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A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa
... Ukolonia pervades most of the key development domains in post-colonial Africa, and is surpassed only by material greed among African non-statesmen. This is evident in the economic system and infrastructure where, after over a half a century of decolonization, African economic systems remain structurally colonial in that they focus largely on the commodities that were initially established by the colonial masters, and under an extractive system, rather than one that manufactures for both internal consumption and export (Ake 1981, French 2004, Kankwenda 2005. This is occurring in spite of the fact that many African states produce precious minerals, high-grade oil, and other highly valued products in different sectors (e.g., timber, cotton, coffee, and cocoa). ...
... If Africa is to reclaim its destiny and emerge from its "downward spiral" of missteps and misfortunes of the last fifty years or so (French 2004, Meredith 2005, Mkandawire 2005, the utilization of key African languages in public domains represents not only a major rectification in the development trajectory, but also invaluable tools towards its advancement (Bokamba 2007, Djité 2008, Owolabi 2011. The time to engage this process is now, and we, Africans alone, are its captains and navigators. ...
... DRC were funding the military engagements of local and foreign-backed militias in the country. Beginning in 1996 as a spillover of the Rwandan genocide, the Congo Wars-also known as "Africa's World War"-combined civil conflict with regional and international geopolitics, resulting in the deaths and displacement of millions of Congolese (French, 2004;Prunier, 2009;Renton et al., 2007). The fluctuation of tantalum prices has been found to directly contribute to the increase and decrease of violence in the DRC, particularly its eastern regions of North and South Kivu where most of the tantalum ore is artisanally mined (Smith & Mantz, 2006). ...
Research Summary
I explore the relationship of firm global strategy and global value chain (GVC) governance, within a context of expanding responsibility boundaries for unethical practices in the value chain. Specifically, focusing on the tantalum supply chain within the digital electronics GVC, I conduct a case‐based process study that contextualizes the different strategic responses of three manufacturers of tantalum capacitors when faced with similar efficiency, ethical, and institutional pressures. Integrating the GVC and global strategy literatures, I find that structural inertia in GVCs limits the efficacy of strategies that preserve, rather than alter, the governance structure, instead requiring a strategic restructuring carried out by individual firms, whose internalization of responsibility boundaries is encouraged by the institutionalization of these boundaries through public policy.
Managerial Summary
Unethical practices within global value chains are increasingly becoming the responsibility of firms with no direct control over such practices, leading to growing pressures for firms to alter their global strategies to meet social and institutional demands. Research has focused on strategies that preserve the structure of the value chain, despite questions about the efficacy of these approaches. By looking at the case of “conflict minerals” within the digital electronics value chain, this study finds that inherent flaws in value chain structures, which managers can identify, require individual firms to implement strategies that change the structure of the value chain, specifically by increasing ownership and control over the linkages where unethical practices occur and encouraging public policies that add value to these strategies.
... This trajectory unfolds at the expense of strengthening institutions of governance such as electoral and judicial reforms (Zinyama, 2011). In some countries, this has led to contestations that have degenerated to levels of anarchy as exemplified by the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Zairean 1996/7 strife (French, 2004), and recent conflicts playing out in South Sudan, Somalia, and the Tigray region of Ethiopia. This has led to civic outrages in the form of agitated civil protests and violent political altercations during and after elections as was the case in Uganda in 2020. ...
This article explores the impact of digital media on political campaigns towards disintermediated political communication in Africa. It highlights that, due to the proliferation of digital media, political communication processes have drastically shifted away from traditional formats to more adaptable and personalised platforms linked to digital citizenship. It further discusses the characterisation of African political campaigns and its impact on democratisation. Application of the Adaptive structuration and Media richness theories is employed to explicate the role of information technologies in facilitating societal change. The article argues that, disintermediation in political campaigns results from unfettered access to alternative means of information with potential to diminish the power of the “voice”; stimulate new forms of political consciousness; cultivate optimisation of political engagement and yield truism through verification of political information both pre and post elections. It concludes that digital media have radically changed how the electorate participate in African politics, meanwhile cascading its ability to empower citizens to redefine their sense of political space in a disintermediated environment.
... Former Serb officers like Colonel Dominic Yugo with close links to French intelligence services and French armament firms began to get increasingly involved in the Congo crisis (Venter, 2006). Yugo had also been accused of various war crimes during the Yugoslav Civil War as well as torturing and killing several civilians in the Congolese capital of Kisangani (French, 2004). This three-way network of former Yugoslav army officials, French mercenaries and Zairean government figures played an important role in procuring several large shipments of arms from Serbia while the French firms would provide funding channelled from lucrative contracts in Congo. ...
... The African suspicion directed at Westerners is a product of the association in the African mind between the West and colonialism. The gulf between Africa and the West is depicted in a book by French (2004), in which he details Western greed and betrayal of Africa and its people, and reprimands the West for deliberately looking away from the outbreak of horrifying violence on the continent. What Africans desire from Washington is more US involvement in resolving conflict and defeating poverty in their embattled continent. ...
