Abebe Zegeye

Knowledge production and publishing in Africa

This article explores the practice of ‘knowledge production’ and ‘publishing’ in Africa. Knowledge production and publishing in Africa has been and still is dominated by Western experts, most of whose interests do not serve Africa. Powerful social groups in post-colonial Africa construct knowledge about Africa from the sites of universities. Ordinary people also produce knowledge, most of which is elaborated through unwritten forms, and actually contest dominant modes of knowing. Publishing in Africa ought to be controlled by Africans if African states are to realise the dream of an African renaissance. African governments ought to invest in knowledge production and publishing. African intellectuals with university education should work with ordinary African intellectuals to create new sites of knowledge. Knowledge production and publishing is not an ideologically neutral phenomenon. Therefore, African governments should create, and not thwart, conditions conducive to knowledge production and publishing that is self-interrogating.

Frantz Fanon and Steve Biko: Towards Liberation

(2001). Frantz Fanon and Steve Biko: Towards Liberation. Social Identities: Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 455-469.

Amulets and Dreams: War Youth and Change in Africa

The photographs strikingly illustrate African societies in which all aspects of ‘normality’ in daily life are violated. While exposing the dangers facing these children, the photographs question what will take the place of ‘abnormality’ in these societies. Above all, they make a powerful and provocative statement about the African condition today. Colonial rule created undemocratic institutions and stifled civil society. Education was the preserve of the elite. Access to resources and freedom for the poor remained a dream and war often was seen as the only means to force change. The colonial legacy denied newly independent states the vital components required in post-independence Africa: material resources, democratic institutions, and the ability of governments to redistribute wealth, to nurture peace and civil society, and to provide proper education. It is these shortcomings, this failure of Africa’s independence that has led to the unacceptable involvement of children in war. Shortly after independence, democratic reforms in Africa virtually came to a halt. The changeover was shaped by the regional politics of the continent in relation to the Cold War and the new elites’ close relations with either the West or the East. In many instances, authoritarianism took hold, resulting in monstrous repression, dependency and anarchy. Consequently, dependency flourished, resulting in a complete breakdown of the social order. Many governments in Africa appear to be incapable of, or unwilling to deliver change or to protect their citizens. Attempts to extend political participation to a greater number of people remains fraught with uncertainty. During the last half-century attempts to reform have failed. The endemic disorder that has emerged has affected the character of politics in Africa: the nature of what is seen as ‘political’ has been changed by war and violence. This, in turn, has resulted in altered political relations in which old alliances or animosities have been demolished. In this scenario, the all-embracing and intrusive state itself appears to be a problem rather than a solution, denying Africans the space to achieve their own solutions to political problems. Viewing children and youth as passive and incompetent has rendered them invisible and relegated them to dependent status within the family. Consequently, policy has focused on the ways in which the costs of children can be distributed between family and state, with a greater burden being placed on the former, thus further increasing its instability.

Between black and white: rethinking coloured identity

Stephen Greenblatt offers two models for the exhibition of works of art – resonance and wonder. Resonance, he argues, equates with the ‘power of the displayed object to reach out beyond its formal boundaries to a larger world, to evoke in the viewer the complex, dynamic cultural forces from which it has emerged and for which it may be taken by a viewer to stand’ (Greenblatt 1991: 42). Clearly a work of art that evokes such resonance creates its own context albeit that it is far removed from its original site. In contrast, by wonder, he means, ‘the power of the displayed object to stop the viewer in his or her tracks, to convey an arresting sense of uniqueness, to evoke an exalted attention’ (ibid.). Greenblatt argues that what has increasingly happened in the practice of mounting exhibitions is the triumph of resonance over wonder. For an exhibition to have maximum impact, he argues (ibid.: 54), it is important that there should be ‘a strong initial appeal to wonder, a wonder that then leads to the desire for resonance, for it is generally easier in our culture to pass from wonder to resonance than from resonance to wonder’. It is in this context that we urge readers to make acquaintance with Chris Ledochowski’s photographs. First and foremost, they are works of art that evoke wonder. These works of art, however, are deeply resonant with the racial quagmire that has dominated – and continues to dominate – South Africa’s culture, history and politics.

