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This is a story about a house with a history and about the people who lived or worked there. It captures something of the spirit of the times in the worlds of politics and development, and it discusses the links which were established between Oxfam GB in Zambia and the African National Congress of South Africa.
The Botsotso literary journal started in 1996 as a monthly 4 page insert in the New Nation, an independent anti-apartheid South African weekly and reached over 80,000 people at a time largely politisized black workers and youth with a selection of poems, short stories and short essays that reflected the deep changes taking place in the country at that time. Since the closure of the New Nation in 1999, the journal has evolved into a stand-alone compilation featuring the same mix of genres, and with the addition of photo essays and reviews. The Botsotso editorial policy remains committed to creating a mix of voices which highlight the diverse spectrum of South African identities and languages, particularly those that are dedicated to radical expression and examinations of South Africa's complex society.
The poems, stories and essays of Mphutlane wa Bofelo operate within a framework of thinking that is an amalgam of philosophies: that of black consciousness, humanistic Islam and socialism. His voice is both lyrical and satirical, expressing anger and tenderness even as his barbs are sharp and his kisses tender. His beats are complex polyrhythms that roll on in incantatory style or achieve mystical brevity. Bofelo entered the world of sociopolitical and cultural activism in the early 1980s through the black consciousness movement in Zamdela Township in Sasolburg. He lives in Durban, where he has built up an audience as a performer of poetry, a speaker and a facilitator. He has self-published two poetry collections and is represented in journals, newspapers and on web sites.
Married But Available
(2008)
Married But Available ventures into a theme about which people say as much as they withhold. It explores intersections between sex, money and power, challenging orthodoxies, revealing complexities and providing insights into the politics and economics of relationships. During six months of fieldwork in Mimboland, Lilly Loveless, a Muzungulander doctoral student in Social Geography, researches how sex shapes and is shaped by power and consumerism in Africa. The bulk of her research takes place on the outskirts of the University of Mimbo, an institution where nothing is what it seems. Through her astounding harvest of encounters, interviews, conversations and observations, the reader gets a captivating glimpse into the frailty and resilience of human beings and society. Lilly Loveless comes out of it all well and truly baptized. And so does the reader!
The Pan-Africanist debate is back on the historical agenda. The stresses and strains in the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar since its formation some forty years ago are not showing any sign of abating. Meanwhile, imperialism under new forms and labels continues to bedevil the continent in ever-aggressive, if subtle, ways. The political federation of East Africa, which was one of the main spin-offs of the Pan-Africanism of the nationalist period, is reappearing on the political stage, albeit in a distorted form of regional integration. It is in this context that the present study is situated. Backgrounding the major dramas of the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar this book studies the personalities involved and their politics, and includes an account of the Dodoma CCM conference that toppled President Jumbe. It is also a detailed legal analysis of the union incorporating powerful new material.
Getting Heard: (Re)claiming Performance Space is the third in a series of publications on art, culture and society released by Twaweza Communications. The aim is to bring to the fore conversations taking place in Kenya about identity, creativity, nationalism and the generation of knowledge. The series is also about the pursuit of freedom through arts, media and culture. In Getting Heard the performance space is shown to offer wider possibilities for knowledge creation. It shows that in post-colonial Africa political leaders have consistently performed over their subjects at local and national levels. There is discussion of: Kenya National Theatre, Story Telling, Radio Theatre, Translation, African Languages, Music, Media and Mungiki This volume opens a window to our understanding of post-colonial Africa through performances.
The book examines the creative industries of Cameroon and Africa and makes bold the cultural triumphant assertion that Africa is home to some of the most diverse cultural patrimony and the most versatile creative professionals. It also discusses indigenous development models and questions the rationale for Eurocentric democratic paradigms which have partly contributed to the demise of a concrete democratic development entitlement in most African countries. Ngwane weaves both the cultural and political strands into a search for a homegrown development web which he calls 'glocalisation'. Ngwane's essays, most of which have animated debate and discourse in national newspapers, online blogs and International journals are lucid in their arguments, poignant in their ideological focus, rich in their non-fiction craftsmanship and urgent in their message delivery. The essays will make good reading for students of Africa studies, Development studies, Politics and Culture.
Titabet and the Takumbeng
(2008)
Titabet and the Takumbeng is a play that relives the unprecedented political upheaval of the 1992 first ever multiparty presidential elections in Cameroon. Following the controversial elections, Bamenda - the stronghold of the main opposition party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF) - was plunged into a tense and intense civil disobedience campaign. The violence which ensued pitted SDF militants who claimed their victory was stolen against regime loyalists. The government reacted by imposing a curfew on Bamenda. The army that was dispatched to keep the peace committed ferocious kidnapping, rape, theft and torture, driving women, children and men into the arms of terror. Titabet the protagonist emerges as the leader of the oppressed. He and the sacred women's cult of Takumbeng were the only hope for the people. The sacred cleansing cult and Titabet's courageous resistance apparently brought an end to what would have been too devastating a tale to narrate. Kehbuma Langmia teaches courses in Mass Communications, Broadcast Journalism and Media Studies at Bowie State University. With previous degrees in fine arts, television and film, he earned his PhD in Mass Communication and Media Studies from Howard University. He also has an MA degree in theatre arts from the University of Yaound?, Cameroon. He is also a graduate from the Television Academy in Munich, Germany. Dr. Langmia writes, produces and directs independent productions, and serves as executive producer for students' television projects at Bowie State University.