After a two-day ultimatum demanding that Saddam Hussein step down, the United States attacked Iraq on March 19, 2003. The Iraq War generated a variety of emotions around the globe, particularly in the developing world. The sub-Saharan African press viewed it as a war without convincing legal or moral justification, perceiving it to be a tool used by the US to gain global economic, military, and strategic influence. Employing framing analysis, this study investigates how the sub-Saharan African press constructed a number of different social realities of the same war.
... 7 Howard French maintains that Western countries in any case had lost interest in Africa after the Cold War, and moved funding away from emerging African democracies to emerging Eastern European democracies. 8 This reluctance to be involved in African affairs is often blamed for the 1994 Rwandan genocide. 9 Cases on non-intervention continue to exist in Congo and Darfur. ...
This thesis examines the limitations of regional organizations and hegemonic
states in international peacekeeping and security. It seeks to explain that powerful
states intervene in the internal affairs of other states to further their national interests.
Due to the advantageous position that hegemonic states hold in relation to weaker
states, they elect to or act unilaterally if they did not want to take multilateral action.
As a result, they have been adept in using, or even disregarding, the United Nations
(UN) system to further their interests in the global system. The case of the South
African/ Southern African Development Community (SADC) military intervention in
Lesotho in 1998 forms the core of the study. In addition to the Lesotho case study, a
selected number of interventions are used to substantiate the main arguments of this
investigation.
The initial argument of this study is that South Africa’s strategic interests
motivated it to intervene in Lesotho, rather than for humanitarian reasons. South
Africa wanted to demonstrate its political dominance in the region. It also feared that
the deteriorating political situation in Lesotho would affect its supply of fresh water to
the Gauteng province. A stable Lesotho was also important to South African
interests. The actions of South Africa in the Lesotho crisis were a clear indication that
the country would do everything in its power to protect these interests. Most worrying,
both South Africa and the SADC, at the time, shared something in common, both
lacked reputable credentials as players in conflict prevention and peacemaking in
Southern Africa. South Africa, supported by Botswana and the SADC, failed to obtain
prior authorization from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as required by
Chapter VIII of the Charter, and did not consult the Organization of African Unity
(OAU), which did not encourage any form of intervention at the time. The SADC did
not have a legal mechanism for allowing interventions in member states.
The second argument of the study is that the primacy of hegemonic states and
regional organizations does not advance international peacekeeping and security.
Weaker and smaller states in the global system are at the bottom of the power
hierarchy, and always suffer at the hands of the more powerful states. Pure realist
interests motivate states to send troops to intervene militarily. Regional bodies, such as the SADC, are simply tools used by states to advance their foreign policy. The first
concern of states is not to maximize power, but to maintain their position in the
international system. Therefore, the task of maintaining global peace should not be
left to hegemonic states and regional organizations. Instead, the UNSC should have
the ultimate say on military interventions in different parts of the world. The
qualification of this argument is that there is a need to reform the UNSC. The P5
countries (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) make
decisions on behalf of the other 189 states. It is presumed that a reformed UNSC
would at least be representative enough to make resolutions that could be binding
and representative of all states.
Striking concerns arise from the analysis of interventions, both before and after
1990, in that strong states present themselves as “policemen” to monitor the
“unbecoming behaviors” of weaker states in the international system. Hegemonic
states find legal arguments to justify their interventions in weaker states. These
biased legal arguments in all cases would inevitably arise because in many instances
stronger states, whether individually or as a collective, motivate the interventions in
the UNSC. This makes UNSC authorizations to be as questionable as is the role and
intentions of powerful states in all interventions.
The UNSC delegates authority without specifying to whom. This allows any
state the right to undertake whatever acts it deems fit. This view condemns the role
of the UNSC to be an authority without accountability. For example, Britain and the
US invaded Iraq in 2003 because they wanted Saddam Hussein to comply with
previous resolutions. The two states were later accused of unilateralism, following
France’s strong opposition to the intervention. In 2011, Britain, France and the US
managed to reconcile their differences and joined together to bombard Libya. The
cases of Iraq and Libya demonstrate the UNSC’s inability to implement its decisions.
The roles of the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court create
endless disagreements among UN member states.
... Finally, somewhere in the middle of 1996, Rwandan officers, led by the DMI started to amass around 6,000 Banyamulenge and Banyarwanda soldiers, and others at the Rwanda-DRC border (Roessler & Verhoeven, 2015). It was also clear at this stage that a key strategic purpose for the invasion, and consequently the promise of return, was to dismantle the refugee camps and force a return of Rwandan refugees and genocidaires (French, 2005;Roessler & Verhoeven, 2015). ...
