Remembering Nehemia: Personal Tributes

Four colleagues and friends of Nehemia Levtzion offer personal reminiscences. Roland Oliver remembers the young Arabist graduate student he met at SOAS and later encountered doing research in the field in the early 1960s. He remarks upon the important step Levtzion was taking in moving out of the comfortable Maghrebian field in which Arabists normally settled and venturing into sub-Saharan Ghana. William Miles reflects on Levtzion as a bridge between two major worlds of scholarship: African history and Jewish studies. In Israel, he promoted respectful learning of Muslim civilization by Jewish scholars and institutions of higher learning; globally, he promoted respectful learning of Jewish civilization. Naomi Chazan also remembers Levtzion as the shaper, guide and moving spirit behind African studies in Israel since its inception in the mid-1960s. Re-tracing his work and his leadership is a tribute to a scholar of vision and integrity and, at the same time, a history of the construction of an academic field in Israel. E. Ann McDougall’s memories of Levtzion are inextricably intertwined with formative moments in her personal and professional lives. Most important is the influence that he exerted on her thinking about the Sahara, Saharan-Sahelian relations and Islam through ongoing debate and challenge.     

Engaging with the Legacy of Nehemia Levtzion: An Introduction

This volume draws principally on presentations from two African Studies Association meetings (2003, 2004) that celebrated Nehemia Levtzion’s contributions to the field of Islam in Africa and reminisced about our collective personal interactions with him. It is enriched by additional papers from former students, colleagues and friends (usually one and the same), as well as from contemporary young scholars just beginning to “know” Levtzion through his legacy. The “Epilogue” gives a final, posthumous word to Levtzion himself, in an article looking at the contemporary role of fundamentalism from the perspective of an historian who spent his life engaged in the history of Islam at its Middle Eastern and African crossroads. The following pages are meant not only to pay homage to Nehemia Levtzion but also to reflect critically, to push boundaries, and to introduce Africanist scholars, engaged in other areas of study and new generations of Africanist scholars in this field, to Levtzion’s role in shaping how we have come to understand the experience of Islam in Africa.     

The curious career of an African modernizer: South Africa's Thabo Mbeki

Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's second democratically elected president, was born into left-wing politics. In exile, he became the face of the African National Congress (ANC) and developed a reputation as a modernizer. He returned to the country and built relations, not with the ANC's internal allies, but with the country's business community. In 1996, as Mandela's deputy, Mbeki implemented a neo-liberal economic package, called GEAR, which alienated many. In office, he both failed to acknowledge the threat of HIV/AIDS to the country and refused to pressure the failing regime in Zimbabwe; but it was his bypassing of parliament that ultimately led to his failure as president.     

The last surge to the south: The new enemies of Russia in the rhetoric of Zhirinovsky

In Mein Kampf, what would become the foreign policy of Nazi Germany was set forth in great detail. No one paid attention until it was too late. In a series of books and articles, Vladimir Zhirinovsky demonizes the Moslem states along Russia's southern borders. He claims that Russia's most ancient enemy has become its new worst enemy. Large numbers of Russians are beginning to listen. My article notes Zhirinovsky's achievements in Russia to date. It presents his analysis of the Middle East in his own words, most of which are translated into English for the first time. It investigates the extent to which his rhetoric is supported by actual events in Russian history. It sets forth his plans for conquest if he becomes president. It identifies the major weaknesses in his arguments and suggests how his views may still secure him a large popular following in Russia.     

Sentiment and cosmopolitanism in Olaudah Equiano's Narrative

Abstract

This essay argues that Olaudah Equiano, author of the famous eighteenth-century slave narrative, displayed an international egalitarianism that was unique at the time. He was an extraordinarily well-travelled and a cosmopolitan man who criss-crossed the Atlantic, visiting every corner of the British Empire and who also endured the horrors and terrors of slavery and even as a freeman, never escaped the indignities of discrimination and racism. As a transnational figure of the African diaspora, Equiano's vision of global trade did not much differ from the tenets of British imperialism and market capitalism, which emphasized the exploitation of natural resources throughout the Empire. At the same time, in the representation of his relationship to Africa Equiano sought to establish more equalized and less exploitative international relations. Using political ideologies drawn from liberalism and republicanism, he extended them into a radical form of cosmopolitanism. Particularly in his depiction of his African childhood, and in the way he describes his participation in the Sierra Leone settlement project, is there a desire to create this new paradigm. The skillful appeal to feeling in both these sections of the narrative plays an important role in promoting this political agenda.     