This book is about emerging informal responses to unemployment in Malawi. To the bicycle taxi and handcart operators who are at the centre of the book, informality is a means for negotiating newer experiences and challenges associated with urbanisation. Jimu richly documents how informal economy activities continue to represent grassroots responses to widespread poverty, unavailability of meaningful employment opportunities and the failure of the state as well as the private and the non-state sectors to respond to escalating demand for formal sector jobs. Multiplicity of activities and straddling urban and rural opportunities are strategies employed to deal with opportunity impermanence and maximize returns from various low paying tasks and jobs. While these activities have grown without state support, state involvement is necessary to regulate and promote the welfare of the workers in the sector as well as that of the users of their service and the general public. This will require constructive engagement among the operators, users of their services, local government, and various state agencies.
The Raped Amulet
(2008)
An extraordinary story of a young man from Africa who tries hard to reconcile the ways he had grown up with, and those he was experiencing in his host country - Great Britain. The story is set in Coventry, in the English Midlands and is told by Dion Ekpochaba, a postgraduate student at the University of Warwick. Dion, fresh from his motherland, Cameroon, loses an amulet, a cherished heritage of his ancestry and becomes desperate about the loss. He meets an elderly English man, Tom Jones who makes a startling revelation: the amulet had just been desecrated by his dog and thrown into the depths of a lake in the campus. Dion became so flabbergasted that Tom Jones thought he might have gone out of his mind. The two strangers tried to understand each other to no avail. However, the misfortunes of time turn the tides, resulting in a friendship, which provides grounds for mutual understanding and respect for each other's ways. Read on and spark your views on making the world a better place.
This book explores the latent and sometimes overt undercurrents that have shaped the judicial history of Cameroon since the United Nations Trusteeship period. It is an insightful account by a critical observer privileged to serve as Director of Public Prosecutions and a judge in a post-independence context characterized by dual and often conflictual legal systems inspired by French and English colonialism. Justice Nyo'Wakai demonstrates how the conflict of judicial concepts, procedures and usages have led to the Francophone judicial system trying to impose itself on the Anglophone judicial system in Cameroon. Often reduced to toothless bulldogs by new constitutional dispensations informed largely by the French colonial legacy and Francophone realities, Anglophones have bemoaned the independence of the Judiciary identified with their Anglo-Saxon heritage. In the face of such domination and the highhandedness of the Executive, only mature cool headedness and the ability to bend over backwards on the part of Anglophone legal practitioners have contained the explosive situation and allowed for a gradual evolution of the Judicial System in Cameroon.
Their Champagne Party Will End! Poems in Honor of Bate Besong : Poems in Honor of Bate Besong
(2008)
A collection of six thought-provoking stories, four of which were award-winning-stories at the 1990 literary contest of the national Association of Cameroonian Poets and Writers (APEC). The stories are set in different localities in Africa and Cameroon in particular. The author in a lucid manner explores the theme of women lib- the African way in the lead story. Ebenye, the protagonist, representing the sharp-witted African woman cannot understand why she should cook food without tasting of it. So she decides to take the bold step of eating a piece of the python that she has been ordered to cook for the men of her community. The other stories tackle themes of corruption, poverty, alcoholism, endurance, love and more.
The House of Falling Women
(2008)
House of Falling Women is the story of a young woman with quixotic ideas about improving the lot of women who finds out that the crusader's cloak is an uncomfortable one. Martha Elive, armed with a university education and a substantial legacy from a Dutchwoman she meets while studying abroad on a scholarship, decides to create an institute for the empowerment of women, only to find that the contradictions to be resolved are more firmly anchored in her psyche than elsewhere. In addition to her unexorcised ghosts and the legacies of a chequered love life, she has to contend with recalcitrant public opinion and moral inertia, the opposition of old-guard reactionaries, and the incomprehension of her small-town parents. House of Falling Women is a poignant, often hilarious story of the search by a group of women for a new place in society in a world where women are dissatisfied with the old values and bewildered by the new.
The Tragedy of Mr No Balance
(2008)
No Love Lost
(2008)
No Love Lost is a tale of troubled times in which the storyteller strives to return to wholesomeness a society whose values have jumped the rail. Set in the 'No Man's Land' of Ongola, the novel unravels the corruption and influence-peddling endemic in this African country. Framed around the travails of an unemployed university graduate, the story is the gripping depiction of one man's vendetta against a society at odds with itself. Among others, the novel explores the themes of identity crisis, political gerrymandering, individual and collective greed, love and marriage, and class exploitation to weave an enduring tapestry of great human interest. Written against the backdrop of nascent neo-colonialism No Love Lost combines the traditional and the modern; the private and the public to demonstrate that the quest for truth and justice behooves all and sundry. The author infuses the narrative with oral traditions to capture the reader's attention in a compelling style. This is a refreshing work by a writer whose heart throbs for his people and their plight.
The Fire Within
(2008)
In Africa, there is unrest, and possibly tragedy, when new trends clash with traditional values. With a curmudgeonly stepmother who harasses her even as she spoils her own biological daughter, Mungeu', the protagonist, blazes a path for herself in the face of many odds. But things go terribly wrong when she falls pregnant. The dilemma of whether or not to keep the pregnancy, given society's expectations, flings this young woman into direct confrontation with a life that is beyond her years. She is bent on succeeding: she will keep her baby, and with her training at a girls' craft center, start a business and bring up her illegitimate child. But Mungeu' can only make plans as she realises before long that the authority to dispose of them does not rest with her alone; there are other powerful forces out there.