This article adds to debates in genocide studies on identity by analyzing Congolese Tutsi, or Banyamulenge, soldier narratives. It discusses this group’s identities and agency through the lens of the militarized generation of the 1990s. A conception of narrative identity is proposed that captures physical and relational networks as well as experiences of genocide. It examines fieldwork interviews conducted among former Banyamulenge soldiers and participants in the Alliance des Forces Démocratique pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL) and Rwandan Patriotic Army/Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPA/RPF). This narrative analysis uses open thematic coding to trace emplotment around three core themes: insecurity, marginalization, and destructive crises. In these narratives, genocide is conceptually utilized as a relational and discursive concept, and, therefore, permits an assessment of how participants understood and utilized the term. Doing so demonstrates the layering of victim and perpetrator identities, making a case for fluid identities in exposure to and with experiences of genocide. In the particular case of the Banyamulenge soldiers, they were active agents in the conflicts and events addressed in this article. Actors in genocide are agentic and engaged in the formation of fluid identity.
... The mass killing of refugees in then-Zaire's camps was known to, but simply not adequately reported on, by key Western media outlets (French, 2005;Lemarchand, 2005;Newbury, 2005), as well as being known to, but eliciting neither condemnation nor intervention by, key decision makers in the United States, European Union, and United Nations (Lemarchand, 2005;Newbury, 2005;Songolo, 2005) ... ...
Social work, as a professional degree, is largely modernist in orientation and often geared towards performing societal control functions, including the categorisation of, assessment for, and intervention in relation to, difference. It is also deeply entangled with the continued workings of coloniality, both in higher education and in welfare, development – including “humanitarian” – practice.
Considering Mbembe’s (2003) notion of necropolitics in conjunction with Gordon’s (2008) figure of ghosts and Braidotti’s (2013) arguments around the entanglement of life and death, this paper explores some of the ways in which new materialisms can support a critique of the “relationship of forces, which resist easy … applications of decoloniality and the incorporation of indigenous experience” in social work education. To this end, I draw on a study of different acts of subversion and resistance, performed by survivors of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and its aftermath, in the face of dominant discourses and practices within contemporary refugee governance regimes (Hölscher, Kanamugire & Udah, forthcoming). The latter can be shown to represent important continuities – from the eras of colonisation and colonial governance to the present – which persistently silence certain experiences, thus continuously recreating vast realms of subjugated, unspeakable, knowledges. In response, Hölscher, Kanamugire & Udah (forthcoming) contemplate, as a more affirmative alternative, a form of engagement that entails: questioning the notion of individual identities; operating in the awareness of the entanglement of space/time and life/death; and seeking to overcome the binaries of us/them, truth/lie, fact/fiction, deserving/undeserving, perpetrator/victim, and genuine/bogus refugee, that have traditionally shaped global refugee governance regimes. I conclude by drawing out key implications for a form of social work education that can claim to be both decolonial and socially just.
... C'est la phase de l'intolérance et de la désolation, estiment nombre d'observateurs nostalgiques de la guerre froide, celle-ci étant alors perçue comme la matrice pour l'analyse des grands problèmes politiques internationaux contemporains. Si hier on comptait sur les bonnes grâces de deux blocs (l'Ouest libéral et l'Est socialiste) en raison de leurs états d'âme dictés par la logique de la concurrence et la nécessité de préserver leurs zones d'influence respectives, rétablissement de l'équilibre sur la scène internationale (French, 2005). ...
Based on a documentary inquiry aimed at reconstructing the processes of denunciation of imperialism associated with the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD)’s war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), by the maï-maï militia of Maniema, the article examines under the lens of historical criticism (heuristic and hermeneutic) the politicoideological contents of the essential documents whose impact on the rural masses remains crucial: their over-politicization of the latter. The study shows how a political mobilization that initially targeted awareness-raising for the recruitment of new combatants among rural Congolese youths has reactivated the protesting reflex of the rural populations both towards the rebels and their Rwandan allies, and maï-maï combatants. The repeated abuses of the maï-maï militias have thus brought down the nationalist mask which their ideological propaganda maintained until then. The pervasive activism of youths and especially the emergence of radicalized groups confirm the thesis of political violence as an indicator of democratic deficiencies of a weakened state through processes of globalization badly assumed in the African Great Lakes area.
... Colin Legum (1999) concisely examines a number of key trends in Africa since independence. Journalistic portraits of the African continent are rendered by Mark Huband (2001) and by Howard W. French (2004), while Peter Schwab (2001) andGeorge B.N. Ayittey (2005) chiefly concern themselves with negative development trends. The relationship between politics, religion, and religious movements is explored by Jeff Haynes (1996). ...
... Kamkwamba & Mealer, 2010), but have yet to get a handle on the mechanisms of their emergence (Radjou, Prabhu, & Ahuja, 2012). We do not know why the rate of portfolio entrepreneurship in Africa is higher than research suggests is optimal (Economist, 2012), how local champions span multiple institutional voids (Berman, 2013), and how outside capital helps and hinders business growth (French, 2007), just to name a few (see Mol & Mellahi's commentary for further pointers). ...