Opening up the black box: looking for a more capacious version of capacity in global health partnerships

Abstract

Some versions of capacity building construe the goal of North?South partnerships as rendering African laboratories, doctors, scientists, and universities indistinguishable from their counterparts in wealthier nations. The specificities, histories, peculiarities, or inner workings of African institutions and individuals are black-boxed ? no one needs to know about them. This article draws on research at Malawi’s College of Medicine and the work of other social scientists and historians to sketch out a more capacious model of capacity, one in which capacity building is grounded in specificity, attends to material difference, is flexible and innovative, and involves as much learning as teaching. This model of capacity building requires consideration of areas in which the Northern partners in “global health” can be brought to the level of their colleagues in Africa.     

L’Afrique centrale francophone entre au XXIe siècle: Citoyens et États,nations, régions face au monde

This special issue is the successor to Volume 18 Number 1 of the Canadian Journal of African Studies, published in 1984 under the title, “État indépendant du Congo, Congo belge, République démocratique du Congo, République du Zaïre?” The title of that special issue devoted to the political and social crisis in the Republic of Zaire ended with a question mark, implicitly asking: What next for Republic of Zaire? The present special issue offers a reply, one nobody expected fifteen years ago. At least symbolically, the country has recovered its identity as an independent contemporary polity, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Many authors in this issue argue that forty years of independence were mainly a time of violence, destruction, and pillaging. Ilunga Kabongo suggests that the global crises was so deep in the mid-1990s that people would vote for anyone able to restore normal life, the return of coloniser included.

Once a regional power, the Congo of today is a toy in hands of its neighbours, some of them being very small countries such as Rwanda which is deeply resented by the Congolese. The circle of violence seems to have engulfed local society, starting from the 1990 massacre of university students on the Lubumbashi campus. Even if, for the first time in a century, the war in and over the Congo is a regional African affair, it is difficult to rejoice as it is more the result the lack of interest from the world powers than the proof of Central African political independence.

The issue is organised in the manner allowing the reader to look first at the regional situation, mainly that of the French-speaking countries. Given the importance of Uganda and of Museveni, both as a political and military local power and as a model of a new leader, an analysis of his autobiography by Ron Kassimir is included. As often as it was possible, the voice of social scientists working and living in the region is heard. In little more than three years, between the time this issue was initiated in late 1996 and the time of its publication, many of them were forced into exile. It is an important characteristic of the present day situation. In addition to social science analyses, some local voices are included in order to help readers to grasp local perceptions and local efforts to understand the ongoing life, to find a way out.

As far as Congolese social scientists are concerned, we have publish articles of scholars belonging to three generations: those who were mainly educated abroad and came to national universities in the early 1970s; those who were mainly educated at local universities and who came to teaching and research in the 1980s; those who were educated in the 1990s, partially locally and partially abroad. It is important to note that many of those scholars were in the meantime forced to expatriate. The comparison of their understanding of what is going on can help us to appreciate Congolese social thought.

One central fact emerges, more from the search for peace and comments of local urban intellectuals than from scholarly essays. Today, while the borders of the Congo are disregarded by various national armies and foreign intervention forces, while local markets depend more on foreign exchange than on local currency, while the country is de facto divided into four more or less autonomous parts, ordinary people feel Congolese and refuse partition as well as secession. Should one conclude that in the deepest crises of its twentieth-century political history a nation is born, that it is born despite the demise of political institutions?     

Interview With a Terrorist by Vocation: A Day Among the Diehard Terrorists,Part II

The interview that follows was conducted somewhere in Italy with a militant of the Red Brigades recently freed after spending 32 years and 6 months in prison. Taking up the sociological perspective of Max Weber, the author draws a distinction between “professional terrorist” and “vocational terrorist”. The terrorist by vocation differs from the professional terrorist in his profound faith in the mission he feels he must accomplish. He does not try to improve his social status and is not interested in the selfish pursuit of personal well-being. He gives up love, family, children and friendship. When he decides to join a terrorist group, he voluntarily severs any contact with his former life. He is a high school or university graduate and might choose a secure life and a good job but prefers to kill, accepting the risk of dying. The vocational terrorist is the terrorist in his incandescent state.     