' The United Nations-organised plebiscite on 11 February 1961 was one of the most significant events in the history of the southern and northern parts of the British-administered trust territory in Cameroon. John Percival was sent by the then Colonial Office as part of the team to oversee the process. This book captures the story of the plebiscite in all its dimensions and intricacies and celebrates the author's admiration for things African through a series of reminiscences of what life was like in the 1960s, both for the Africans themselves and for John Percival as a very young man. The complex story is also a series of reflections about the effect of the modern world on Africa. It is a thorough, insightful, rich and enlightening first-hand source on a political landmark that has never been told before in this way. In a vivid style with a great sense of humour, Percival's witty, cogent, eyewitness and active-participant account deconstructs the rumours and misrepresentations about the February 1961 Plebiscite which was a prelude to reunification and to the present day politics of 'belonging' in Cameroon. ''One of the major merits of this book is to provide us with a deeper insight into the role of those actors who have never been the subject of plebiscite studies, namely the Plebiscite Supervisory Officers.'' - Piet Konings, African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands John Percival-Anthropologist, Writer, Television Broadcaster of many innovative BBC series on the environment, history and anthropology. As a young graduate he was recruited and sent to serve in the Southern Cameroons as a Plesbiscite Supervisory Officer in 1961. He died in 2005 after a recent return visit to Cameroon with Nigel Wenban-Smith who writes an epilogue. This posthumous memoir has been edited by his wife, Lalage Neal.'
Precipice
(2008)
Madam Essin stood watching the young people holding each other. She looked at the young man who was her son. How handsome he looked. When he smiled he had that elusive curve on his lips that reminded her of her husband. She had been unable to resist that curve of the lips even after eight years of marriage. When her husband smiled she had the feeling he was looking down on her in amused condescension. This used to annoy her but she could not resist the charm he exuded. Now here she was an abandoned wife with an estranged son. Her thoughts roved as she watched them, plunging into the past, the present and the future. The girl brought back the past. She wished she could obliterate that past from her life and her son's. In Precipice, Susan Nkwentie Nde, in her first novel, has a way of weaving past intrigues and present emotions to keep all guessing about what will be. She opens up her characters for the reader to enter and inhabit their minds and bodies in a compelling story of love and estrangement, happy accidents, quest and survival.
Tale of an African Woman
(2008)
The village of Yakiri has been cursed by ancestral wrath because of the treatment of Yaa, the first girl who wrestled her male goatherd peers to earn the right to be initiated into the society of manhood. Her struggle is taken up generations later by Yaya, the granddaughter of Tafan and Wirba. Orphaned like her forebear, Yaya becomes a star student in the village's primary school and promises to go far. But, ask the villagers, is it right to invest in an education for an African girl who may become the property of another village? An educated woman will abandon the farm where she is needed, wear high heels and try to order men around! In the midst of it all, one Irish missionary, living in Africa and for the most time with Africans, literally wiggles his way into hearts and minds. With his intervention, Yaya leaves the village to school in the city, but her troubles as a woman have not really begun. Yarns of cultural borrowing, indigestion and transcendence reveal the simple and complex ways in which community matters are confronted and decided. This happens in shrines where seers are consulted and cowry shells thrown, in palm wine houses, but also around the school and presbytery. The untold stories and perspectives of girls and women burst through in illuminating and uplifting ways. Quarrels, squabbles, near collisions and mutual conversions give way to innovative traditions.
The Barn
(2008)
As a veteran playwright and actor, Kwo Victor Elame Musinga is more than just a pioneer in popular theatre. His simple but profound messages demonstrate a depth of understanding and insight into human nature and the nature of society. The texts he crafts are universal and timeless in their content and appeal, even as the themes and situations that inspire them are localized in specific places, experiences and histories. The Barn is a collection of three topical plays. Njema captures the predicament of love in a context where innocence and trust are preyed upon by deceit, dishonesty, promiscuity, waywardness, callous indifference to human life, the reckless abandon of parental authority and wisdom by youth in a hurry to celebrate sexuality, irresponsible manhood with or without the connivance of girls/women, and HIV/AIDS and its terror. Invitation to God addresses elitism and fair-weather friendship even among believers. In Moka, the theme of friendship is explored through the simple act of dishonesty and greed, especially to those with whom one should be nothing but virtuous, open, generous and kind. In these plays Kwo Victor Elame Musinga explores the virtues of being human, while addressing the dark side of humanity.
Souls Forgotten
(2008)
' ''One day, Mama Ngonsu told her son: ''''Normally, a child grew up and stayed around to help his parents. The world has changed, and things are no longer as they used to be. Things must not be normal all the time, otherwise life would not be life.'''' When Emmanuel Kwanga gets a University scholarship, he travels from the lake and hills of Abehema to the Great City. Everyone in the village has invested in him their hopes for the good life. When the life they've imagined is cut short by the University guillotine, Emmanuel Kwanga must struggle to make sense of what the good life means - for himself and for Abehema - in a world where things are no longer as they used to be. This novel is about coming of age and coming to terms in Mimboland. It is also about the fragility of life and the strength of the human spirit. The filth and screaming splendor of the city and the perplexed tranquility of the village are juxtaposed, as the tension and conviviality between tradition and modernity are lived and explored. Roads and drivers, dreams and public transport link different geographies. Faltering along or speeding away, these spaces of risk, frustration and solidarity are filled with popular songs as vehicles for understanding events and relationships. With every crossing of the Pont de Maturit? the story flows, and its mysteries surge. In this novel, the worlds of the living and the dead intermingle, as do the natural and the supernatural, the visible and the invisible.'''
