The purpose of this investigation is to examine the problem of diffusion of Ikenga art form in geographically contiguous cultures. Although the concept of diffusion of cultural traits among contiguous cultures is well established among certain kinds of anthropologists, fresh theories of interpretation may be observed. First, I will try to develop the framework which would help to identify the strategic factors in the process of diffusion and facilitate the ordering of what is currently known about them. Second, since the establishment of a framework seldom includes anything but a model, Igbo Ikenga is focused upon to illustrate how deduction from art may lead to new factual conclusions.

Current anthropological concern about the diffusion of elements of culture in the Niger/Benue basin has attracted attention to the Ikenga art form because of the apparent widespread occurrence of the Ikenga cults among the Igbo, Benin, and Igala. Jeffreys (1954 pp. 25-40) traces the origin of the word “Ikenga,” and thus its cult, to the Kengawa (Hausa) people of Sokoto Province. Later, William Fagg (1960, “The Ibo Tribes”) explains the “universal cults of Ikenga” partly in terms of adaptability among contiguous ethnic groups, particularly as certain Igbo culture traits show similarity to those of their neighbours at the periphery. More recently, this notion of an “intra-diffusion” has been extended by Bradbury. Comparing diffusion processes between the Igbo and Benin Ikenga cults, Bradbury (1961, p. 138) attributes a greater possibility to one single Ikenga cult which later separated into the Igbo and Benin and mutually coexisted.

Water must be rationed in the chronically overcrowded hospital because there is insufficient pressure in the inner-city system. A few blocks away, local elites cavort around an azure swimming pool, its olympian form brimming with thousands of gallons of water. … A key person in a planning ministry reports to his town planning consultants that a decision must be made regarding the site of a major development project. He gives them a few days to make the decision in spite of their protests that it will require several weeks of study to produce a recommendation that will fit with the needs of all who will be affected by the decision. The ministry official is under pressure from others further up in the government hierarchy and insists on a quick decision. After many hours of overtime work, the town planners provide a site, complete with justifications which include such diverse factors as soil conditions and basic principles of the master plan which they were hired to develop for the area in question. Later, the town planners are told that the project has been sited by others superior to the ministry in a way that runs counter to virtually every factor noted by the planners when they justified their decision. … Small change is hoarded for months by people as they seek to accumulate enough money to buy one of the few modern technical necessities the average peasant family can afford-a portable radio.

There is no consensus among students and politicals, particularly in Africa, on the importance of efforts to obtain political and organizational unity in Africa and the role of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). (See Duffy and Manners 1961.) Some scholars follow K. Nkrumah's (1963) views that the continent will he unable not only to rid itself of backwardness, but it will not even be able to live in freedom and peacefully coexist with other nations without unity, considered by them to be a precondition to putting an end to colonialism and imperialism on its territory. Others stress that as in other parts of the world the conditions are not ripe for the realization of this end, and even not for larger cooperation and coordination, and that in Africa, above all, there is only room for limited frameworks between the different sovereign states. However, the latter—according to this approach—may contribute with time to greater partnership and, in spite of differing interests, develop into an important subsystem in international relations (Dekkers 1964, McKay 1963) free from subordination (compare Zartman 1967, P. 545 and Rivkin 1963). Some consider the OAU as absolutely helpless, stressing its failure even to prevent the United Kingdom's open decision of July 1970 on arms supplies to South Africa. Others stress that this decision is, above all, a result of U.N. weakness. Accordingly this has nothing to do with the prospect of the OAU's becoming an important factor in the international arena (Burke 1964).

The major services afforded by local authorities in Kenya are primary education, health, housing, roads and water supplies. Local authorities finance these services from taxes (graduated personal tax, land rates and cesses), school fees, other fees and charges, and government grants. Significant variation in per capita government services in urban and rural areas and the difference in the relative importance of revenue sources of Municipal and County Councils are the dominant features of the expenditure and revenue systems of local authorities in Kenya.

Municipalities spent L8.8 million in 1966 as compared to Lll million spent by County Councils in Kenya. However, more than 90 percent of Kenya's population live in rural areas. The per capita expenditures of Municipalities are more than ten times higher than the per capita expenditures of County Councils. It would be expected that per capita local government expenditures would be higher in Municipalities because per capita government expenditures are directly related to population density and Municipalities have a greater variety of services to provide. The wide variations that exist in per capita expenditures of Municipalities and County Councils in Kenya may reflect also the difference in the fiscal abilities of these major local authorities.

County Councils in Kenya have only one major tax source, the graduated personal tax, and derive only 29 per cent of their revenue from taxes. Municipalities, on the other hand, collect 55 per cent of their revenue from taxes and have two major tax sources, graduated personal tax and land rates (taxes levied on the site value of land).

American media coverage of Angola’s first multi-party elections, held on 29-30 September 1992, was based on a number of misconceptions which were derived from an enduring Cold War perspective, a deference to the Bush administration agenda and a conviction that free and fair elections were synonymous with “democracy.”

