Without the overriding concern of Soviet domination, Americans are engaging in an introspective re-evaluation of their national interests, values, and priorities. Despite the heterogeneity of all the participants, including the key opinion-makers, a near-consensus has emerged that the United States should be pushing and supporting an external process that has come to be known as ‘democratisation’. This policy stems from widespread perceptions about the special nature of America's identity and rôle in the world. The thesis presented here is that the United States is primarily defined by a particular liberal philosophy and concept of modernity, and that the projection of ‘democracy’ abroad is not necessarily a ‘natural’ or universal evolution of human development. Africa's increasing marginalisation has allowed certain groups committed to spreading ‘American values’ an unprecedented ability to shape policy and turn the continent into a liberal socio-political experiment.

Freedom of expression is not only a fundamental human right but also constitutes one of the essential elements in the establishment of a democratic society. No country can seriously profess to be a democracy, or pretend to be making efforts towards this, if its citizens cannot freely express their opinions. Recent moves to introduce freedom of expression in Cameroon have come at a particularly difficult time. Like most African countries, it is on the horns of a dilemma. As it struggles to cope with an ever deepening economic crisis, it has come under strong internal and external pressure to democratise. The winds of change which blew into Africa at the end of the 1980s, when former communist-block single-party régimes collapsed, appeared to herald the beginning of a new era. But as leaders are increasingly pressed by impatient citizens to unfreeze their political, social, and economic rights, tyrants and dictators posing as democrats seem to be determining the nature and guiding principles of the new order.

In January 1991 President Ali Hassan Mwinyi appointed a Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters, under the chairmanship of Professor Issa Shivji, with extremely broad terms of reference. It was mandated not only to review laws and policies concerning the allocation, tenure, use, and development of land, and to make recommendations for reform, but also to examine the nature of the disputes that had arisen, and to propose measures for their solution. More generally, it was to hear complaints from the general public and to look into any other matters connected with land that it deemed appropriate. The appointment of the Commission might be interpreted as tacit official acknowledgement that the land policies of the preceding 25 years had, in many ways, been a failure, and that now was the time to formulate a new approach in keeping with the economic changes embraced in the mid-1980s

The immediate origins of the democratic elections held in Malawi in 1994, which brought to an end over 30 years of political dominance by President Kamuzu Banda and the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), lie in the unprecedented events which shook the entire nation in 1992. Although that turbulent year was characterised by industrial action, serious urban riots, student demonstrations, the emergence of new domestic political groupings, and the Government's agreement to hold a national referendum on the future of the one-party system in the country, in retrospect perhaps what was most remarkable about these developments was that they were sparked off by the Catholic Church, and that their momentum was sustained at crucial stages by other Christian denominations in Malawi.1

These comments by South Africa's Minister for Trade and Industry, Trevor Manuel, were made in November 1994 in a speech to the African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP)—European Union (EU) ministerial meeting in Brussels. Words, of course, can be interpreted in various ways. Contrary to the seeming clarity of Manuel's request, the underlying sub-texts illustrated both the past prevarication of the South African Government and the continuing uncertainty on the part of the EU as to the appropriate shape of a new long-term relationship.

For the countries of Africa the 1980s was a decade of depening economic crisis. The international economic environment became increasingly hostile, with declining terms of trade, recession in the industrial countries, and heavy debt-servicing burdens. Domestically, many economies were disrupted by severe drought conditions and civil disturbances.

Ever since independence Lingala has been gradually spreading throughout Zaïre to the extent that nowadays in Bukavu, a traditionally Swahili-speaking city near Rwanda and Burundi, about 70 per cent of the population has some knowledge of the language. This holds true for all layers of society: youngsters, students, teachers, civil servants, businessmen, petty traders, soldiers, and prostitutes. The advent of Lingala raises an important question: how do we explain the presence of this new language in a city where already three lingua francas exist, namely French, Swahili, and Indoubil.1

Adewale Maja-Pearce is an iconoclastic Nigerian critic who has dethroned a number of literary reputations, and his 1992 book, on Nigerian fiction of the 1980s, is only a few pages old when some venerated literary figures come into the sights of his polemic. Chief among these are Chinua Achebe and Elechi Amadi, whose early novels are seen to construct nostalgic traditional world-views on discredited superstitions and ‘degraded fetishism’. Maja-Pearce's real target in A Mask Dancing, however, is not the first wave of anglophone Nigerian novelists of the 1950s and early 1960s, but the writers of his own generation, and his concern is as much with the manner as with the matter of the writing.

In Kenya, the Kuria, Suba, Meru, and Abagusii are among the contemporary cultural groupings which continue to believe in the importance of female circumcision. The ceremonies may have been partly abrogated or modified, but operations to cut off the tip of the clitoris of young girls are still carried out, not least in the expectation that the needed spirit of endurance will shape their character into adulthood. Although the primary objective of clitoridectomy is to initiate female children into womanhood, it is also performed in many African countries to ensure virginity, to enhance fertility and fecundity, and to promote cleanliness.

The system of apprenticeship within the so-called informal sector in East and Central Africa is generally thought to be more limited than in West Africa, albeit less well documented. This note reports briefly some findings from Uganda, based on a survey covering 45 metal-working and 45 wood-working establishments in and around Kampala from June to August 1993. Selected on a more or less random basis, all 90 were in the ‘micro-enterprise’ category, employing less than to persons, with a mean size of 5·7 (metal) and 5·0 (wood). As regards the first trade, 25 of these establishments were located in Katwe, seven in Kisenyi, six in Bwaise, four in Nbeeda, and three in Nakawa. The sample of wood-working establishments was selected more widely from 16 different locations, the most from any one place being seven.

The literature pointing out that ethnic groups are a social construction has a particular salience in discussion of identity in both East and Central Africa. As numerous authors have noted, there are in fact few linguistic, phenotypical, or social differences between Hutu and Tutsi. Indeed, as all acknowledge, there has been substantial intermarriage, particularly in Rwanda. Nevertheless, as recent events in Rwanda and Burundi illustrate, the presumably ‘socially constructed’ differences between Hutu and Tutsi have become a legitimated reason for murdering one's neighbours. But although cited as the cause of the civil war by virtually every Rwandan, as well as the Western and Tanzanian press, I am also impressed by the fact that at different times and places being ‘Tutsi’ means very different things. My own observations in the Benaco refugee camp for ‘Hutu’ illustrate how quickly and drastically such seemingly ‘fixed’ identities can change.

In the presidential and parliamentary elections held on 7–8 December 1994, the South West Africa People's Organisation (Swapo) was able to build on its achievements in the 1992 regional elections and win a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. Against the larger-than-life father-figure of President Sam Nujoma, the opposition never really had a chance and lost 12 seats. A comparison of the results of the 1989 and 1994 elections reveals only a small decline in the ballots cast for Swapo as against a great loss of support for the opposition parties, mainly because the sharp drop in the number who voted was at their expense.