This book richly documents the battles fought by the Anglophone community in Cameroon to safeguard the General Certificate of Education (GCE), a symbol of their cherished colonial heritage from Britain, from attempts by agents of the Ministry of National Education to subvert it. These battles opposed a mobilised and determined Anglophone civil society against numerous machinations by successive Francophone-dominated governments to destroy their much prided educational system in the name of 'national integration'. When Southern Cameroonians re-united with La R?publique du Cameroun in 1961, they claimed that they were bringing into the union 'a fine education system' from which their Francophone compatriots could borrow. Instead, they found themselves battling for decades to save their way of life. Central to their concerns and survival as a community is an urgent need for cultural recognition and representation, of which an educational system free of corruption and trivialisation through politicisation is a key component.
Cry My Beloved Africa is a compendium of essays having as locus the continent of Africa. It comprises insightful observations on the politics, governmental systems, political economy, cultural practices, educational systems and natural phenomena that impact on the lives of Africans. True to the tradition of French novelist Stendhal, the author intends this work to serve as a mirror that reflects the day-to-day living of the different peoples that inhabit the fifty-three nation-states in Africa. It is directed to contemporary Africa and to the relationship between Africa and the rest of the globe. The didactic value of the book resides in its suitability to the young and the old. The language is clear and free of sophistry.
God the Politician
(2008)
God the Politician is a compelling analytical, critical, informed and largely eyewitness account of the major events that have taken place in Cameroon since the return of multiparty politics in the 1990s. The accession of Paul Biya to power under the one-party regime in 1982 and the attempt to overthrow him in a coup d'?tat in 1984 are told in flashback, so are the excesses of power without responsibility that have come to be associated with over 25 years of Biya as President. Most of the story is centred on the struggle by the opposition, led by the Social Democratic Front (SDF), to overthrow the incumbent. In his determination to crush opposition, President Biya and his collaborators have sometimes used intrigue, but mostly force and callous indifference to basic human rights and to democracy. Bloodshed has often been the result of the regime's titanic struggles against freedoms. President Paul Biya is not in a hurry to go and so instead of democratizing Cameroon, he has chosen to Cameroonize democracy, turning electoral fraud into an art. Because of massive fraud during elections and the inability of the opposition to unite, political party leaders have decided to join him who they cannot beat. The book is an x-ray of a regime and the Frankenstein monsters it has created and sustained to thwart democracy. It exposes the corruption, electoral fraud, human rights abuse and cynicism that make politicians believe they can play God in the lives of Cameroonians.
Beware the Drives
(2008)
This collection of verse, which has mostly short poems, some of which are two-liners, is an outcome of several years of keen observation of the very nature of man. The observation brought this writer to the conclusion that man is dominated by fear and in his effort to conquer it, he resorts to unbridled aggression. Such aggression has been very instrumental in much of the success that humanity has been able to achieve, so far. But at the same time, the same aggression in man's nature has been responsible for the pleasure he takes in the ruthless destruction of his own kind, the environment in which he cushions himself, plants and animals.
' Cameroon's Social Democratic Front (SDF) was among the watershed challenges c.1990 by sub-Saharan Africa's democratization forces against autocratic regimes, but it crested in 1992 and has subsided since. Yet the party survives, participates in the National Assembly, maintains a grass roots structure, and prepares for a presidential ballot in 2011 that will likely determine its fate. The author conducted research four times in Cameroon, 1989-1999, focusing on the SDF since 1991, and maintains party contacts to the present. The book assesses its history and its prospects, covering the SDF in Africa-wide as well as Cameroonian terms. ''Krieger has given us the first, superbly researched, finely tuned analysis of the fortunes of a major contemporary African opposition party, Cameroon's Social Democratic Front (SDF).'' - Victor Le Vine, Washington University, St. Louis, USA. ''The book goes far beyond its title and puts in context a daylight re-emergence of political opposition in Cameroon. To say that this long overdue history of the SDF party is a prolegomena to understanding contemporary Cameroon social forces is not an overstatement.'' - Ambroise Kom, University of Yaounde I, Cameroon. ''...a level-headed but provocative examination of the structure and workings of a major African country...the sobriety with which he evaluates institutions and leadership is commendable, yielding exceptional analysis that will stand the test of time.'' - Toyin Falola, Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters and Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria. Milton Krieger started teaching and research about sub-Saharan Africa in 1970. Nine trips there include four research visits providing two years time in Cameroon, 1989-99. The second, 1991, coincided with 'villes mortes' and turned his primary scholarship to the Social Democratic Front. Access to party documents, officials, and rank and file members included visitor status at the 1995 and 1999 national conventions. Party contacts continue to the present.'
' ''Building Capacity promotes the vision that the teaching of African languages can best achieve its aim of boosting the economic and cultural development of the Africans if they are made to work in synergy with a revamping of the course contents of international languages that will be taught within the frame of a development-oriented literacy curriculum. Great emphasis is put on the oral skills in the use of African languages as they are to serve as a link between the community and the school for the ultimate revitalization of the positive aspects of African cultures in a world beset by globalization. The book is supplemented with a sample of texts in the appendix that are meant to be a bridge between formal texts taught in classrooms and literacy texts that can raise the genuine interests of the local populations in that they address their immediate needs. Among the possible topics language teachers are encouraged to explore in their classes are those concerning economic development, but also such issues as health, education, the environment, food security, and conflict resolution. ''''In the face of the growing interest in the use of African Languages by Africans as symbols of personal and cultural identity and as means of empowering the rural communities in the entreprise of national development,the need for a methodologically appropriate manual to guide the teaching and learning of African languages becomes urgent.This book is a timely response, predicated on a policy of the symbiotic use of African languages along with partner (foreign-official) languages, to attain a balanced level of economic and socio-cultural development.It is based on a compendium of well- thought-out principles geared towards a rapid acquisition of written and oral language skills that are congruent with and reflect the socio-cultural and economic concerns of the linguistic community.'''' Beban Sammy Chumbow, Professor of Linguistics, University of Yaounde I ''''Among the numerous proposals in this book is the necessity for Africans, and I would add, for the communities of Asia and Latin America, to re-think the contents of their language courses and assign them an objective which aims at the integral development of their communities. It is indeed imperative that these courses reflect clear objectives of seeking social, cultural, and economic developments that harmonize with African, Asian, and Latin American values that are deep rooted in their respective various cultures.'''' Jean-Pierre Angenot Professor of Linguistics, Federal University of Rond?nia, Porto Velho, Brazil.'''