When Lesotho approached independence in 1966, most Basotho intellectuals were confident that their country would not fall prey to the trend toward authoritarianism and the disregard for civil liberties evident in other parts of Africa. Such optimism was based on several unique dimensions of their national experience. Unlike most African states, Lesotho comprised a single people who shared common language, culture, and political identity. A long tradition of free speech and participatory government was reinforeced by considerable experience with competitive political parties and the Westminster parliamentary system. Broad political awareness, spurred by the highest literacy rate in Black Africa, enhanced Basotho determination to provide a model of stable, democratic institutions, in contrast to the repressive apartheid structure of the omnipresent Republic of South Africa.

A realignment of economic interests in Zimbabwe is fueling broad-based demands for an open, democratic, multiparty society. The shift in alignment comes as a result of the ruling party’s failure to meet the needs and expectations of the majority of Zimbabweans in the eleven years since independence. Under the leadership of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), headed by President Robert Mugabe, the government adopted socialism guided by Marxist-Leninist principles as its ideological philosophy. The socialist agenda, coupled with cumbersome, centralized decision-making by a bloated bureaucracy, discouraged domestic and foreign investment and stymied employment growth.

I would like to start talking by reading. Yesterday on this campus, the campus of the University of Texas, as incongruous as that might seem, we had a Sharpeville rally. Some people that spoke made a lot of sense; I suppose some people that came also, perhaps, needed to hear what some of those people said. Among those who spoke was a brother I respect highly—or I should say, comrade, because brother contains no commitment—Cecil Abrahams. And this poem is called “For Cecil Abrahams.” It starts out with an epigram from David Diop: “With you I have refound the memory of my blood/ and necklaces of laughter around my days.”

The national survey of African studies faculty conducted in the fall of 2002 has produced a wide range of findings about how faculty view African studies. We asked faculty members for their views on area studies and African studies at their own institutions, their recruitment and training in African studies, their teaching of African studies and study of African languages, study-abroad programs and training for the next generation of African studies scholars, their own careers, interactions with the U.S. government, and much more. Because we took great care to construct a sample frame that broadly replicates African studies programs in the United States, we feel confident that our findings mirror attitudes held by the entire African studies population. Because our survey was large enough, we are able to tease out different attitudes and orientations toward African studies from many different populations: by type of program, size of program, scholarly discipline, faculty rank, race/ethnicity, gender, and numerous other characteristics.

The United Nations Women's Conference in Nairobi was the high point of official and unofficial attention to women in Africa in the entire International Decade for Women. The conference seemingly had a profound capacity to influence subsequent policies, programs, and organizational efforts to empower women. Yet the internationally derived economic crisis has had an even more profound effect on Tanzanian women's work and politics. Since independence, but particularly since the 1967 Arusha Declaration, Tanzania has made remarkable progress in extending access to education and health care facilities. As a result of crisis and structural adjustment policies, however, state budgetary investments have moved from social to productive sectors; budget redirection looms large in explanations of women's work and politics.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to express appreciation for the invitation to appear before the Committee. It is Congress that must take the lead to end what is essentially a “cover-up” of U.S. policy on southern Africa. The Congress must insist on

1. (1) a frank statement of the facts on the situation in South Africa,

2. (2) an open analysis of U.S. interests in that area,

3. (3) progress towards a therapeutic confrontation, discussion, debate, and analysis of what U.S. policy should be,

4. (4) change with a view towards developing an honest, sensible and rational U.S. policy—consistent with U.S. interests—towards South Africa.

In Africa, as in other parts of the world, most people have traditionally acquired their skills, knowledge, and attitudes from institutions other than formal schools. Even where formal school systems have been established (a relatively recent phenomenon), it is still difficult to separate the impact of schooling from that of one's family, community, cultural and social institutions, and training on the job. But it has increasingly become apparent in all countries that learning acquired in a. life-long process, both before and after school, is of far greater importance than the more specific knowledge transmitted in schools.

The modernization process, however, has continued to place a heavy emphasis on formal school systems, by defining for them a set of demanding tasks. These educational systems are expected to create useful citizens, to teach literacy, and to prepare young people for the lives they must lead in adult societies by providing them with basic minimum skills. Demands by parents for publicly-supported schooling as the principal means of escape from poverty have led to dramatic increases in the provision of educational opportunity throughout the world. These demands are reinforced, and the growth of schooling accelerated, by the recognition on the part of governments and private industry of a pressing need for higher levels of trained manpower. Economists often disagree as to whether education is a prerequisite for development, or vice-versa. Yet the close relationship between education and human resource development leaves little doubt that one cannot proceed very far without the other. (For a useful treatment of these issues, see Anderson and Bowman 1965. See also Harbison and Myers 1964.)