This editorial complements Michael Mol and Kamel Mellahi's commentary on promising research directions by taking a look at opportunities and pitfalls in empirical research in and about Africa. It highlights some interesting examples of data sources that carry the potential to further theory of strategic management in general, an objective central to the proliferation of African empirics in mainstream theory journals. The Africa researcher has to, at least initially, jump through a number of extra hoops. To this end, ways are suggested in which the fascinating context of African business can make inroads into the international conversation on strategy.
... Some of these emerging publications appear to be a platform for relating the more emotional messages and often their authors' experienced sense of powerlessness or personal indignation in the course of their work activities. 202 , which conveys a more integrated view on the African situation over time than is often presented in mainstream media publications. French's more unique perspective of the continent concerns certain historical aspects, the current state of affairs, the impact of external influences, as well as Africa's internal problems and also hopeful perspectives for the future. ...
... Instead the short-hand explanations are converted into stereotypical notions that simplify the human con-dition with easy essentialist labels. Howard French, the former dean of Africa reporters for the New York Times and a passionate believer in the importance of representing African affairs as fully as possible, laments the fact that identity issues-by which he means that overused pigeon-hole known as ethnic conflict-are far more complex in reality than they are in news reports (French 2004). ...
US involvement in Africa is growing following threats of terrorism and interruptions in oil production and because of desires by foreign corporations to expand their activities on the continent. The response of American policymakers has been to establish a stronger military presence that will engage in counterterrorism initiatives and police oil installations. The goals and extent of this buildup, and the ideology legitimating it, are new. They are departures from Cold War policies. Similarly, the response of American business leaders to weaknesses in the infrastructure and political order of African states leads them to establish their own forms of community development, known as strategic philanthropy, in order to protect and expand local markets. Despite these major developments, the media are not informing the public. This article examines the implications of these military and business initiatives for African nations and the reasons for lack of information about them. Editor's Note: This article was delivered as the presidential address to the African Studies Association, New Orleans, 12 November 2004. It first appeared in the African Studies Review, Vol. 47, No. 5, April 2005:1–22, the principal scholarly journal of that Association. On the role of the US in Africa, also see Daniel Volman, ‘US Military Involvement in Africa’ and Michel Chossudovsky, ‘New Undeclared Arms Race: America's Agenda for Global Military Domination’ in ROAPE 103, March 2005.
In this edition of the ATLAS, Stake experts challenges the dominant assumptions on information, such as the central role of the internet as a “neutral” tool for information dissemination or the realist theoretical perception of states as sole players or power brokers in the information space. Instead, using specific perspectives and case studies from African scholars and practitioners, this volume points out a conflictual intersection of subjectivities in the information space, whereby information—and, therefore, perceived realities—is constructed through the intertwining of power dynamics, colonial legacies in framing African state actors, and struggles for legitimacy impose one’s subjective “truth” over others. Hence, although this volume acknowledges some structural representation surrounding key concepts such as access, reach, and dissemination of information, it does so from the standpoint of seeing them as necessary fuels and tools that conflictual intersections of subjectivities.
This research employs a decolonization framework to analyze how the Black Panther film (2018) portrays the narratives and life experiences of the Black diaspora culture. The paper also evaluates how the Black Panther film responds to the question of what it means to be Black in America amidst a global awareness that grapples with issues affecting modern-day Black existence. Using Cartier’s concept of “Future Texts,” this research examines experiences such as identity, culture, and language from the film in relation to communication resistance and decolonization within African and African American experiences. Thus, the research highlights the transformations that result from new media—Black Panther film. Offering a new perspective to cross-examine the Black diaspora media depictions and showcase new trends and achievements made by Black filmmakers and actors on screen, generally overlooked by the Eurocentric ideals dominant in Hollywood films. The research further examines how the scriptwriter and the film cast utilize aspects such as mode of dressing, cultural ceremonies, music, a diverse African language, complex identities, and the use of African names such as Nakia, Okoye, W’kabi, and Ramonda, and personal experiences as a counter-discourse to systematic racism and colonial frameworks. The Black Panther (2018) film's historical, current formation and continuous evolution created a revolutionary power with its avant-garde representations of blackness, African history and cultures, and anti-colonial dialogue as a counter-discourse to previous narratives about Africa, Africans, and African Americans.
This paper seeks to interrogate the processes of othering that takes place in Ghana, acountry with a long history of migrants from the region now known as Nigeria. Thepaper draws on Spivak's (1985) concept of othering and explores both the ways inwhich Ghanaians othering of Nigerians is made manifest as well as the ways in whichNigerians respond to these processes of othering. Ultimately, I argue that until bothGhanaians and Nigerians recognize othering as a problem worthy of redress, the fullimport of the ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement of Persons will be lost on thesetwo groups of West African citizens. For, while people can and do move across the 16borders of West Africa, they do not necessarily move freely. Migrants are oftenreminded of their status as the other even in a country where our founding fathersought to establish a strong sense of Pan African unity.
