Only a few social scientists outside the field of Middle East studies are aware that in the sovereign state of Libya today there is no government. Indeed, it is not likely to have one so long as the country's strongman, Colonel Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi,1 continues to be the leader of the Libyan revolution. This has been the case ever since 2 March 1977, when the institution of government in its traditional legal-bureaucratic sense was dismantled, and the people's authority, exercised through people's congresses and committees, was proclaimed. By this action, Libya initiated in practice the so-called era of jamahiriya—the era of the masses and the practice of direct democracy – and has taken a number of steps in that direction. A recent example was the renaming of some of its embassies overseas as ‘people's bureaux’, with Libyan students and citizens taking charge of their functions and management.2 This action, instigated personally by Qadhafi, was intended to illustrate to the world that since Libya has no government, ordinary Libyan citizens overseas represent themselves directly to foreign peoples.

Few would disagree with the observation that the schools and universities of sub-Saharan Africa are perhaps the most important contemporary mechanisms of stratification and redistribution on the continent. They are not simply reflections of extant patterns of social and economic differentiation, but rather powerful independent forces in the creation of new and emergent groupings based on the variable possession of power, wealth, and prestige. Moreover, in using the word ‘contemporary’ we should not overlook the fact that formal educational systems are not a recent phenomenon in Africa. Schools existed on the western littoral in the eighteenth century, and their development in many parts of Africa, though slow up to the beginning of World War II, was of great significance. However, the African ‘educational explosion’ is largely a post-war phenomenon, and as a result we can no longer regard the school as an alien and intrusive institution perched precariously atop a range of predominantly ‘traditional’ societies. In most parts of Africa, the school is now as familiar a part of the local scene as the corrugated iron roof. Virtually everywhere, a whole generation would think it inconceivable to be without schools and, what is more, though Africa still remains the least formally educated of the continents, almost everyone now has a lively sense of the individual benefits that education can bring. As in other areas of social life, Africans perceive schooling in shrewd, pragmatic, and instrumental terms.

There is general agreement that sports are used for political purposes. The controversy over whether this should or should not be the case is really a struggle about how they should be used. Those who argue for the separation of sports and politics tend to be satisfied with the existing use, while those against the separation tend to be dissatisfied with the present situation. The positions are rational: each group seeks to use this arena to achieve its own political objectives. Although some involvement of politics in sports appears universal, the degree varies considerably from country to country.

A popular story made the rounds in the European community in Léopoldville at independence in 1960. It was said that the new Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and President Moïse Tshombe of the dissident Katanga Province could only confer through an interpreter. Whether this colonial tale was true or not, neither French nor Flemish were widely diffused in the Belgian Congo; indeed, no single lingua franca had emerged during some 80 years of Belgian rule. This article examines the origins of the decisions taken and the attitudes established during the Léopold era, 1879–1908, that continued to influence language policy throughout the entire colonial period, and even thereafter.

Although the analysis which follows centres upon the West African state of Mali, much of what is said applies in varying measure to other examples of military state capitalism in Africa and elsewhere. Its importance is underscored by the fact that this is an increasingly common régime variant in the Third World. Similarly, domestic militarism has been transformed from an unusual occurrence to a phenomenon which evokes little more than a déjà vu response. Today nearly half of the governments of the ‘South’ are directly or indirectly dominated by the military, whereas three decades ago little more than 15 per cent could be so classified.

This article examines aspects of Zambian industry, particularly the difficulties caused recently by its high level of dependence. Around 1975, problems of output and employment became acute, and the manifest cause was insufficient foreign exchange. Copper sales still provide almost all of Zambia's foreign exchange; the price fell dramatically in 1970, and recoveries throughout the decade were short-lived or partial.1 At the same time, Zambia's major industries – mining, manufacturing, and commercial farming – have developed with a crucial dependence on both imported inputs and expatriate skills.

It appears that in order to be a respectable Africanist, by which I mean simply a scholar whose interest, regardless of discipline, is focused on Africa, one must be a Marxist. Let me quickly add that I am, at least in the abstract, not opposed to this, particularly since I like to consider myself in some way part of that intellectual and political tradition. But the growth of the Marxism industry has not been without, to use the jargon, its contradictions.