One of the strongest impulses that led to the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 was the desire of free Africa to hasten independence in colonized Africa. When the leaders of independent Africa convened to inaugurate the first international regional organization of its kind in Africa, there seemed total agreement on the principle of self-determination. What Kwame Nkrumah had proclaimed six years earlier upon Ghana's accession to independence was echoed in the keynote address of the Ethiopian Emperor: “Our liberty is meaningless unless all Africans are free. Our brothers in the Rhodesias … Mozambique … cry out in anguish for our support and assistance.”

The “winds of change” had barely swept across Africa when the newly-independent nations felt the chilling gusts of the cold war. Decolonization created a power vacuum in the prevailing bipolar structure and for a time it appeared that the African continent would be one of the areas in which the struggle between capitalism and communism would be resolved. As the center of gravity of the cold war shifted towards the periphery, the USSR became increasingly interested in extending its influence in Africa. This interest was sharpened as Sino-Soviet rivalry intensified. Under Khrushchev, Soviet policy in Africa was expansionist, vigorous and unrealistically optimistic, both in its assessment of African gratitude towards Moscow and in its estimation of the socialist potential of certain regimes. A series of spectacular setbacks in the Congo, Guinea, Ghana, and Mali led Khrushchev's successors to reevaluate their Third World policies and downgrade Africa as an area deserving extensive Russian resources.

The Nigerian civil war is now history. The Republic of Biafra lives in the pages of books, pamphlets, and newspapers. In that form, it is no threat to the people of Nigeria who, in a solemn oath of allegiance in January 1970, pledged to consign Biafra into oblivion and face the task of reconstruction and reconciliation. Biafra is now an issue only for historians who are plagued with the search for an answer to “what might have happened if…” But the war itself has left deep scars not only upon the lives of the survivors, but also on their beliefs and attitudes towards life. Unless he visits the right places in Nigeria, the visitor today may hear nothing and possibly see nothing to remind him of the war.

There are a number of intellectually and morally defensible approaches to cultural exchange with South Africa. A position from which I wish to disassociate myself is that cultural relationships with South Africa can be justified on grounds of the moral justness of its present society, or as a defense of “white Christian civilization,” or that South Africa, however wrong on some counts, represents a “bulwark against Communism.” Those who would advocate or defend cultural exchanges with South Africa primarily on these grounds will have to make their own brief. Indeed, I have long ago stated my conviction in writing that the very term “white Christian civilization,” as used by the late Prime Minister Strijdom of South Africa, is a contradiction in terms.

Cultural exchange is a familiar commodity in the marketplace of international relations. But it is important to bear in mind that it comes in two brands—the authentic and the spurious.

Most Americans do not seem to appreciate that we are in a state of emergency in South Africa. They think that we are interested in spending money and time preventing a revolution instead of breaking down the structure of apartheid. They think that we are interested in living with apartheid, in accommodating ourselves to it. They do not believe that we will ever be able to demolish the structure.

Southern Africa is one of the three areas of great regional tension now affecting the conduct of world diplomacy. As our obsession with Southeast Asia diminishes. Southern Africa and the Middle East assume more importance. Because of the generation of peace being negotiated with China and the Soviets (and not in spite of it), we shall grow increasingly mindful of the continuing violence in these areas. Local problems move to the fore as the threat of world war appears to subside. Matters of unfinished business will not be neglected; we have seen them sprout up in Canada with regard to language, in Britain with regard to religion, and in Southern Africa with regard to race.