In K?cracy, Trees in the Storm and Other Poems, Bill Ndi vociferously bemoans the fate of a world in which the good and the evil are intimate bedfellows; a world wherein miscreants proceed with nauseating impunity to trample on innocence. The poet, a widely traveled scholar in Africa, Europe, and the Americas, currently resides in Australia where he is hailed as an Ambassador of the Peace. Informed by his experience as a child of the world - being at home away from home and thinking of home, Bill Ndi serves the reader with a delicious platter of poetic maze which to him is synonymous to the political maze he has known around the world.
Pidgin English is the chief medium of communication for the great majority of Cameroonians. It sustains a world view, culture and way of life. Pidgin embodies concepts that would at best be partially expressed in formal English. A critical understanding of Pidgin English requires not only a thorough grasp of the socio-cultural matrix from which the words and expressions originate but also an immersion in an Afro-centric worldview. Majunga Tok: Poems in Pidgin English is the poet's attempt at capturing these speech patterns of ordinary Cameroonians in written form. Pidgin English, also called broken English, is a lingua franca spoken not only in Cameroon but also in many West African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia amonst others. This poetry anthology is inspired by the poet's desire to salvage a language that has been subjected to multiple forms of denigration because it is oral. In Cameroon, for instance, Pidgin English has been the target of myriad attacks from self-styled linguistic purists who claim that Pidgin is a bastardized variant of Standard English and, therefore, should not be allowed to thrive. The controversy and denigration directed at Amos Tutuola and his Pidgin English creative genius are vivid examples. This condescending attitude of speakers of Standard English stems from the fact that Pidgin is often associated with illiteracy.
Coils of Mortal Flesh
(2008)
The diverse voices in the poems in this collection are unified in the single voice of the omnipresent persona who appears to be searching for a collective voice, some kind of order or rhythm that would impose meaning to life. Reading the poems constitutes an individual journey. This poetic journey from Awakening that takes the reader to Moonlight Spells and Wreaths and leads her/him through Laments to the Epilogue is a continuous movement in the search for humanity's existence. As a metaphor of self-discovery, the poetic quest is both an expression of, and a search for mankind's elusive self-that single, unbroken umbilical cord that is firmly rooted in the African experience and identity. Ba'bila Mutia teaches oral and written literatures, creative writing, advanced writing and research methodology, at the University of Yaound? I. His poetry and short stories have been featured in anthologies and reviews worldwide, and his work has been broadcast on the BBC. In June of 1993 Mutia was honoured by the Berlin Academy of Arts as special guest writer in an international writers' reading. He is the author of Whose Land? (Longman), Before This Time, Yesterday (Silex/Nouvelles du Sud) and 'The Miracle' in the Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Short Stories.
Green Rape: Poetry for the Environment is an anthology of poems written in strong support of environmental literacy. Each poem is the poet's cry of protest against the rape of natural and built environments. The anthology examines a wide range of issues including the clash of global capitalism with environmental activism. It takes a close look at the major themes in international discourse on environmental degradation, climate change, renewable energy sources, global warming, Gene technology, biodiversity and more. The poet dispels a number of myths, notably the existence of an inexhaustible bank of natural resources at the disposal of Man. He attempts to provide a solution to the abusive and unbalanced utilization of scarce natural resources. In a unique way, the poems contribute to the fostering of environmental awareness that would contribute to the sustainable management of natural resources. The poet invites us to look beyond the doomsday rhetoric about the state of the environment and to commit more of our resources where they will do the most good to lifting the world's population out of poverty. The significance of this anthology to environmental education resides in its contribution to the debate on global sustainable development, especially efforts to protect the environment and eradicate poverty.
The Day God Blinked
(2008)
The Day God Blinked x-rays the politico-economic and socio-moral life of a rich and resourceful country called Ewawa from 1982 to 2007. The country had been ruled by a dynamic and insightful miser known as the Old Man. But because he had been in power for too long, his citizens longed for change. It happened when nobody expected it. The old man died suddenly in his sleep and was replaced by his handpicked successor. Unfortunately, the successor whom everybody had expected would do better plunged the country into terrible economic and moral crises. Lucia, the protagonist, narrates her predicament. To her, Ewawa is rotten in all totality. There is nowhere to turn for salvation. The custodians of the economic, social, moral and spiritual values of the land are not up to the task. The country is without hope. Is all doomed?
Babi Yar Symphony
(2008)
This unique work lifts the African question out of the dust. Against the backdrop of prison life, it explores the complex reality of being an African in today's world. Through the tight sensitivity and illuminating knowledge of its two principal characters, themselves victims of misplaced justice, greed and lust, it captures the pain and sadness that almost always comes in the wake of betrayal and egotism. The work's message is strong, and is delivered with equal strength by characters whose individual convictions also sway us to their side. We have here a new, powerful shaft of light on the landscape of recent African writing.