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/85327/1/scjustin.pdf
IGWEBUIKE: AN AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES VOL. 2. NO. 1
This article explores Achille Mbembe’s notion of necropolitics in conjunction with Avery Gordon’s figures of spectres and the haunting of ghosts. These concepts are applied to consider different acts of subversion and resistance, performed in the face of dominant discourses and practices in the realm of refugee governance, which work to silence certain experiences; and in the knowledge that breaking such silences can have deadly consequences. The article is constructed around a single case study, the story of a survivor of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and its aftermath. This story is contextualised historically to illuminate important continuities, from Rwanda’s colonisation and colonial governance to contemporary refugee governance regimes. It also highlights some of the particular ways in which women were affected by this history. Against the deadly and silencing effects of contemporary discourses and practices discussed, the article contemplates, following Rosi Braidotti, more affirmative alternatives. These entail questioning the notion of individual identities and being guided by an ethos of engagement, operating in the awareness of the entanglement of space and time, of life and death, and seeking to overcome the binaries of us/them, truth/lie, fact/fiction, deserving/undeserving, perpetrator/victim, and genuine/bogus refugee that have traditionally shaped global refugee governance regimes.
Nelson Mandela can be said to be the most celebrated leader so far to have emerged from the African continent. He has been variously written about in literary works and history books, differently presented in [auto] biographies and the mainstream media [newspapers and television], fictionalized and actualised in film, immortalised through art work such as painting and sculpture. In liberal-driven South African and Western media, Mandela is/was presented as a “messiah”, a superhuman character, a humanist, a philanthropist, and a persona who works as an ideal model for what should constitute modern African political leadership. Yet in some academic circles Mandela is viewed as “a terrorist-turned-politician” (Willcock 2013: 1), a political and ideological “construct” of the Western world; a framed “dramatis persona” by the Western media to project and deepen the colonialist agenda in Africa. This article seeks to theorise Mandela and in the process draw some justifications to the worthiness or the shallowness of labels attributed to Mandela as a symbolic figure that embodied the values of “Africanness” and “ubuntuism” or as an “African Cyborg” that was created and controlled by the Western world. The article also attempts to locate and expose to the surface the different layers of present day South African challenges ‒ which can be attributed to the legacy left by Mandela, but are often concealed by the ruling government under the carpet of “Rainbow Nation” and a blind celebration of “National reconciliation”.
On the twentieth anniversary of the “fall of the Berlin Wall,” the New York Times offered a richly illustrated and prominently displayed coverage of the event. The caption under the top slideshow read: “The Fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the beginning of the end of communism in Europe.”1 It is safe to assume that majority of the New York Times’ audience found the message comprehensible, credible, and authentic. Coupled with iconic pictures, the news could hardly fail to confirm what older readers believed they knew well and to provide the young ones with a properly dramatic glimpse into recent history.
In september 1876, in brussels, lÉopold II, king of the belgians, Convened a geographical conference of leading explorers of Africa and founded the Association Internationale Africaine (International African Association [AIA]) “for the avowed purpose of promoting the civilization and commerce of Africa.”1 King Léopold declared himself the sovereign of the Congo Free State (CFS) and the territory thus became, in effect, his private domain, until he bequeathed it to the Belgian state in August 1908. Between 1891 and 1912, one of the most devious and ruthless systems of economic exploitation through forced labor ever conceived was put in place by Léopold, with devastating consequences for the Congolese population. Léopold formulated a policy whereby nine-tenths of the Congo territory was declared “vacant” and thus became his personal property in his capacity as “sovereign” of the CFS. The king farmed out a large proportion of the total territory to private Belgian chartered Furthermore, the Congo’s predicament belies the argument of the “failed state” and “criminalization of the state” theorists, who vastly underestimate the responsibility of Western international, governmental, and nongovernmental agencies in this situation: “globalization has sustained the wars in Congo and other African governments played their part.”110
Since the Second World War the increase in armed conflicts and violations of human rights across the world has forced more and more people out of their homelands to seek safety elsewhere. In 2000, the UNHCR estimated that one in every 300 people across the world was a refugee1 (UNHCR, 2000). The most recent figures indicate that the overall world refugee population has decreased ever since to just under 10 million people at the beginning of 2005. However, estimates of internally displaced persons (IDPs) have reached an all time peak with the potential for more refugees across borders (UNHCR, 2006). Mass displacements of people and refugee crises seem to remain constant features in world affairs from decade to decade. This has fuelled emotionally charged social and political debates about refugee protection issues, especially in refugee receiving countries of the West. The media in these countries have been at the heart of these debates, often playing an ambiguous role, oscillating between sympathy and hostility towards refugees (Hayter, 2002; Harris, 2000). This chapter attempts to explore the root causes of this ambiguity. It takes a look at how Western media reporting about refugees interacts with the demands of the domestic news markets and end up fulfilling a self-serving role. There is a debate to be had here and the aim of this paper is more about raising the issues than providing the answers.
