The ruling class has lost its consensus … this means precisely that the great masses have become detached from their traditional ideologies. … The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.

—Antonio Gramsci (1973: 276)

The notion of a general crisis in African agriculture has entered the current African development lexicon with great rapidity. In spite of the questionable quality of some of the most basic agricultural production statistics (see Berry, 1984), critics of quite different political and theoretical persuasion have promoted the view of widespread structural stagnation (World Bank, 1981; Eicher, 1982; Lofchie and Commins, 1982). Sustained by the realities of starving peasants in the Horn of Africa, of a meteoric growth in food imports during the 1970s, and the persistence of high fertility regimes across the continent, this identification of an agricultural collapse in more than twenty African states raises the spectre of a Malthusian crisis of terrifying proportions (Africa News, Feb. 6, 1984). The plausibility of a widespread agrarian crisis is lent further credence when it is painted on the much larger canvas of national economic performance. The quadrupling of oil prices, stagnant or falling primary commodity prices, high interest rates and debilitating debt repayments, and periodic recession in the world economy have all contributed to the unfavorable current account balance and the economic austerity across the continent as a whole.

Studies of drama and other performing arts in Africa suffer from what Andrew Horn (1981: 181) in a recent article terms “an unnecessary imprecision of nomenclature.” Horn has in mind the tendency among certain scholars, African and non-African, to apply the name “drama” to African traditional performances of every description. Convincing corroboration for his point comes from the entries (among which his article is one) in Yemi Ogunbiyi's (1981) recent collection of scholarly discussions on drama and theater in Nigeria. The essays in the volume embrace such diverse activities as religious rituals, spirit mediumship, one-man comic shows, puppetry, various forms of masquerades, and others that more closely resemble conventional drama.

What Horn describes as a “curious refusal to acknowledge generic distinctions” confronts any scholar who attempts to pursue precise dialogues on this supposedly wellestablished art form, because of the stubborn difficulty of establishing any precise delimitations for it, at least in its African manifestation. An illustration of the confusion might begin with Peter Nazareth's (1978: 91) statement that “dramatic forms” existed in Africa well before the arrival of the colonialists. “We are almost a nation of dancers, musicians, and poets,” he quotes Olaudah Equiano as saying, adding: “Equiano is describing a peculiarly African phenomenon, part ballet, part drama, part opera in which the entire community is the cast and the village square the stage.” From these examples of “pre-drama,” he observes further, drama has developed in West Africa in contrast to East Africa, which suffered in this regard from a more unfortunate colonial experience than did West Africa.

When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.—Ethiopian proverb

The overriding structural and political characteristic of the Southern African subsystem has been the dominance of the Republic of South Africa. Indeed, South Africa's ties to the subordinate states of the region have given the subsystem form and substance. An economic Gulliver among Lilliputians, South Africa created a network of trade dependencies, investment flows, labor migration patterns, and infrastructural ties (railways, roads, etc.) which bound the countries of the area together and which secured South Africa's pivotal position within the region. Before the successful wars of national liberation in the 1970s, South Africa had close political connections with the white regimes in Angola, Mozambique, and Rhodesia as well as with a black-ruled state, H. K. Banda's Malawi. As a military force, South Africa was without parallel, and the other white-ruled states formed a buffer against the hostile black states to the north. Thus, it was South Africa which both held the subsystem together and benefited from its existence. Much has changed in Southern Africa since the early 1970s. Angola and Mozambique gained their independence from Portugal. Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. These political changes in turn destroyed the buffer zone which had once afforded South Africa protection from the independent African states. Emboldened by the success of such national liberation efforts, blacks within South Africa escalated the tempo of their agitation for change in the structures of apartheid.

The electoral process in Sierra Leone has changed substantially over the last twenty years from one operating in the context of a competitive multi-party system to one defined by the formal establishment of a one-party state in 1978 with elections under those rules in 1982. The former was often cited as a model of democratic competition; the latter was established to overcome problems the political elite felt resided in multi-party competition. In this sense, Sierra Leone was not unlike many other African states (including Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Ivory Coast) which had moved to de facto or de jure single-party systems. The earlier effectiveness of the multi-party system in Sierra Leone, which saw the opposition party defeat the party in power, makes this a particularly interesting case for examining the electoral process in a singleparty context in general.

This study focuses on the 1982 election in Sierra Leone and its implications for the political process. Of particular importance are the changes which occurred as the country moved from a political system which fostered competition between parties to one in which electoral competition was to be within the framework of the single-party system. The move to a one-party state had obvious consequences for the electoral process. Less obvious are the implications for electoral competition, campaign strategy, the legitimacy of the government, and the nature of participation in elections. The creation of a one-party state is often seen as an exercise in elite control of the masses (Hermet et al., 1978: vii) with elections functioning as part of the process of manipulation and control (Edelman, 1971; Collier, 1982).

This article discusses the traditional amd modern literary influences in Okot p'Bitek's poetry. It must be borne in mind, however, that the question of influences is very complicated because it is difficult to pin down an influence to a particular source. If those sources have become assimilated into an integral whole, it is difficult to sort them out—to know where the modern ends and the traditional begins, or where the Western ends and the African begins. Therefore, no attempt will be made to show that the modern and traditional influences are mutually exclusive. As with all aspects of life, there are bound to be overlaps, and this kind of overlap cannot be any more expected than in the work of a poet with the diverse kinds of experiences of p'Bitek.

A brief survey of his background is illumniating. Okot p'Bitek is an Acholi from Uganda. His father, Opii Jebedyo, was a teacher from the pa-Cua clan of the Patiko chiefdom and his mother, Lacwaa Cerina, came from the Palaro chiefdom. p'Bitek (1973: 21) has repeatedly testified to his early interest in oral literature and his mother's influence in forming that interest:

…my interest in African literature…[was] sparked by my mother's songs and the stories that my father performed around the evening fire.

The title, Song of Lawino, is derived from his mother's name and confirms that his mother, as a composer and singer, taught him many of the songs that he enjoyed throughout his life and used in many aspects of his varied career.