Africa's Political Wastelands: The Bastardization of Cameroon : The Bastardization of Cameroon
(2008)
Africa?s Political Wastelands explores and confirms the fact that because of irresponsible, corrupt, selfish, and unpatriotic kleptocrats parading as leaders, the ultimate breakdown of order has become the norm in African nations, especially those south of the Sahara. The result is the virtual annihilation of once thriving and proud nations along with the citizenry who are transformed into wretches, vagrants, and in the extreme, refugees. Doh uses Cameroon as an exemplary microcosm to make this point while still holding imperialist ambitions largely responsible for the status quo in Africa. Ultimately, in the hope of jumpstarting the process, he makes pertinent suggestions on turning the tide on the continent.
Grassfields Stories from Cameroon is an anthology of short stories. It comprises animal trickster tales, bird survival tales, and human-interest stories. The compendium is a reflection of the mores, cultures, and value systems of the indigenous peoples of the Northwest Province of Cameroon. It is motivated by the author's keen interest in the preservation of Cameroonian oral traditions in written form. These stories deal with the day-to-day life of the sedentary and the globe-trotter. Each story is sufficient onto itself. The author has intentionally avoided chronology in the order of presentation of the stories. Whether you read the stories in the order in which they are presented or dart about as your fancy dictates, you will feel the abundance of richness and entertainment the book contains. The didactic value of this collection of short stories resides in its suitability to readers of all age groups. The uniqueness of the volume lies in its universal appeal. Peter Wuteh Vakunta was born and raised in the village of Bamunka-Ndop in Cameroon where he worked as senior translator at the Presidency of the Republic before immigrating to America. He is an alumnus of Sacred Heart College-Mankon. Vakunta obtained his Bachelor degrees in Cameroon and Nigeria; MA and MSE degrees in Cameroon and the U.S.A. At present, Vakunta and his family live in Madison, U.S.A. He teaches in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he is also completing his PhD dissertation titled: Translation in Literature: Indigenization in the Francophone Text. Vakunta is poet, storyteller and essayist. His published works include Better English: Mind Your P's and Q's, Lion Man and Other Stories (short stories), Brainwaves (poems), Pandora's Box (poems). African Time and Pidgin Verses (poems), Square Pegs in Round Holes (essays) and It Takes Guts (essays). Vakunta's literary works have earned him several awards in the U.S.A, U.K and Africa.
The debate is no longer whether to use information and communication technologies (ICT) in education in Africa but how to do so, and how to ensure equitable access for teachers and learners, whether in urban or rural settings. This is a book about how Africans adopt and adapt ICT. It is also about how ICT shape African schools and classrooms. Why do we use ICT, or not? Do girls and boys use them in the same ways? How are teachers and students in primary and secondary schools in Africa using ICT in teaching and learning? How does the process transform relations among learners, educators and knowledge construction? This collection by 19 researchers from Africa, Europe, and North America, explores these questions from a pedagogical perspective and specific socio-cultural contexts. Many of the contributors draw on learning theory and survey data from 36 schools, 66000 students and 3000 teachers. The book is rich in empirical detail on the perceived importance and appropriation of ICT in the development of education in Africa. It critically examines the potential for creative use of ICT to question habits, change mindsets, and deepen practice. The contributions are in both English and French.
Disturbing the Peace
(2008)
If Minna has a successful career, a loving husband, wonderful children - all well-deserved - is it compulsory that she must also toil for a reckless sister who has diametrically opposed priorities? Her biased mother thinks so. What if the sister dumps her child on Minna's veranda and vamooses and in trying to find the sister to give back her child, there appear some strange persons and a cult intended on grabbing the child? A decision has to be made and made fast. How could Minna ever envisage that in trying to help her careless sister and baby while taking care of her own family she would end up antagonising everyone in spite of her desperate battle to spread love to all? Just where are her priorities? How prepared is she for the unexpected conclusion to her simmering travails? Hell definitely breaks lose in this emotionally charged family saga in which Emmanuel Achu carves a world where such opposites as love and hate, sympathy and apathy, despair and hope, fear and courage, friendship and enmity reside as bedfellows. Disturbing the Peace is definitely a lyrical treat where you would be shocked to discover that being responsible can equate to being cursed.
The Travail of Dieudonné
(2008)
Dieudonnes life is spun from the threads of one of Africa's grand moral dilemmas, in which personal responsibility is intertwined with the social catharsis occasioned by ambitions of dominance and ever diminishing circles. We encounter Dieudonne at the tail end of his service as 'houseboy' to the Toubaabys, a patronising expatriate couple. In the company of a lively assortment of characters and luring music at the Grand Canari Bar, Dieudonne recounts his life. As he peels layer after layer of his vicissitudes, he depicts the everyday resilience of the African on a continent caught in the web of predatory forces. Yet, this enchanting failure also celebrates the infinite capacity of the African to find happiness and challenge victimhood.
This study investigates the experiences of women journalists during the last phase of Namibia's liberation struggle against South African rule. Black or white, women journalists in Namibia made significant contribu-tions to the liberation cause -including the founding of a high-profiled newspaper -whilst others worked for media sympathetic to the apart-heid government. Based on interviews and deploying feminist media theory, Maria Mboono Nghidinwa pays close attention to the gendered power relationships in the newsrooms of newspapers and radio stations at the time. She looks at the intense political intimidations which tar-geted women and, in particular, the constraints experienced by black women journalists.