State disintegration and human rights in Africa

This article discusses external and internal disintegrative pressures at work on contemporary African states and examines the consequences of the failure of ideologies of nationalism and nation-statism for human rights. In particular, this paper examines the causes of state disintegration in Liberia and Somalia, suggesting that the effect is to exacerbate the already vulnerable position of marginalized groups. IN THIS ARTICLE we discuss some disintegrative pressures on African nationstates, in particular Liberia and Somalia, and the implications of the failure of nationstatism for human rights. The destruction of the legitimacy and accountability of many states results, in part, from their territorial awkwardness. Formed by the colonial partition and &dquo;transferred&dquo; to African hands, overlapping ethnicity is sometimes more a source of suspicion rather than unity between states. In the past two decades more than two million people have died from conflict and many hundreds of thousands have been displaced. The geographical mobility of Africans remains enormous; hundreds of thousands of people have emigrated to escape from dictatorship or war. This desertion of the space of the state reflects an extreme degree of alienation from the state. The economic sovereignty of African states is being undermined by pressure to join regional blocs at the same time as banditry and unofficial cross-border trading networks are growing at the expense of the state. A further threat to state autonomy and civilian populations arises from the growing militarization of conflicts. As the functionings of the state begin to deteriorate, as evident in Sierra Leone, Togo, Southern Sudan, Zaire, Rwanda and Burundi, low-level warfare, famine, deprivation, and political crisis overlap. Those nominally in control of the state cannot provide security for their citizens, are not in full control of its territory, cannot lay the basis for economic improvement and are unable to either co-opt or to defeat their opponents. In Liberia and Somalia there has been total state disintegration. In * University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, U.S.A.

The social lives of mobile telephony in Africa: towards a research agenda

This Special Issue aims to research the multi-disciplinary ways in which a conception of the mobile phone as having more lives (than the dominant deterministic and economistic approach to mobile phone usage allows) leads us into a discourse of use and value beyond the standard and ubiquitous discourses of ‘the digital divide’, use and abuse; incomes and per capita; handsets and networks, etc. Focusing more on the ways in which the mobile phone as a thing in itself illuminates the ways in which people find value in things and things give value to and expand the scope of social relations and subjectivities (cf. Appadurai 1986) places the social at the centre of everyday innovation and creativity in determining the lifespan and utility of mobile technologies culturally, socially, morally and technologically. Such a focus suggests an invaluable appreciation of the mobile value perception and value chain framework that will point to ways of researching the sustainability of mobile technology and services for Africa. By focusing on the social lives of the mobile phone we seek to:

A Matter of Colour

‘Coloured’ identities in many ways function as the conscience of South Africa. Amidst the continuing deep alienation between the races brought about by apartheid, the coloured people of South Africa are a visible reminder of what South Africa could have been without apartheid. Moreover, places such as District Six in Cape Town, Sophiatown, Mayfair, Fordsburg and other areas in Johannesburg and Grey Street in Durban, Marabastad in Pretoria once significantly populated by people in different racial categories, are a continuing demonstration of the folly of apartheid. Such places are meaningful because people of different ‘racial groups’ lived and worked together there in relative peace and over long periods of time. At the same time, research focusing on ‘coloured identities’ has been lacking, for two main reasons. These reasons are first that ‘coloured identity’ is an extremely elusive concept because ‘coloured people’ have, insofar as they can be described as a distinctive group, tended historically to be viewed in South Africa as a ‘minority group’ that does not warrant separate research attention. Second, many coloured people accepted the identity the government attempted to impose on all ‘coloured people’, making it a hazardous research task to determine which identities dominate social formation among ‘coloured people’. In spite of the apartheid government’s attempts, however, today no single coloured identity or definition of colouredness can be identified; rather, there are multiple identities based on regionalism, language and ideology. These facts alone make any serious book attempting to analyse ‘coloured identities’ in South Africa a welcome and muchneeded undertaking, especially a book with the apt and imaginative title of Coloured by History, Shaped by Place. A formidable task awaits the researcher attempting to pinpoint a distinctive ‘coloured identity’ apart from the identities of other South Africans. The old apartheid government attempted to impose its own ideas of what South Africans’ identities were through legislation and policy. However, this did not work because