Economists generally agree that economic analysis constitutes a unique worldview, but there seems to be no consensus about the worldview itself. This paper attempts to outline a possible configuration of the worldview by proposing four fundamental insights of economics. The insights satisfy two criteria: they should be compatible with the mainstream of economics, and they should correspond to the daily experiences of the general public and be useful to them. The four insights can be represented by the numbers of 0, 1, and 2: (1) O > 0; (2) 1+1<2; (3) 1+1>2; (4) 0 ~ 0.
First, O > 0 means that man is rational and self-interested. Secondly, 1+1<2 suggests that whatever is, is not necessarily efficient, but there is a reason for it. Third, 1+1>2 argues that for something good to occur, the supporting conditions must be in place. Fourth, 0 ~ 0 implies that the meanings of something are fulfilled by other, relevant things. Abstractly speaking, the first insight is the starting point of economic analysis. The second and third insights represent respectively an unsatisfactory and a satisfactory situation; for either situation, economic analysis can try to advance an explanation. Finally, the fourth insight illustrates on the one hand the core concept of opportunity cost and on the other hand how meanings of things are determined in general. It also implies that given the status quo, a potentially better alternative can and should be looked for consciously.
JEL classification: A2, B0.
This study considers a number of questions regarding the structural characteristics of African Englishes exemplified in African creative writing, with a focus on such leading novelists as Achebe, Ngugi, Nwapa, and Okara. It explores the degree to which these writers reconstruct the English language in their writings to convey the African cultures represented in their works. A related issue is whether these texts demonstrate ‘trans-creations’ that still adhere to the standard varieties of English with appropriately encoded and limited Africanisms to capture African cultures. Another crucially important issue is whether the extensive use of English is detrimental to the vitality and creativity of African languages.
p>One of the major pedagogical challenges, for teachers at all levels and in all disciplines of the education system, is to acknowledge Africa’s presence in the evolution of world civilizations. Knowledge about the existence and evolution of African civilizations before European contact have been suppressed, distorted or erased from textbooks. Furthermore, only relatively recently have a number of historiographies on such topics as the internal, trans-Sahara and trans-Atlantic slave trades and slavery have begun to be produced in academia. Moreover, scholars have been slow to recognize the central role of Africa in disciplines such as economics, art, literature, science and music in the global currents of intellectual and philosophical thought. Hopefully, the voice, agency and self-representation of African/Black people have steadily emerged from the shadows in various forms of life writing, in addition to original research and publications across disciplines.
This paper and accompanying workshop for teacher educators is this author’s initiative to bring a historical consciousness to both a curricular and pedagogical need for engagement with the scholarship produced by African-descended peoples. My thesis is that various genres of life writing - memoirs, autobiographies and biographies - can enhance the learning and teaching about Africa and African descended peoples in such a way as to bring about a holistic understanding of the historical and institutional bases for their contemporary human condition, locally and globally.
Teacher educators who prepare language arts and social studies teachers for the public school system will find texts at various reading levels among the resources. Teachers of the humanities and social sciences at the tertiary level will have the opportunity to explore ways in which auto/biographies may enhance their learning and teaching.</p
This thesis examines the Women in Peacebuilding Program (WIPNET) of the West Africa
Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) and the Raging Grannies, two current women?s
movements at the frontlines of organizing for peace in their respective contexts. Based on
fieldwork in West Africa and North America, including participant observation, semi-structured
interviews, and content analysis of relevant documents, the thesis locates these groups within the
wider politics of both the feminist movement and the peace movement. The thesis draws on
three bodies of literature: feminist international relations, especially literature on women and war,
feminist analyses of security and the relationship between militarism and patriarchy; peace
studies, especially the concepts of the ?positive? and ?negative? peace, conflict transformation,
and nonviolence; and social movement theory, especially in reference to collective identity and
tactical repertoires of protest. The thesis investigates the relationship between ?women?,
?motherhood?, ?feminism? and peace, concluding that, while women peace activists may
organize around gendered identities, the relationship between women and peace is more complex
than an essentialist position would propose. A detailed analysis of the tactical repertoires used by
women peace activists examines activists? gendered use of bodies and the manipulation and
exploitation of gender and age stereotypes. This is followed by an analysis of the internal and
external outcomes of activism, such as personal empowerment, collective identity formation, and
policy impacts. The study concludes that women peace activists operate on understandings of
?peace? and ?security? that are distinct from those of mainstream actors; that they manipulate,
challenge, and subvert gender stereotypes; and they use a range of protest and peacebuilding
tactics, some of which attract reprisals from the state. Women?s peace activism also creates new
political opportunities for women to express opposition to patriarchal militarism, thus
challenging the marginalization of women within international and national politics on issues of
peace and security. Following Cynthia Cockburn (2007), the thesis draws conclusions not about
what women?s peace activism definitively is, but rather what it can look like and what it might
achieve.