The case for privatization, whether defined in a broad or narrow sense, has been forcefully made by its advocates against the backdrop of the much advertised poor performances of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and theoretical arguments relating to the efficiency of private firms over public enterprises. Consequently, privatization and commercialization have been key components of the structural adjustment programmes foisted by the Bretton Woods institutions on Third World countries. Yet, the empirical findings on privatization, especially outside Africa where they exist, do not portray the strategy to be a panacea that works in all circumstances in all branches of economic activity. In spite of this, since the late 1980s, privatization has been stepped up in almost all African countries. And after about two decades of vigorous implementation of privatization programmes in Africa, there is a compelling need for a comprehensive and systematic analysis of various privatization issues, particularly the economic and social impact. This book thus establishes a clear case for a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the impact of privatization in Africa. Specifically, the book provides a state-of-the art review of privatization issues and research questions as a prelude to an in-depth study of the economic and social impact of privatization. In the light of the rich insights brought to bear on the issues, this book should stimulate the interest of researchers, donors and policy makers to undertake or support the follow-up in-depth research envisaged.
Reforming the African Public Sector: Retrospect and Prospectsis an in-depth and wide-ranging review of the available literature on African public sector reforms. It illustrates several differing country experiences to buttress the main observations and conclusions. It adopts a structural/institutional approach which underpins most of the reform efforts on the continent. To contextualize reform of the public sector and understand its processes, dynamics and intricacies, the book examines the state and state capacity building in Africa, especially when there can be no state without an efficient public sector. In addition, the book addresses a number of theories such as the new institutional economics, public choice and new public management, which have in one way or another influenced most of the initiatives implemented under public sector reform in Africa. There is also a survey of the three phases of public sector reform which have emerged and the balance sheet of reform strategies, namely, decentralization, privatization, deregulation, agencification, co-production and public-private partnerships. It concludes by identifying possible alternative approaches such as developing a vigorous public sector ethos and sustained capacity building to promote and enhance the renewal and reconstruction of the African public sector within the context of the New Partnerships for Africa's Development (NEPAD), good governance and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Drawing on various disciplinary perspectives, this book re-focuses the debate on what makes a good health system, with a view to clarifying the uses of social science research in thinking about health care issues in Africa. The explosion of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the persistence of malaria as a major killer, and the resurgence of diseases like tuberculosis which were previously under control, have brought about changes in the health system, with implications for its governance, especially in view of the diminished capacity of the public health facilities to cope with a complex range of expanded needs. Government responsibilities and objectives in the health sector have been redefined, with private sector entities (both for profit and not-for profit) playing an increasingly visible role in health care provisions. The reasons for collaborative patterns vary, but chronic under-funding of publicly financed health services is often an important factor. Processes of decentralisation and health sector reforms have had mixed effects on health care system performance; while private health insurance markets and private clinics are pointers to a growing stratification of the health market, in line with the intensified income and social differentiation that has occurred over the last two decades.These developments call for health sector reforms.
This sixth volume of the CODESRIA Gender Series is a collection of discourses, perspectives, practices and policies on the role of the female gender in science and technology, particularly in the African context. Although widely advocated as the indisputable foundation for political and economic power in the modern world, science and technology remains marked by various layers and dimensions of gender inequality that work to the disadvantage of girls and women. Despite the fact that a lot of awareness has been created, and gender issues are now more readily acknowledged by various development initiatives in Africa, participation in science and technology still remains a hurdle as far as girls and women are concerned. A common theme that runs through the book is how feminine identities, ideologies of domesticity and gender stereotypes, and the inadequacy or lack of clear policies facilitate the invisibility of women in science and technology. This notwithstanding, women have never ceased devising clever and ingenious ways that would enable them to master nature, from the margins. The book provides a window onto the current state of female participation in science and technology in Africa, along with an analysis of the historical backgrounds, current educational and professional contexts, and prospects for the future. While it is evident that more research needs to be done, with more groups in different regions, this volume brings together a rich and inspiring collection of qualitative insights on gender, science and technology in Africa. The CODESRIA Gender Series acknowledges the need to challenge the masculinities underpinning the structures of repression that target women. The series aims to keep alive and nourish African social science research with insightful research and debates that challenge conventional wisdom, structures and ideologies that are narrowly informed by caricatures of gender realities. It strives to showcase the best in African gender research and provide a platform for emerging new talents to flower.
Xenophobia is a political discourse. As such, its historical development as well as the conditions of its existence must be elucidated in terms of the practices and prescriptions that structure the field of politics. In South Africa, its history is connected to the manner citizenship has been conceived and fought over during the past fifty years at least. Migrant labour was de-nationalised by the apartheid state, while African nationalism saw it as the very foundation of that oppressive system. However, only those who could show a family connection with the colonial/apartheid formation of South Africa could claim citizenship at liberation. Others were excluded and seen as unjustified claimants to national resources. Xenophobia's current conditions of existence are to be found in the politics of a post-apartheid nationalism were state prescriptions founded on indigeneity have been allowed to dominate uncontested in condition of passive citizenship. The de-politicisation of a population, which had been able to assert its agency during the 1980s, through a discourse of 'human rights' in particular, has contributed to this passivity. State liberal politics have remained largely unchallenged. As in other cases of post-colonial transition in Africa, the hegemony of xenophobic discourse, the book shows, is to be sought in the character of the state consensus. Only a rethinking of citizenship as an active political identity can re-institute political agency and hence begin to provide alternative prescriptions to the political consensus of state-induced exclusion.
