Relationships between U.S. government officials and academic specialists working on national security and foreign policy issues with respect to Africa are many and complex. They can be as informal as a phone call or passing conversation or as formalized as a consulting arrangement or research contract. Many contacts exist and there is no doubt that many in both government and the academy value these ties. There have been, however, ongoing controversies about what settings and what topics are appropriate to the government/academic interchange. National security and foreign policy-making in the U.S. is an extremely diffuse process.

In the heydays of African socialism, Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere declared that socialism was a state of mind. It was, it turned out, the state of mind of some intellectuals, but neither of the mass of the population nor of those in a position to turn an ideal into a political and economic system. In the early 1990s, democracy was sweeping through the continent—as the state of mind not only of a few intellectuals but of a larger segment of the population, although by no means all. It was revulsion against the abuses and human rights violations perpetrated by single party and military regimes, against the lack of accountability of leaders and the economic hardship brought about by years of mismanagement on the part of officials seeking first the political kingdom.

Paraphrasing Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Ivoirian politician Camille Aliali once said, “Democracy is a system of government for virtuous people. It seldom works even in mature countries. We must be realistic. Our people are ignorant of the problems we face. They cannot be left to choose the solutions,....” In 1990, the president and his close associates changed their minds. On May 3, 1990, the president of Côte d’Ivoire announced the legalization of opposition parties and the intent to hold multi-party elections. On October 28, Ivoirians voted in their first multi-candidate presidential election, which pitted the eighty-five year old Houphouët against long-standing critic and candidate of the “democratic left” coalition, Laurent Gbagbo.

The University of Dar es Salaam has a long history of links with universities in different parts of the world. Currently it has formal link agreements with 61 universities in Africa, Asia, and Europe, including 12 in North America (11 in the United States and 1 in Canada). Seven out of the 12 include student exchange at undergraduate or graduate levels. These universities include Carleton, Brown, Connecticut, Hampton, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina (Chapel Hill), universities in the consortium of American Lutheran colleges, and a number of others organized under the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP) and the International Reciprocal Student Exchange Program (IRSEP).

Jan Vansina's history of the Nyiginya kingdom joins the long list of works, both essays and novels, that have proliferated since the Rwanda Patriotic Front gained power in 1994. The rigorous application of historical criticism distinguishes this from other works that give voice primarily to passions and speculations. Vansina's work is remarkable for the author's ability to bridge past and present by placing himself downstream rather than upstream in the flow of history. This important emphasis on ancient Rwanda contributes to the understanding of today's events. Vansina was ahead of those whose project it was to reread the history of Rwanda, which began in Butare in December 1998. Nonetheless, he emphasizes that it is up to Rwandan historians themselves to compile, on the basis of the facts accepted by everyone, a history that is as impartial as possible and that might offer some guidelines for the future.

In 1962, when Vansina was writing L'évolution du royaume rwanda des origines à 1900 (The Evolution of the Rwandan Kingdom from Its Origins to 1900), his work was already marked by a rigorous exploration of historical facts. In Le Rwanda ancien (Ancient Rwanda), he proposes a new chronology of the Nyiginya kingdom, whose foundation he places around the middle of the seventeenth century. In so doing, Vansina definitively separates himself from Alexis Kagame—who situates its beginnings six centuries earlier—and thereby puts to rest the argument of historians and anthropologists, and challenges those politicians who, in the pursuit of legitimacy, have based their ideologies of the Rwandan reconquest and territorial revindication on the writings of Kagame.

[Note: This interview was conducted on September 22, 1976 by the Mozambican Information Agency. Mr. Machingura is a political commissar in the Zimbabwe People’s Army (ZIPA) and provides the first major statement for the Western public of the goals and policies of ZIPA. The failure of the Western press to provide information about ZIPA has left the field to the propaganda efforts of the Rhodesián Smith regime, which defines the ZIPA soldiers as “terrs” (terrorists). An opposing understanding of the ZIPA movement has been proffered by the frontline African presidents. In their first public response to the Smith announcement of agreement with the Kissinger terms of settlement, the five presidents began with a statement of congratulation to the Zimbabwean soldiers who had brought the white regime to the point of seeking a settlement publically, even though this too may have been another Smith ploy to gain time by avoiding substantive changes.

