While the purpose of this brief article is to draw attention to the invaluable service performed by J. M. Dallet, P. B., and his collaborators at the editorial center of the Fichier de Documentation Berbère (For National, Algeria), I find it difficult to resist the temptation to suggest a few ideas on oral sources and historians. Clearly, anthropologists, ethnologists, linguists, and sociologists are not shy about using a variety of sources for their learned research. Oral traditions, for example, have long fascinated many of these specialists; but historians, until quite recently, have continued to plod along with their sacrosanct written records. This hesitation is unfortunate, for historical interpretations of many important questions are impossible as no relevant documents survived, if indeed such ever existed. Algerian historians--as opposed to European historians of Algeria--are involved in a breakthrough in this context. Particularly since independence, a small group of Algerian authors has begun to write and publish enlightening new interpretations or reinterpretations in which they unhesitatingly utilize oral traditions in the development of their theses. They, of course, know the traditions firsthand. Foreign specialists are not so fortunate. In any case, Mostefa Lacheraf (1965), Saadia-et-Lakhdar (1961), and Amar Naroun (Juin and Naroun 1963) come to mind immediately as examples of a new, vigorous, and probably very valid school of historical interpretation which draw upon oral sources.

Anyone who has worked in European archives on topics relevant to North Africa knows that the traditional written and static category of documentation leaves many questions unanswered. How, for example, can a question about Algerian reactions to French policies be fairly and fully answered on the basis of only colonial administrative reports and of the memoirs of colons and official representatives of the imperial system? Occasionally reactions were quite clear.

Even the casual reader of African history is struck by the fact that significant shifts in focus and approach have occurred during the past decade. As is presently the common trend in African historiography, contemporary writers focus more upon the role of Africans-their institutions, their attitudes, and their internal forces--than upon the activities of Europeans in Africa. This has become possible because the African past has been more adequately researched and because well-trained African scholars are now writing. The new men of African historiography are devoted to the task of unveiling the past of their own people and are equipped by training and by cultural continuity with their ancestors to use the special tools necessary to reconstruct the past.

One important group of African historians who have emerged as prominent writers and lecturers clusters around the new universities. At Ibadan University Dr. Kenneth Onwuka Dike, formerly Vice Chancellor of the University; Dr. Joseph C. Anene; and Dr. E. A. Ayendele have all made important contributions to Nigeria's histpry. Dr. Jacob Festus Ade Ajayi, professor of history at Ibadan University, is a figure in this group whose work deserves special attention for a variety of reasons.

Not least among such reasons is that he has followed his passion for historical inquiry with energy and thoroughness. By both his vigorous leadership among historians of his university and within the Historical Society of Nigeria and by his publication of the results of his historical research, he has made substantial contributions to the remarkable growth of our knowledge of Nigeria's past.

A friend of mine, an accomplished scholar and a popular teacher (not an Africanist), remarked recently on some controversial theme in historical interpretation, “Oh, I'll teach it, but I won't publish it!” And I wondered if that was also an insight into recent developments in African studies, particularly political studies. Take the issue of the black perspective on African affairs. Without admitting it, is that how academic Africanists will resolve this divisive controversy? Many colleges and universities now expect African studies to mean the teaching of African affairs, as part of a black studies program run by black teachers. If this is the dominant mood, then very soon what we read in support of classroom teaching about Africa may be completely different from what we read to each other at conventions.

The black perspective issue only underlines the broader issue of the separation of classroom teaching and scholarly research, which is particularly acute and open in political science. In the case of African politics, the pressure from students is for courses on “revolution.” The voguish perspective is that of “liberation”--black and/or socialist. Perhaps it is time for Africanist political scientists to question the relevance of their training, if teaching is to remain their calling. It is probably true that the insistence on perspective and relevance is an opening for propagandizing. But it may also serve to review the form and extent of connections between teaching and research--yes, again. Ten years ago, most of us probably felt that learning about African politics (research) and teaching political Africana were self-evidently tied together. So little was known--that is, processed through the scholarly apparatus--that anything learned could probably be taught, or at least listened to by students. African populations were embarked on overthrowing colonial rule and students would read even the journal articles.