The aim of this article is to explore the textual meanings of Mai Charamba's song, Africa, and Fungisai Zvakavapano's Hamheno anoramba. This article investigates how the music of the two female artists expresses the subject of land, in the context of liberation theology. We have purposefully sampled these two artists – first, because they sing about ownership of land and natural resources, which are themes that dominate current discourses in Zimbabwe and Africa. Second, we have especially considered the songs by the two female gospel singers because their songs have a special way of merging the subject of land with theological ideas anchored in the concept of African economic liberation. Third, we have taken a special interest in exploring music that talks about land – a theme often associated with male discourses about economic freedom in Zimbabwe. It is argued that the very fact that women are now singing about land means that the subject also preoccupies their creative imagination. What this points to is that it is no longer possible to discuss the land reform without taking into consideration women's ‘voices’ and their legal and constitutional rights to have access to land and other state resources.
Research analysing images of Africa in western travel literature from the nineteenth century is vast, but little commentary has been offered for the twentieth. While popular media such as cinema, television and the news have replaced travelogues as the predominant source of images about Africa in the west, over the past thirty years travelogues, now mostly written by American journalists, have become ‘authoritative’ sources offering western audiences in-depth observations about the continent. This article examines this recent body of literature to see if the images and tropes about Africa have changed over the past century. It concludes that, despite changes in perceptions towards Africa, many of the dark and subordinate tropes about Africa remain the same on account of prevailing western frameworks. This article suggests ways to resolve this persistent, negative pattern.
This article examines and critiques current scholarship on African genocide. It begins by considering the theoretical approaches to the study of genocide and outlines some of the pitfalls that should be avoided. The discussion then moves to an analysis of the work of Mahmood Mamdani25.
Mamdani , M. ( 2004 ). Beyond settler and native as political identities: Overcoming the political legacy of colonialism . Paper presented at the First Conference of Intellectuals from Africa and Diaspora, Dakar , 6 – 9 October 2004 . View all references, the highly respected Ugandan author who has written extensively on the genocides in Rwanda and in Darfur, Sudan. His two books Citizen and Subject (1996) and When Victims become Killers (2001) and his essays on Darfur have been extensively reviewed by African and international scholars and his work has gained considerable renown. This makes them useful sounding boards in an investigation of whether current genocide studies are theoretically sound. It is argued that certain theoretical flaws can be identified in Mahmood's work and that scholars of genocide can learn from these and other existing studies to improve our understanding of African genocide. Finally, the paper puts forward some suggestions on a historico-dialectical approach towards a better understanding of genocide in Africa.
'The Netherlands Yearbook on International Cooperation 2008' is a second of the series yearbooks. The Yearbook has as objectives: to stimulate and feed the scientific and political debate on the Dutch international cooperation; to offer opportunities for publication for researchers in the field of international cooperation; to stimulate young researchers to undertake research on Dutch international cooperation and to publish on MA and PhD research.
In the first part of the Yearbook, the Forum, articles are offered on the Dutch Africa policy, the Dutch debate on research and development, and on the conservative criticism of development assistance in the Netherlands.
In the second part, called Articles, the first three articles are focusing on private aid organisations in the Netherlands.. Not only the geographical distribution of Dutch private aid is analysed, but also the relations between Dutch NGOs and their Southern partners and their policies regarding enterprise development are discussed. Two articles analyse the situation in Chad and Darfur and the complex relation between security, development and humanitarian assistance.
The other two articles in this section discuss impact evaluation of development interventions and the support for citizens’ initiatives in development cooperation.
In the last section three overviews are presented of Dutch development cooperation, private aid organisations and business and development in 2007.
This article is a prelude to other articles in this issue that provide multiple interpretations of the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The article explores how history, travel writing, autobiographical accounts, media and philosophical perspectives can draw attention to the many ways in which the Rwandan genocide can be understood. While this interdisciplinary methodological approach may not claim to be exhaustive, it teases out some important works written so far on the subject matter of Rwandan genocide. Historical accounts provide insights into factors responsible for the genocide, while the genre of travel writing uses journalistic perspectives based on eye-witness accounts. Media perspectives use concepts of framing and salience in reporting the genocide while the autobiographical approach focuses on experiences of individuals who bore the brunt of genocide. Each of these approaches attempts to provide solutions to the methodological problems in analysing the Rwandan genocide.
