The G.I. movement in Asia

Abstract

The War against Vietnam has done much to America. It has weakened the economy. It has aggravated social tensions. And it has opened the way for large numbers of Americans to see the racism, the imperialism and the genocide that is so pervasive and yet so deeply buried in American history. By fighting so successfully, the Vietnamese people have helped Americans make a space for revolutionary thought and revolutionary politics in America. While it is true that the American left has been largely unable to take advantage of the widespread discontent that the War has created, there has been a significant erosion in the effectiveness of many American institutions. Central among these institutions is the military. When the values and interests of a ruling class are seriously challenged, its political power does come out of the barrel of a gun; and so the fading effectiveness of the American military is of the deepest concern to America’s “leaders.”     

The Secret of Akom.I

This pioneer African study of the Gold Coast fetish-art is bya Methodist minister, at Manso-Atwere. He explains, in a preface,that his main informant was Opanin Kwaku Addae, who was convertedto Christianity after a life-time spent as a priest of Tannq,an orthodox obosom in Ashanti.     

The Social and Scientific Role of C.E.P.S.I.

The Belgian Centre d'Etudes des Probleémes Sociaux Indigènesis, so far as we know, unique in Africa, and one that deservesto be even more widely known than it is. The following abridgedaccount has been translated by Mary Hicks from pp. 5–11and pp. 78–85 of the C.E.P.S.I. Bulletin No. 10 (1949).M. Albert Gille is Provincial Commissioner, Coquilhatville,and M. F. Grévisse, Assistant District Commissioner,Elisabethville.     

Cosmopolitanism and the African Renaissance: Pixley I. Seme and Alain L. Locke

Abstract

The heretofore unknown relationship between Pixley kaIsaka Seme, one of the founders of the African National Congress, and Alain L. Locke, the primary architect of the Harlem Renaissance, is revealed and explored. I suggest that Seme's Pan-African sensibilities created the conditions for Locke to explore what it means to pursue an African Renaissance; and Locke's focus on literary expression was an exemplar for Seme's later forays in journalism and cosmopolitan unions across ethnic lines. Seme and Locke, however, created significantly different concepts of African regeneration, Renaissance, race and cosmopolitanism. Their concepts are described and evaluated. Seme's approach to Renaissance is criticised for its reliance on an ideal of valuation that renders values stable and unchanging. Locke's value theory contends that valuation is necessarily engaged in transvaluation, thus, human cognition is necessarily always engaged in creating new value categories. Locke's approach is criticised because it allows for what I define as ‘sophisticated cruelty’ – the unintentional social destruction of ethnic group values. I argue that Locke's approach of moderate cosmopolitan has the least theoretical disadvantages of major concepts of cosmopolitanism and Pan Africanism.     

A City Living through Crisis: Jerusalem during World War I

This article aims to contribute to the literature on World War I in Palestine while studying the experience of the inhabitants of Jerusalem during the war. By focusing on a city and its residents, this article offers an analysis of the war from a dimension and lens yet to be explored in the history of Palestine. More specifically, the article will use relief networks in order to analyze not only the ways people experienced the war, but also as a way of exposing inter-communal dynamics between the different communities living in this mixed urban center.