Republican China: Chaos,Process, and Revolution*

A pivotal figure in the birth of Chinese cinema, Zheng Zhengqiu (鄭正秋 1889–1935) established an art of dramatic film integral to the creation of early Chinese motion pictures. His style incorporated unique cross-media perspectives, producing theatrical works fundamentally grounded in his experiences in graphic arts (illustrated news) and theater. This article focuses on crucial links between Zheng's films and his work for various illustrated newspapers, as well as between his stage plays and his own experience of family life. The author offers new approaches to and interpretations of Zheng's art, analyzing his emotional modes of narrative and provocative forms of engagement. These artistic traits are rarely discussed in contemporary scholarship on his contributions to Chinese cinema. Emerging during the 1911 Revolution, Zheng's sensational style of drama aimed to foster broad social and cultural reforms. For Zheng, art was never for art's sake alone; instead, art was always in the service of society.     

Repression and endurance: anathematized Hindu and Sikh women of Afghanistan

Hindus and Sikhs, longtime minority religious communities in Afghanistan, have played a major role in the social, cultural, and economic development of the country. Their history in Afghanistan has not been faithfully documented nor relayed beyond the country's borders by their resident educated strata or religious leaders, rendering them virtually invisible and voiceless within and outside of their country borders. The situation of Hindu and Sikh women in Afghanistan is significantly more marginalized socially and politically. Gender equality and women's rights were central to the teachings of Guru Nanak, but gradually became irrelevant to the daily lives of his followers in Afghanistan. Hindu and Sikh women have sustained their hope for change and seized any opportunity presented to play a role in the process. Active participants in the social, cultural, and religious life of their respective communities as well as in Afghanistan's government, their contributions to social changes and the political process have gone mostly unnoticed and undocumented as their rights, equality, and standing in the domestic and public arena in Afghanistan continue to erode in the face of continuous discrimination and harassment.     

Fear of a black planet: anarchy anxieties and postcolonial travel to Africa

Western travel to Africa has historically involved the construction and consumption of African otherness. In the postcolonial era this is most clearly evident in Western tourism to the continent, where Africa is frequently marketed as an exoticised destination to see and consume both ‘nature’ and ‘native’. The Western tourist gaze often requires fixing Africans, both in a spatial site (‘village’) and a temporal site (‘tradition’). Africans on the move (both spatially and temporally) are often seen as threatening to the Western‐established images of Africa, which are grounded in a long‐standing fear of ‘unorded’ and ‘chaotic’ African space. After 11 September and the USA's ‘war on terror’ retributive response, the political implications of these fears are evinced in the writings of Robert Kaplan and his popular ‘coming anarchy’ thesis. The article concludes with a critique of Kaplan's work and a discussion of its implications for Africa and African international relations.     

“Openness Must Be the Norm”

The other great transformation in the world besides the rising power of the emerging economies has been the ever deeper penetration of the Internet in civil society and the economy. Alone among world leaders, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has sought to address the sticky issue of how to “civilize the Internet” in the G‐8, a key forum of global governance which France chairs this year. As a kind of historical document, in this section we publish Sarkozy's speech to the leading information technologists and entrepreneurs he gathered in Paris in May for the first “e‐G‐8” Summit. Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, was among the attendees. We include his report to the 21st Century Council of the Nicolas Berggruen Institute.     

Political Economy of Modern Belarus: Going Against Mainstream?

A peculiar model of post-communist political economy has evolved in Belarus under President Aliaksandr Lukashenka. It features prioritisation of non-entrepreneurial social groups, a strong role for the state, and extensive social security provision. The model appears to be grounded on Lukashenka's understanding of his political powerbase; having no external backing for his policies, he wants to command as wide grass-roots support as possible to remain in office. By doing so, he rejects the principles of pluralist democracy and market economy, making Belarus's political economy model quite different from that envisaged in the mainstream post-communist theories of neo-liberalism and gradualism.     

Suicidality and Suicide Bombing Revisited: A Rejoinder to Merari

Ariel Merari purports to demonstrate a tendency on the part of suicide bombers to be motivated by depression and suicidal tendencies. However, he misconstrues the present authors' critique of his work and misinterprets their research. By clarifying both issues, this article seeks to substantiate three claims: (1) Merari's sampling procedure precludes generalization; (2) interviewer and contextual effects probably bias his findings; (3) evidence challenges his inferences.     

No end to poverty

This commentary is designed to provide a critique of Jeffrey Sachs' The End of Poverty: How We Can Make It Happen In Our Lifetime, highlighting in particular the difficulties that arise from his focus on absolute poverty and his proposed recipe for its elimination. It begins by emphasising the many strengths of Sachs' arguments, but then suggests that these could usefully be tempered by greater attention to relative conceptualisations of poverty and the ethical grounds upon which his arguments are based. Six main issues are subsequently addressed: his use of the notion of a ladder of development; his concentration on countries rather than people; his understandings of geography and of history; his relative lack of attention to social and cultural dimensions of development; the inability of poor countries to absorb the levels of aid that he proposes; and the damage caused by suggesting that it is indeed possible to end poverty.     