This paper examines some strategies employed by a power elite in dealing with the disjunction between official commitments and everyday practises. Data were gathered on women's protest in Kenya. It attacked the normative-existential discrepancy demanding that the political elites bring the institutional system and their private behaviour more into keeping with the beliefs they had professed in fighting colonialism and which are now enshrined in documents that lay the foundation for a democratic-egalitarian state. The male-dominated power elite, socialized in a traditional system that gives males prerogatives in the spheres of power, authority, and status, operating in a system of many demands and scarce resources, and not wanting to lose face with women who form a potentially powerful pressure group, are caught in a situation of cross pressures. The women, on the other hand, while also socialized in this traditional system, have been the proteges of colonial women and Western institutions and have internalized Western values about women's roles. Though their view of what their roles should be conforms to the power elites' ideal values, its response has been a far cry from these ideals. In addition to exploring the normative-existential discrepancy, this paper focuses on male, and in particular, female images of what the situation is and ought to be and some tactics used by each to attain their goals.

Material was collected in Kenya from 1964 to 1966. I returned in 1969 and collected more data. The data consist of interviews with women leaders, participation in women's activities, and various documents from writings of women leaders to letters-to-the-editor.

This paper is designed to explore the theory which relates the one-party state ideology to the class conditions prevalent in African societies. It is not my intention to argue against the one-party state and for the multiparty system because the latter seems inappropriate for Africa at its present stage of development. This article is an attempt to analyze critically one aspect of the African one-party state ideology rather than to evaluate the whole doctrine that only one-party states can lead African states toward rapid development and national unity.

Many African leaders defend the one-party system on the Marxist ground that political parties are part of the political-social super-structure which articulates basic economic class interests. They argue that there are no distinct economic classes in Africa and that, therefore, there is no justification for the existence of more than one party. Multipartyism in Europe, the United States, and even such developing countries as India is regarded as an outgrowth of class struggles which took place in the past and continue today.

African leaders suggest that in Africa there never were classes in the Marxist sense nor do they exist today. The Nigerian priest B. Onuoha states: “The idea of social classes, of a closed group, whose privilege it was to enjoy the best of everything and an underprivileged group for whom anything was good enough is foreign to Africa” (Onuoha 1965, p. 34). Most African leaders agree with him. Even the General Federation of African Trade Unions, which would presumably represent a specific working-class interest, declares that there is no class differentiation in Africa and that there are no large discrepancies between the living standards of Africa's major social groups (Friedland and Rosberg 1964, p. 22).

In his article published in this review's December 1970 issue, Alan R. Waters proposes to the reader what he calls “A Behavioral Model of Pan-African Disintegration.” His main point seems to be that there are going to be (if there are not already) too many university graduates in humanities and legal training for African economies to absorb. This excess supply is wanted by Africans and the system adjusts to it more or less automatically: “This is what the educatees want, and this is, therefore, what the system provides” (p. 416). These educatees, according to the author, want these kinds of degrees because of their expected earnings which are too high in the African administrative system. Since this education is freely provided for by the government through taxation, the author asserts that “this high return on educational investment amounts to a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich” (p. 415). However, the author recognizes, these high rewards are inherited from colonial systems where colonial elites were selected and rewarded on the basis of their metropolitan education and incentive systems. Despite these high rewards, “the colonial and educational systems could remain fairly efficient over time due to the existence of alternative occupations and a parallel education system in the metropole” (p. 420), while in the new systems these conditions have disappeared. To make the exploitation of the poor by the rich (understand, both Africans) clear, the author, in footnote 8 on page 20, shows that “a university graduate in the United Kingdom was paid about the same as a miner in 1967; in Nigeria he was paid four times the salary of a miner or nine times the income of a farmer.”

Mr. Ntalaja's summary of my article (December 1970 issue) omits the essence of my argument: that a distorted system of incentives, which is unlikely to be seriously altered, makes Pan-Africanism purely academic and points the way to eventual upheaval and anti-intellectural revolution. Furthermore, because a disproportionate part of government revenues in Africa are obtained from the relatively poor, an expanding government bureaucracy implies an expanding system of exploitation of the poor and the productive by the rich certified elite who “administer.” In my abstract model I have defined certified elite as the people who hold certificates and diplomas from the existing educational system. The degree to which these certified people do control the governments of Africa is open to empirical verification; I have merely gone on the basis of my own casual observation in a number of African countries over the past eighteen years and decided to assume that they do for the purposes of my model. I obviously believe that my assumption is the only relevant one. The administrative or corporate state appears to have arrived in several African nations and to be well on the way in others.

The international comparison of absolute salary levels, Nigerian certificate holder versus British certificate holder, has no true economic meaning as long as productivities also differ. As I pointed out (p. 420), the British administrator may be supported by a capital investment which enables him to produce more than his less well-supported Nigerian counterpart. What is useful, and to a degree comparable, is the ratio of salaries and wages within each nation. Comparison of absolute salary levels is usually found as an argument by the certified elite to support government exploitation of the poor.