The search for the African origins of contemporary socio-cultural forms found in black populations in the South Atlantic region is a well-established scholarly pursuit. Most scholars have argued that certain institutions and ideas brought from Africa were retained over time and survived in more or less recognizable form. It is further argued that specific institutions can be directly linked to the importation of Africans from specific areas in Africa. Although in the debate on Africanisms many writers have also argued the contrary, the emphasis in the scholarship has been on demonstrating the degree to which Africans in the diaspora managed to retain these socio-cultural institutions (Frazier, 1939; Herskovits, 1968).

Two major omissions fault the published scholarship on the subject: first, the lack of details of the process by which Africans retained, reinterpreted, or abandoned these institutions; and second, given similar circumstances of transfer, an explanation of the varying degrees of faithfulness to the original institutions in different areas. In other words, the lack of survival, though equally interesting and potentially intellectually rewarding, is a neglected aspect of the scholarship.

The case of Yoruba religious ideas is an example of this bias. Yoruba religion apparently remained “so faithful to its ancestral traditions” that it is one of the most frequently cited examples of an African survival. The scholarship on the topic is rather extensive, but none of it is historically or ethnologically sophisticated. Attempts have been made to explain its persistence in some areas by reference to the late arrival of a large number of Yoruba as victims of the slave trade: it is argued that “both the strength of the continuities and their relative lack of modification probably are related to recency of migration and to the presence [in Trinidad] or nearness [in Cuba] of freedom” (Mintz and Price, 1973).

The Seventh Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly Devoted to Development and International Co-operation, which ended on September 16, 1975, after round-the-clock negotiations between developing and developed nations, succeeded in producing a resolution which was adopted unanimously. The preamble of the resolution reaffirmed the General Assembly's intention “to eliminate injustice and inequality which afflict vast sections of humanity and to accelerate the development of developing countries” (U.N. General Assembly, 1975: 1). The resolution identified measures the international community could take to accelerate the pace of development. The Seventh Special Session is another indication of the developing world's determination to create a “New International Economic Order.” This article will discuss what is meant by this increasingly invoked phrase and examine the changing political realities which account for international economic issues becoming the dominant concern of bodies such as the United Nations. We will then analyze the decisions taken at the Seventh Special Session and discuss some of their possible implications for development in Africa.

The Seventh Special Session, which had been planned for almost two years, came only eighteen months after the General Assembly had convened in a Sixth Special Session to consider problems of raw materials and development. Two extraordinary sessions in such a short period of time (the first special sessions ever convened to discuss economic issues) demonstrate the seriousness of the economic crisis confronting the world.

The Sixth Special Session, convened in April 1974 on the initiative of President Houari Boumédienne of Algeria, met at a time of deepening economic turmoil.

This study is intended to be more than a narrative history of civil-military relations in the pre-colonial Ndebele society (located in what today is the Matabeleland District of Rhodesia): it seeks to stimulate interest in, and to develop a systematic framework for, investigating and evaluating the character of militarism in Ndebele society, and in pre-industrial, subsistence-level societies in general. Hopefully, it will provide insights for broader application in examining modern civil-military relations in both African and non-African societies.

The study has been developed within two methodological frameworks. The first endeavors to apply current theories of fragmentation and fragment societies (Hartz, 1964) to the study of non-Western society. The Ndebele were a Nguni fragment of the Zulu Kingdom (Omer-Cooper, 1966; Lye, 1969). Like the early white settlers in America, Canada, South Africa, and Rhodesia, they were forced to cope with problems of migration, conquest, settlement, and rapid incorporation and assimilation of indigenous peoples. Also, like the settlers, the Ndebele had to restructure some of the institutions of their parent Zulu culture to meet the challenges of their new environment. As a fragment people, they had to institute new formulae for self-identity, self-determination, and nationalism.

The second framework is a broad, interdisciplinary approach to the study of civil-military relations. It is assumed that civil-military relations of any society should be studied as a system composed of interrelated and interdependent elements. The most important of these are: the structural position of the military institutions in the society; the function and influence of the military in politics, in public administration, and the society at large; and the nature of the military ethic compared to the dominant political ideology of the society.

Adventure stories are favorites among children in many parts of the world. Africa has been the locale of hundreds of children's adventure stories written by African and non-African authors for over a century. These adventure stories, along with other fiction, are just as powerful teachers about Africa as are professional educators.

This essay will compare the adventure stories of three wellknown and popular authors (as judged by literary critics and child readers) who based their stories on extensive firsthand experience in Africa. The writers belong to three different generations, and their adventure stories are typical of those of many other writers of their time. Representing the Victorian Age is George Alfred Henty, whose name is “probably identified above all others with the Victorian adventure story” (Townsend, 1975: 63) and whose books were so popular with children that in 1894 some British teachers limited the number that students could read (Welsch, n.d.). The early twentieth century is represented by Rene Guillot, the initiator of the exotic novel for children (Jan and Patte, 1973: 360) and winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Prize of the International Board on Books for Young People—a prize which has been awarded only three times since 1958. Although Guillot wrote all of his children's books in French, almost all of them have been translated into English. Barbara Kimenye (a journalist from Uganda, short story writer, and one of East Africa's most prolific children's writers) represents the mid-twentieth century. She writes about ordinary people “who live outside the pale of ordinary society” and makes their lives interesting (Nazareth, 1974: 167).

The rehabilitation process for psychiatric patients presupposes a thorough investigation of the prevailing values, treatment modalities, and the interaction between various sub-systems. For instance, a psychiatric patient's career is underlined by three phases or subsystems: the prehospital, the hospital, and the post-hospital phase. Of significance in the prehospital phase is the role of next of kin in the etiology of illness (Laing, 1971; Lidz, 1963), and in the referral of patients to mental health delivery-systems (Clausen et al., 1955). Also, psychiatric delivery-systems are characterized by complex therapeutic processes of immense relevance in the evaluation of post-treatment performance of treated patients (Goffman, 1961).