Human stability and conflict in the Horn of Africa

States in the Horn of Africa have limited control of their economic situation and very little autonomy in security matters. Globalisation, the growing militarisation of conflicts and an ideological vacuum are some of the reasons for this. The idea that a central power (the state) can, or should, bring order to the periphery, should be questioned. When the rule of law is maintained at the expense of diversity, catastrophic conflict may arise. Regional organisations have too few resources to implement conflict prevention, management or resolution strategies. Refugees and displaced populations are the result. Authoritarian statism, fostered by international capitalist interests, has not prevented the tragic conflicts in the Horn. This Western model has not brought democratic rule, equality or human rights and it should be resisted in future peace efforts. A regional, co-operative union with a strong civil society drawing on pre-colonial wisdom offers the Horn a better path to prosperity and stability.

Images: The Seesaw Haunting keeps Killing the Living

When history speaks through bloodshed for too long, through unashamed violence and, ideological abuse, when submission is the line of last resistance, when man has no respect for man, the individual, the different, when authority appropriates all powers, even that of life and death, when (brute) force supplants the rational and the reasonable, then the solitary protester, the impotent bystander has no choice but to rise up and, despite it all, assert his dignity regeneration of identity. (Alvim, 1995)

‘The ball is round’: ways with soccer

In moments of stalemate, unpredictability, and despair on the pitch and terraces, a seemingly platitudinous comment that inspires hope and has become a natural component of soccerlore is: ‘the ball is round’. Players and fans derive their defences against uncertainty, disappointment and loss in that phrase and observation. Unsoccerly circles are likely to be struck by the tenuousness of hope that resides in a rather slippery, round and multidirectional object. More, they are likely to be drawn to the ecologies, narrative and languages around soccer which make it more than a culture, but a system of networks and expressions that are more likely to be considered a tradition. As a tradition, it is shored up by a soccerlore, a cache of practices, gestures, symbols, and soccer-ways that regulates and enables football. According to Neil Postman, tradition is ‘nothing but the acknowledgement of the authority of symbols and the relevance of the narratives that give birth to them’ (2000, p. 520). Unlike the ‘symbol drain’ that Neil Postman says certain repeated narratives suffer, soccer is just about one narrative tradition where, contrary to what Postman observes elsewhere, the more frequently a significant symbol is used, the more potent is its meaning ( pace Postman 2000, p. 514). In soccer, certain symbols and phrases have the status of the foundational texts and direct thoughtways and behaviours. ‘The ball is round’, repeated match after match, on way to the match, and from the match gathers within it not the weightlessness of a cliché, but that of an all-purpose fetish. It is a tool with which to decipher the imponderable outcomes and goings-on on the pitch; a talisman with which to head the ball into the net, or away from the net; a magical incantation to instil hope in supporters of one’s side or fear and uncertainty in the winning opponents. In other senses, it stands in for the power of the ordinary to rise to the status of an epiphany. It is the equivalent of an inspirational text, or a comforting psalm in the shadow of defeat and despair. ‘The ball is round’ speaks to the essence of soccer: even when all the game-plans are advertised in advance, the outcome of the game is not guaranteed. ‘The ball is round’ and the ‘roundness’ is managed individually and collectively. Soccer is about the only collectively and publicly managed spectacle of human endeavour where humanity ritually and dutifully recreates itself in narratives that promise and very often provide meaning and means of survival. There is something transparent about soccer, something that admits public participation. Soccer is a republic, a communitarian venture, which sutures the various, and often diverse, aspirations of a society together. It cuts across class, race, gender, and age. It collates boundaries and focuses energies ‘on the ball’. The yelling, whistling, the phlegmy sound of the vuvuzela, the dancing, the whistling, the music, handclaps, and raw animal pleasure (‘the multiple climaxes’ as Praise Zenenga puts it in this issue) experienced at certain points when the ball is in play, underline the primal unities and energies revived in a moment of good soccer. More important, communities and individuals have ways with soccer. It could be in the ways in which a whole soccer ecosystem and its sub-systems evolves, or is evolved.