Judging by public tone, style, and ideological emphasis alone, the casual observer of U.S. foreign policy is impressed by the novelty of the Carter Administration’s approach toward Southern Africa. Kissinger had stressed America’s tangible interests, sought alliances with ideological “enemies” to advance or at least to protect those interests, and operated a clever, manipulative and secretive diplomacy with calculated ambiguity. The Carter Administration now seems to espouse once more American ideals and principles, open diplomacy for announced clearly-stated objectives, and decision-making by consent. But what is really involved is a reversion to the active use of ideology and salesmanship to manage its political and economic interests. It is of a piece with “helping our little brown brothers” in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines, making the world “safe for democracy” and saving Vietnam from Communism.

Nigeria has had three programs of transition from military to civil rule in the last 13 years. Despite the enormous resources wasted on the first two programs, by Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha, democracy remains a mirage in Nigeria. The demise of the two programs was not just a monumental failure on the part of the two leaders; it also vividly demonstrates the military’s inability to effect a lasting transition to civil rule. In addition, the utter failure of both programs has exposed the political brinkmanship to which the military is prepared to go to subvert democracy. Babangida’s brazen annulment of the June 1993 presidential election and Abacha’s repressive, dictatorial, and corrupt governing style brought Nigeria closer to the edge of the precipice than any other crisis since the civil war of the 1960s.

The aftermath of September 11, 2001, may certainly be on its way toward affecting the “brain drain” from Africa. The 19 dead Arabs who were accused of having blown up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and of hijacking the fourth plane were all cases of the brain drain from their own countries in one way or another. The effect of September 11 on immigration policies in the Western world appears to be greater scrutiny and reduced Western hospitality. There was a time when high scientific and technological qualifications were regarded as attractive credentials for immigration into the West.

All of us have very decided ideas about teaching. While our geographical interest may be Africa, our disciplinary training and specialties are varied, and our methodologies and ideologies lead us, not only into different research paths, but toward differing teaching goals and learning expectations. Perhaps, common interest in Africa creates a better understanding of, and cooperation among, the various disciplines, and, if that is the case, it is an indisputable advantage in our classes. Still, it would be presumptious, indeed impossible, for a historian to tell a geographer or an economist or a linguist how, or even what, to teach.

However, our profession expects two things of us: to produce original contributions to the pool of knowledge in our specialty, and to teach effectively what we have learned to undergraduates seeking a general education, as well as to graduate students whose educational goals are more akin to our own. There is no small irony in the fact that, for a variety of reasons, as the number of college students dwindles, as the cost of education spirals, and as the job opportunities for new Ph.D.s all but vanish, our peers are more demanding in their evaluation of our research, while college and university administrators are more concerned with “accountability;” that is, total student credit hours produced—our teaching.

There are three points I want to make about teaching, but first I think it is important to make a disclaimer.

In the last years of Idi Amin’s reign, modern dance was introduced at Namasagali College, a Catholic boarding school in rural Uganda, as a means of encouraging modern, liberal self-awareness in students. Drawing on interviews with Namasagali’s former headmaster, teachers, and students, this article offers the first scholarly consideration of this important school, and contextualizes its modern dance curriculum within Africa’s historical modernity/modernization problematic. The school’s progressive educational program, with its focus on creative exploration and ownership of the body, was framed within a neocolonial regimen of discipline and punishment that aimed to drill modern behavior into students. In its clashing modes of government, this school exhibited contradictions that have perennially troubled Western liberal intervention in Africa.