In 1994 Rwanda experienced a devastating genocide in which nearly a million Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed by Hutu extremists. Written scholarly works explain the Rwandan genocide in historical terms. Academic work on media and the genocide tend to emphasise the role played by Radio-Television Libre Des Mille Collines (RTLM) and the newspaper Kangura in instigating the Rwandan genocide. A steady output of literature on the depiction of the genocide in film is emerging but it is fragmentary, and appears in journals that are not easily accessible. The little material research on the Rwandan genocide film does not pay sufficient attention to the stereotyped language of film and how these manifest themselves through verbal, visual, sound, colour and silence aspects which constitute the semiotic system of film. This article, therefore, explores how the Rwandan genocide is represented through the documentary films A good man in hell (2002) and Keepers of memory (2004), and the feature films Hotel Rwanda (2004) and Sometimes in April (2005). These films have been sampled first because they all focus on the Rwandan genocide; second because the films purport to approach the subject of the genocide from different perspectives. Film is an important medium for socialisation.
The 2010 World Cup in South Africa entailed a substantive volume and variety of media representations. However, many of these reinforced essentialist stereotypes. This article examines a selection of the reported discourse around this issue. To the extent that the content was evidently deemed fi t for publication, the discourse is "mediated", even though much is often verbatim from sources rather than subjected to specifi cally journalistic signifi cations. However, by being made manifest within the media, the discourse's assumptions are promoted uncritically in the public arena. As such, there is currency to simplistic notions of identity and race, and elisions between "South Africa" and "Africa". Assumptions of a uniform continent informed by "noble savage" imagery inform much of the discourse, with emphases on one or another aspect-while nevertheless remaining within a narrow paradigm. This creates a challenge for journalism to produce more complex representations that are less bounded by narrow ideological parameters. © 2010 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. © 2010 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.
Globalisation can hardly be said to have caused Africa's contemporary pre-dicaments. However, it is clear that it continues to exacerbate them by pos-ing diverse challenges to local and global governance and security. This pa-per demonstrates how the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), launched in 2003 to promote security and development, may be another hoax in Africa's search for appropriate development models, especially given the character and fall-outs of globalisation on the continent. It raises several critical questions regarding the relevance and practicality of the vision and mandate of NEPAD vis-à-vis Africa's innumerable security challenges. What, for instance, are the 'new' security challenges facing Africa in this age of globalisation, and how well equipped is NEPAD to addressing them? What are the key human security issues in Africa's developmental complexities, distinct from or similar to existent ones on regime and/or territorial security? What are the implications of globalisation in Africa's capacity to implement NEPAD's visions and priorities in the areas of security and development? In conclusion, the paper reveals that there is little hope that NEPAD would serve Africa's security needs better, whether it is now or in the future.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (the Congo) received its independence from Belgium on 30 June 1960. The Congo’s political development from the 1700s to 1960 resulted in a democratically elected Congolese administration that at the time of independence was unable to operate the national government or the economy. As a result, the Congo became a failing state within days of gaining independence. Beginning with King Leopold II’s reign over the Congo in 1885 and continuing under the administrations of President Joseph Mobutu, President Laurent Kabila, and President Joseph Kabila, successive Congolese administrations employed four governing practices that undermined the country’s stability. Congolese administrations relied upon foreign political support to retain power. They used private international companies to fulfill many security and economic functions. They manipulated ethnic differences within their populations to maintain control, and they used the state’s resources to increase their own personal wealth and power at the expense of the Congo’s larger social well being. These governing practices have both helped and thwarted international interventions into the Congo since 1960. Between 1960 and 2005, the United Nations, the international community, and various African states launched interventions into the Congo. The intervening entities used a combination of military, political, and economic means to stabilize the Congo. The interventions varied in their use of opportunities made available by the Congo’s state of political development. Examples of such opportunities included the widespread public support for democratic rule, the presence of a democratically elected administration, and the Congo’s dependence on foreign aid. Most of the interventions ignored existing opportunities to improve the stability of the Congo’s government and instead pursued the national interests of the intervening entities, often to the detriment of the larger Congolese population. Interventions into the Congo between 1960 and 2005 illustrate a number of characteristics of foreign interventions into failing states. First, the root causes of instability that necessitate an intervention are oftentimes rooted in the host country’s political development. The governing practices of successive Congolese governments undermined the country’s stability and necessitated international intervention. Secondly, competing national interests of the intervening entities can stand in the way of making meaningful reforms to the host nation’s government. Thirdly, steps to bring about stability in a failing country can take place despite the international intervention as opposed to because of it. The 1999 United Nations intervention coincided with several political, social, and military decisions that culminated in a transitional government of national unity. These decisions were largely independent of the United Nations intervention activities. Finally, interventions into the Congo demonstrate that the international community easily reaches consensus on the need to end violent conflict in a host country. However, it is difficult to reach international consensus on how to repair the national government once hostilities end.
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