The study of post-treatment outcomes for treated psychiatric patients inevitably involves the post-hospital phase, during which familial units and significant others may provide or withdraw the necessary support for the mentally ill. Because mental illness carries with it social stigma, rehabilitation may be hindered unless total support, acceptance, and tolerance are manifested in concrete terms among members of patients' families or significant others. The tolerance and support from patients' next of kin tend to improve post-care performance, and in turn reduce the rate of recidivism among the mentally ill (Freeman and Simmons, 1963).

Certainly, the family as a sub-unit constitutes a fabric in the rehabilitation process. Moreover, the family becomes singularly important in an essentially agrarian and non-literate society, where this institution assumes socio-economic, religious, and sometimes medical functions. Despite the modernizing influences of education and religion, the Yoruba family still assumes these functions (Lloyd, 1959; Bascom, 1959; Fadipe, 1970).

During the period between the two world wars, a principal theme underlying African education was a belief that the black school system of the American South constituted a suitable model for Africa. Thinking along these lines was prevalent throughout the continent (especially in the English-ruled colonies and Liberia), but nowhere was it stronger than in South Africa. This was mainly due to the Union's unique position of having a large settler population that was steadily augmenting its political sovereignty. White South Africans could readily view their positions as akin to that of white southerners in the United States, while Africans could easily draw parallels between their situation and that of black Americans. Certain individuals, institutions, and organizations in the United States believed that American answers to problems of race relations (which encompassed education) were applicable to other countries—they thus stood ready to aid South Africans in transferring and adapting a generalized American model of black schooling to the South African environment.

In fact, more than one model of black American education for South Africans existed. Africans viewed what was for them a progressive education system that emphasized black initiative and educational advancement. For example, while only 25 percent of their children attended school and 88 percent of their community were illiterate, 70 percent of black American schoolage children were in school, and black illiteracy had dropped from 90 percent in 1866 to 23 percent in 1926 (Huss, 1931: 2). White South Africans (those not totally opposed to some form of schooling for Africans) saw a system that seemed to train blacks sufficiently for living in a modern society yet served to limit any challenge they might pose to white control.

In the spring of 1973, the authors conducted a survey of political scientists teaching African politics courses at American colleges and universities. Our intention was to collect and disseminate information about: (1) the techniques used in teaching African politics, (2) the books assigned most frequently to students, (3) the choice of African political systems for emphasis in the classroom, and (4) the current level of student interest in African politics. Information was also collected about those who teach African politics: how many have done field research, in which countries do they have the most expertise, and which approaches to political development do they find useful in teaching?

The purposes of this survey were several. One was simply to collect the above information and make it available to teachers of African politics—hopefully, it will be useful to those in this field to know which teaching techniques, approaches, texts, etc., others have found successful in the classroom. A second purpose was to elicit comment on the popularity of African politics as an academic discipline. We hypothesized before conducting this survey that certain trends we had observed locally might be applicable nationally. In particular, we felt that in the post-Vietnam period in the United States, student interest and enrollment in comparative politics courses, on Africa as well as other regions, might be decreasing. The possible reasons for this are multiple, but one can speculate that a mood of isolationism following the Vietnam fiasco might adversely affect enrollment. Further, the uncertain state of the economy and continued high unemployment may induce a shift away from liberal arts courses toward more specifically career-oriented disciplines.

The colonial engraving of political frontiers on Africa has profoundly affected the history of the continent. A legacy of heterogeneity resulted from assembly of diverse environmental and social milieux within singular boundaries. Rather than lending a richness of experience and resources enhancing post-independence development, this diversity has led to well-known consequences of regional ethnic antagonism ranging from spirited competition to warfare. At the present time, African nations face persuasion from opposite poles. On the one hand, preservation of traditional ethnic diversity in art, clothing, dance, literature, and other aspects of cultural heritage are important to a consciousness of self-value and one's identity. On the other hand, nationalism, socio-economic unity, and spatial integration to meld diversity into a modern nation-state are manifest in establishment of official languages, educational systems, and national economic development plans. Whether these aspects of unity and diversity are necessarily antithetical is less important here than the question of continued attitudes of differentiation and the perpetuation of local and regional identity.

The consequences of diversity in Nigeria need little introduction. The Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria was assembled in 1914 from Lagos Colony and the former Lagos, Southern Nigerian, and Northern Nigerian Protectorates. Each of the predecessor territories had incorporated diverse ethnic groups, tribal institutions, and/or city-states, and each major region persisted separately as a province after this initial federation (Adejuyigbe, 1974). Federal level unity was limited to the European administration. Two forces characterized political momentum in pre-independence Nigeria: one was the drive for unity with the goal of eventual independence; the other was for greater local autonomy and the creation of smaller internal regional units. In 1939, for example, the Southern Federation was divided into what became the Eastern and Western Provinces. These provinces achieved internal self-government in 1957, followed by the North in 1959 (Prescott, 1959, 1966). National independence in 1960 did not quell determined efforts for separate recognition by various regional and ethnic groups, in one case resulting in the 1963 separation of the Mid-Western Region from the Western Region. Until 1968, however, the Eastern and Northern Regions remained unchanged. Widespread disruption following the military coup of 1966 led in 1967 to the Federal Military Government's creation of the contemporary pattern of twelve states (Figure 1). Although none of the states coincides perfectly with ethnic, linguistic, religious, or cultural boundaries in Nigeria, each state nevertheless offers greater local autonomy and recognition, especially to some of the less populous Nigerian ethnic groups.