and Western value systems and experience. Wider considerations and contexts are usually brushed aside to pave the way for a singular 'culturalist' explanation of the media in the global South, and in particular the Middle East. By examining the Iranian media, and the interaction between state ideology and the logic of capital, this article suggests that there is no possibility of a particular theory of communication. The reappearance of the sacred has prompted a number of scholars to question the conventional sociological wisdom that 'Athens has nothing to do with Jerusalem'. This return does not indicate the passing of the world that Sociology wanted to understand. In Iran, as elsewhere, much of state's political legitimacy rests on its use of force as the ultimate sanction. The struggle over the monopoly of the means of symbolic violence, namely the attempted Islamicisation of the media, is increasingly important and cannot be separated from the former. States, as the case of Iran demonstrates, are seldom abstract or singular and have many contradictory institutions and units, and individual and institutional differences, policies and interests. The Iranian communication scene is peculiar in that liberalisation and privatisation are the order of the day, but the state is still reluctant to give up ideological control and is thus caught between the web of pragmatism and the imperative of the market, and the straightjacket of 'Islamism'.
"This book calls for an equitable and qualitative access to education for all. It proposes paradigms of educational governance that are based on coalition building between key stakeholders, are grounded in local and cultural contexts, sensitive to the language needs of communities. It underlines the significance of gender sensitive and inclusive approaches that ensure equity for marginalized children and minorities. Based on research-based studies, the volume focuses on equity, quality, and learning - covering a broad spectrum, from school to higher, to adult education. It discusses the multiple learner deprivations amongst the marginalized communities and the severe impact of events such as pandemics that exacerbate learner inequities and the recent developments in India under the National Education Policy 2020. It also presents research-based country experiences in the Asian (India, Bangladesh, China) and African (Ghana, South Africa) contexts, showing how external influences on the changing priorities in policy perspectives cut across developing countries. Compiled in honour of Professor R. Govinda, this volume of insightful articles will be of interest to students and researchers of educational policy and studies, sociology of education, equity and human rights. It will also be useful for decision makers and think tanks"--
"George M. Houser (1916-2015) was one of the most important civil rights and antiwar activists of the twentieth century. A draft resister during World War II who went to prison for his refusal to register for the draft, in 1942 Houser cofounded and led the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), whose embrace of nonviolent protest strategies and tactics characterized the modern American Civil Rights Movement. Beginning in the 1950s, Houser played a critical role in pan-Africanist anti-colonial movements and his over thirty-year dedication to the cause of human rights and self-determination helped prepare the ground for the toppling of the South African apartheid regime. Throughout his life, Houser shunned publicity, preferring to let his actions speak his faith. Sheila Collins's well-researched biography recounts the events that informed Houser's life of activism--from his childhood experiences as the son of missionaries in the Philippines to his early grounding in the Social Gospel and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. In light of the corruption the U.S. and the world face today, Houser's story of faith and decisive action for human rights and social justice is one for our time"--
This book attempts to make a non-Stalinist Marxist analysis of South African political economy. For this purpose, it begins with a discussion of theories of racial discrimination and outlines the theory informing this book. It then provides a brief history relevant to the theory. Chapters on the nature of capital in South Africa and then on the nature of labour follow. These chapters are succeeded by one which deals with the programmes of political parties as well as the forms of change proposed and introduced by the state. The position of South Africa in the world economy follows and the last two chapters discuss the question of consciousness and alternative strategies for change. The thesis put forward is that the peculiar social relations of South Africa are to be understood as a twentieth century solution to the capital/worker relation. (DÜI-Hff)
The selection of the Democratic presidential candidate in the first half of 2008 was in some respects more important than the general election in November: It was almost certain that the winner of the Democratic contest would be elected next U.S. President, too. And for the first time in U.S. history this would be a woman or an African-American. Although Hillary Clinton was the frontrunner in the invisible primary all over 2007, in the end Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination. Besides his many skills & good fortune Obama proved to be more comfortable with his identity than Clinton was with hers. White racism no longer a hurdle, Obama overcame the much more dangerous "racism in the heads" of an older generation of black politicians & ministers with his successful campaign. Clinton, on the other hand, seemed to be a prisoner of sexist perceptions that the American society, the media & even her own campaign cultivated of her as a women's libber, a legacy problem acquired as First Lady. Only in a few rare moments she managed to escape this role attribution. But her "masculine-gendered campaign" reinforced this stereotype & antagonized many of the Democratic superdelegates who united behind Obama. Adapted from the source document.