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 literature on political and administrative behavior in sub-Saharan Africa has proliferated at an unprecedented rate in the past decade. But notwithstanding an impressive output, Africanist political scientists of all persuasions—“institutionalists,” “behavioralists,” and so forth--have tended to ignore or treat lightly various methodological problems confronting the social sciences in general and their own discipline in particular. It is appropriate here to distinguish between methodology and preocedure. Methodology refers to the philosophy of science, to problems associated with the logic of systematic social inquiry; among the problems which are essentially methodological are classification, comparison, concept formation, theory construction, and nomothetic vs. idiographic inquiry. (Various methodological probems are examined by Brodbeck 1968, Hempel 1965, Kaplan 1964, Nagel 1961, and Natanson 1963.) Procedure, in contrast, refers to the application of specific techniques in research. While research techniques inform the day-to-day activity of systematic social inquiry, they are extraneous to the logic of that inquiry (Fleron 1968, p. 316).

The extent to which political scientists are attentive to methodology is often reflected in the quality of their research, Not surprisingly, therefore, the quality of research on political and administrative behavior in sub-Saharan Africa has been negatively affected by the tendency to dismiss or de-emphasize methodological considerations. For example, there appears to be little awareness of a cardinal principle of logical classification: that there must be “a mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive set of classes for the domain under consideration” (Kalleberg 1966, p. 72; Hempel 1952, p. 51).

In the 1950’s a Black sailor from the United States came to Capetown and gave someone there a copy of Richard Wright’s Native Son. That single copy traveled around the whole country. Each person would keep it a week or two, read and reread it, and then pass it on. Native Son convinced me that as an African writer I did not have to sound like a carbon copy English boy if I wrote in English.

Examination of the black reaction to apartheid during the period 1948-1973 is topical and should help us to understand what is now happening in South Africa. The black reaction is not merely to apartheid; it is to the whole social system imposed on the black people of South Africa from the moment the white man landed there in 1652. There has been a reaction over the succeeding centuries which has manifested itself in a variety of ways. For a long time this reaction assumed the form of armed resistance. When that was defeated, it took the form of political opposition.

To make a case for greater American involvement in Africa is to take cognizance of what has gone before — eclectic embrace followed by selective disengagement. The Nixon Administration has opted for a policy of designating certain target countries for bilateral assistance and political cultivation. The itineraries of American public figures from the Vice President and Secretary of State to the astronauts and Mrs. Nixon tell us where the emphases are being placed: on the two long-standing areas of concern, Liberia and Ethiopia; on Africa's most populous state, Nigeria; on one of its larger states, Zaire, and on the home of one of Africa's senior pragmatic statesmen, Kenya. Somewhat more peripheral interest is maintained in Ghana, which has moved into the column of “reasonable” regimes. Most recently the situation in Sudan has dazzled U.S. policymakers with visions of picking up chips from the Soviets and conjuring up the type of Cold War determinant of involvement popular in the 1960s.

Two hundred years ago, the Founding Fathers of America’s world-renowned democracy were wealthy, well-educated white males dedicated to throwing off the yoke of British oppression. In Sierra Leone since 1995, the person most associated with democracy is a petite, articulate, beautiful, in-your-face, dynamo of a woman named Dr. Kadi Sesay. Though Dr. Sesay’s job arises from a national emphasis on civic education for the masses, her work bears special scrutiny for its success in concretizing a feminist vision of female power articulated within the context of empowerment for all the country’s citizens.

Between December 24, 1971, and January 5, 1972, I visited the Rhodesian cities of Bulawayo, Gwela and Salisbury, and the African rural districts of Essexvale, Gwanda, Filabusi andSeke. I met with chiefs, community and civic leaders, African Members of Parliament, one African lawyer and one African doctor, several businessmen and many ordinary country people. I attended meetings, beerhall sessions and church services. I also came into contact with Europeans at the University of Rhodesia, at the office of the Chief Native Commissioner, top officials in the Ministry of African Education, one Native Commissioner and several lesser European government officials.

Prophecy is one of the simplest ways for an historian to destroy his credit and reputation. Having been persuaded to take this risk, I shall partly cover it with one small insurance policy: I shall set forth what seem to me to be the relevant facts, but not be too dogmatic about the conclusions to be drawn from them.

Where will South Africa stand twenty-five years from now? What will have happened during those years? In theory there are, I think, only four possibilities: (i) that the status quo will remain essentially unchanged; (ii) that radical changes, involving or at least leading to the abolition of all racial discrimination, will come about peacefully, by constitutional means; (iii) that the regime will be overthrown by invading foreign forces; and (iv) that it will be overthrown by revolution within the country, with or without foreign support. As there are strong reasons for believing that none of these alternatives is really possible, some factor seems to have been overlooked. Perhaps it will appear as the four alternatives are examined.