The passage of legislation late in 1971 which in effect caused the United States unilaterally to breach the United Nations sanctions against Southern Rhodesia surely constitutes one of the most shameful episodes in the recent conduct of our country's international affairs. One commentator quite correctly did not mince words in describing the action as a “chrome-plated treaty violation.” And yet, even today, it is doubtful whether any great numbers of American citizens realize that their government has broken its treaty obligations to an international institution which our country did most to initiate and to promote until very recent times. An especially saddening aspect of the affair is the fact that an Administration which rightly has condemned and often contested growing neo-isolationist sentiment in our society's outlook on the world scarcely lifted a finger to prevent precisely the kind of result it decried.

One of the stated aims of the coup of 13 January 1972 was the restoration of a consultative democracy responsive to the needs of the people of Ghana. Thus the NRC (and later the SMC) government led by Colonel (now General) I. K. Acheampong from its inception was committed to a return to some form of democratic government at an unspecified future date. Demands for a return to civilian government started being voiced again in 1974 when it became apparent that, despite its initial appearance of decisive action (particularly in the matter of foreign debts), the NRC government was no more able to solve pressing economic problems than any other post-independence government had been. In the face of demands from the professional sector that civilian rule be restored by 1 July 1977, in January 1977, General Acheampong established a council to discuss what form a new civilian government should take. On 1 July 1977, faced with a strike by several professional groups, General Acheampong pledged to return Ghana to civilian rule on 1 July 1979, the format of civilian government to be determined on the basis of a referendum fixed for 30 March 1978, to be followed by a constitutional commission that would work out the details of the constitutional form chosen by the people in the referendum.

In his article “Language and the Media in Zambia,” Graham Mytton (1978) points out that: “Radio is the supreme medium of communication in Zambia, and the only one reaching a majority of the population.” The Zambia Broadcasting Services provides two groups of programs, the “Home Service,” in English and the seven national Zambian languages, and the “General Service,” which is mostly in English, with a bit of programming in Bemba, Nyanja, and, until 1980, Shona and Ndebele, the latter two languages being directed at listeners in Zimbabwe. The first station in Central Africa to broadcast programs directed almost exclusively towards African listeners, this Lusaka-based operation was from the beginning embroiled in the controversy over which Zambian languages should be used in programming. Each of the seven national Zambian languages actually represent larger linguistic groupings, often consisting of fifteen or even twenty distinct languages or dialects (depending on the way language is defined in a given context). Nearly each of these subgroups represent ethnic identities, with their own cultures and philosophies. The clamor for greater representation on the airwaves has historically come from such smaller groups who feel passed over, or neglected, by official news and cultural programming. The radio service, as well as government officials, counter such demands by stating the nationalistic and nationalizing goals of unifying, rather than fragmenting, the country's numerous ethnic groups.

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.

Some scholars feel that an African, or, more properly, Pan-African literature is developing in Africa. This literature is seen as continent wide and is written in the various colonial languages. It is seen as a unified literature responsive to a simultaneously emerging African society (Roscoe 1971: 252; Joyaux 1972: 313-14). Adrian Roscoe, who holds this view, feels that given such a continental literature, it is unlikely that Africa will see the development of independent national literatures (1971: 252). Whether or not one subscribes to this view, it is the thesis of this paper that there is another kind of literature emerging in Africa—an East African regional literature. East African literature in Swahili, as it is developing, appears to differ from what is being referred to as African literature in both non-vernacular and other vernacular languages. It is a regional literature in an African language with a character which is neither tribal, national, nor continental.

In East Africa, unlike the rest of the continent, literature in the colonial languages has never flourished as much as that in Swahili. Swahili has been spoken and written on the coast since the thirteenth century. At first, Swahili literature was written in the Arabic script employing Arabic genres and now it employs the Roman script adapting and modifying western genres.

The emerging regional Swahili literature is receiving added impetus from conscious efforts being made in countries such as Tanzania and Kenya to promote Swahili literacy in the Roman script and to encourage Swahili as a national and and official language.

The death of a colonial official in the early days of colonial rule in Africa was always a matter of grave concern to the imperial powers. Trained manpower was scarce and the sense of isolation and vulnerability must have been intense when the entire white establishment numbered a few dozen men. When that death was not from disease or accident, but was the result of an act of violence by an African subject, the concern felt by the colonial authorities was comparable to that caused by a local rebellion or armed insurrection. Such was clearly the case when a senior officer was murdered in the Ankole District of Uganda in 1905, only six years after the first British officer took up a post in the district. The result of the murder was a political crisis and a far reaching probe into the crime and its circumstances which serves to lay bare the political intrigues, divisions and motives of the entire collaborating elite of the Ankole Kingdom.

Like a rebellion, the crime of assassination offers us not only a story of intrigue and drama, but an avenue into the workings of the colonial regime and the African political systems which it encompassed. The complicated new structures of factional competition which were uncovered in the course of the murder investigation were fundamentally the same political structures that persisted during the entire colonial era in Ankole. It is for this reason that the murder of a single colonial officer deserves careful scrutiny.