The State and the Internet: A Call for Collective Responsibility

The other great transformation in the world besides the rising power of the emerging economies has been the ever deeper penetration of the Internet in civil society and the economy. Alone among world leaders, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has sought to address the sticky issue of how to “civilize the Internet” in the G‐8, a key forum of global governance which France chairs this year. As a kind of historical document, in this section we publish Sarkozy's speech to the leading information technologists and entrepreneurs he gathered in Paris in May for the first “e‐G‐8” Summit. Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, was among the attendees. We include his report to the 21st Century Council of the Nicolas Berggruen Institute.     

Orientalism and African Development Studies: the ‘reductive repetition’ motif in theories of African underdevelopment

Contemporary Africa is generally depicted as a ‘failure’. ‘Progress' has eluded the continent throughout the 20th century, and despite new ways of thinking about the reasons for failure and possibilities for success, allusions to the ‘natural weakness and incapacity’ of Africans and their social realities remain evident in theoretical, policy and political discourse on development in Africa. The practice of ‘reductive repetition’, as identified by Abdallah Laroui and Edward Said, has been imported into African development studies from Orientalist scholarship. Reductive repetition reduces the diversity of African historical experiences and trajectories, sociocultural contexts and political situations into a set of core deficiencies for which externally generated ‘solutions’ must be devised. In the field of development studies, the notion of development is introduced to Africa as a deus ex machina. In this article modern conceptualisations of development are challenged in three steps. First, it traces the history of development discourse over the post-Berlin Conference colonial and post-WWII development eras, suggesting that, while rhetoric of racial and cultural inferiority has been transformed, the notion of African deficiency remains at the conceptual and discursive levels. Second, the primarily liberal idea that ‘development for all’ is possible is challenged as being an ecological and economic, and therefore also social, impossibility. Third, given the problems of growth-based development, the article suggests that modern development theory ought to give way to post-developmental thinking which challenges standard a priori assumptions regarding rationality, linearity and modernity, thus offering some modest hope for a move ‘beyond’ the current development impasse.     

Le Congo et l’Afrique face aux enjeux et aux paradoxes de la francophonie

In his analyses of the institutions and policies of the Francophonie (French speaking states commonwealth), the author looks closely into the role of African states and gives special attention to the Zaire/Congo involvement. He stresses political aspects of the Francophonie in both French and African state politics. He demonstrates how the presentation of Zaire as the second French-speaking nation of the world, based on the fact that French is the language of public administration, was manipulated. The author concludes with a few observations about Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s ambiguous attitute toward the Francophonie.     

Desilencing diasporic memory/ies in knowledge production on Highlife

Abstract

The paper draws on ethnographic and historical research on the formation of Highlife in a ‘trilocal’ setting: Ghana, Nigeria and England in the 1950s and 1960s, the time when Highlife evolved as one of the most popular forms of modern music of (anglophone) West Africa in the twentieth century. It tackles the issue of how the formation of Highlife-music and culture was (transnationally) related to the formation of an African Diaspora in the colonial centre London in the post-World War II decades, how West African cultural formation in the diaspora affected Highlife as a popular and transnational culture, particularly evident in the so far neglected ‘diasporic memory/ies’ on Highlife. The approach seeks to emphasise the critical role of travelling music/ians from West Africa and the Caribbean to London and back in the formation of both, African diasporic and transnational identities as well as African popular music, in that important phase of its history. In the final part of this paper I am reflecting upon methodological issues related to my study on Highlife, focussing mainly on the relationship of living memory, archive and qualitative research.     

‘No place like home': experiences of an Ethiopian migrant in the host country and as a returnee to the homeland

ABSTRACT

Using an in-depth interview with an Ethiopian returnee who lived abroad for 17 years, this study examined both integration and reintegration experiences. For this returnee, the experience of migration was psychologically costly. Challenges in the host country included acquiring a resident permit, overcoming language barriers, and contending with oppression and marginalization. Being treated unequally was a major push factor for his return to Ethiopia. Despite his relief upon reentering his home country, he faced challenges which made reintegration difficult, including the inefficiency of government offices, lack of a work ethic, time mismanagement, and the unsystematic processes in a developing country. To facilitate integration and reintegration processes, more effective policy responses of both the host and home countries are needed. Developing countries should not miss the opportunity to capitalize on the potential contributions of returnees who are committed to bringing about positive change in their homeland.