Africa is richly blessed with cultural and natural heritage, key resources for nation building and development. Unfortunately, heritage is not being systematically researched or recognised, denying Africans the chance to learn about and benefit from heritage initiatives. This book offers a preliminary discussion of factors challenging the management of intangible cultural heritage in the African communities of Zanzibar, Mauritius and Seychelles. These islands are part of an overlapping cultural and economic zone influenced by a long history of slavery and colonial rule, a situation that has produced inequalities and underdevelopment. In all of them, heritage management is seriously underfinanced and under-resourced. African descendant heritage is given little attention and this continues to erode identity and sense of belonging to the nation. In Zanzibar tensions between majority and minority political parties affect heritage initiatives on the island. In Mauritius, the need to diversify the economy and tourism sector is encouraging the commercialisation of heritage and the homogenisation of Creole identity. In Seychelles, the legacy of socialist rule affects the conceptualisation and management of heritage, discouraging managers from exploring the island's widerange of intangible heritages. The author concludes that more funding and attention needs to be given to heritage management in Africa and its diaspora. Rosabelle Boswell is a senior lecturer in the Anthropology Department at Rhodes University, South Africa and a specialist of the southwest Indian Ocean islands. Her research interests include ethnicity, heritage, gender and development. Boswell's PhD was on poverty and identity among Creoles in Mauritius and her most recent work is onthe role of scent and fragrances in the heritage of the Swahili islands of the Indian Ocean region.
Developing a Sustainable Economy in Cameroon is an ambitious effort as the authors try to set a blue print for Cameroon's economy. In the 1980s facing economic crisis, and as dictated by the structural adjustment programme, Cameroon sharply cut public investment expenditures before later cutting government consumption which were followed by privatisation, liquidation of public companies and reduction in the size of the public sector. All these measures are believed to have had devastating effects on the economy. Given the performance of the economy so far the authors suggest that much more effort, with a strong commitment of the main stakeholders, is required to guarantee sustainable economic development in Cameroon. Truly, very few countries in Africa possess such enormous human and natural resources as Cameroon does. This volume brings out the challenges Cameroon faces in its quest for development as well as for designing appropriate strategies for addressing those development challenges.
When the Dar es Salaam Declaration on Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility of Academics came up in the early 1990s, African higher-education systems were in a serious, multi-dimensional and long-standing crisis. Hand-in-hand with the imbalances and troubles that rocked and ruined African economies, the crisis in the academia was characterised by the collapse of infrastructures, inadequate teaching personnel and poor staff development and motivation. It was against this background that the questions of academic freedom and the responsibilities and autonomy of institutions of higher-learning were raised in the Dar es Salaam Declaration. In February 2005, the University of Dar es Salaam Staff Association (UDASA), in cooperation with CODESRIA, organised a workshop to bring together the staff associations of some public and private universities in Tanzania, in order to renew their commitment to the basic principles of the Dar es Salaam Declaration and its sister document - the Kampala Declaration on Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility. The workshop was also aimed at re-invigorating the social commitment of African intellectuals. The papers included in this volume reflect the depth and potentials of the debates that took place during the workshop. The volume is published in honour of Chachage Seithy L. Chachage, who was an active part of the workshop but unfortunately passed away in 2006.
100 Papers
(2008)
Liesl Jobson's collection is aptly termed 'flash fiction' or 'prose poems'. It comprises 100 short pieces that are beautifully impressionistic - the literary equivalent of a well-times photograph. Jobson was born in Durban, South Africa. Her poetry and prose has been published in journals and anthologies in South Africa and abroad. She won the People Opposing Women Abuse women's writing poetry competition in 2005. She as also awarded a community publishing project great from the Centre for the Book under the auspices of the National Library of South Africa in 2007. This is her debut collection which won the Ernst van Heerden creative writing award for 2006 from the University of the Witwatersrand. She is a freelance writer, photographer ad bassoonist.
Out of the Wreckage
(2008)
Against the Odds
(2008)
Undaunted by hardship, a determined widow, Uridiya, arranges a wife of her choice for her western- educated only son. Little does she know that her son, Jamike, had fallen in love and married a foreigner against her wishes and the expectations of his village. In a show of love, loyalty and commitment he rejects the arranged wife to the disappointment of his mother and the community. Can his defiance succeed against all odds? Set in an Igbo village in Eastern Nigeria from the late 1950?s to early 1970?s and in the United States in the early 1970?s, the author sympathetically handles the powerlessness of the widow in rural African societies and addresses with candor and sensitivity the problems of race, human sexuality, cultural disengagement and the role of love in blurring the ?color line.? Born in Imo State Nigeria, Ben Igwe was educated in Nigerian and American Universities. He holds a Ph.D. in Library and Information Science from the University of Maryland at College Park. He has taught in Universities in Nigeria and the United States. He is currently Chief of the division of Philosophy, Psychology and Religion in the District of Columbia Public Library in Washington, D.C. He lives with his family in Adelphi, Maryland.
Although gender and non-gender scholars have studied men, such an academic exercise requires a critical and focused study of masculine subjects in particular social contexts, which is what this book attempts to do. This empirically rich collection of essays, the seventh of the CODESRIA Gender Series, deals with critical examinations of various shades and ramifications of Africa's masculinities and what these portend for the peoples of Africa and for gender relations in the continent. So much has changed in terms of notions and expressions of masculinities in Africa since ancient times, but many aspects of contemporary masculinities were fashioned during and since the colonial period. The papers in this volume were initially discussed at the 2005 month-long CODESRIA Gender Institute in Dakar. The contributors are gender scholars drawn from various disciplines in the wide fields of the humanities and the social sciences with research interests in the critical study of men and masculinities in Africa. The CODESRIA Gender Series aims at keeping alive and nourishing the African social science knowledge base with insightful research and debates that challenge conventional wisdom, structures and ideologies that are narrowly informed by caricatures of gender realities. The series strives to showcase the best in African gender research and provide a platform for emerging new talents to flower.
Fourth Child
(2008)
Megan Hall's first collection of poems, Fourth Child, has the texture of a carefully wrought, hand-stitched garment. It is something you want to bury your face in, like the familiar scented fabric of an item of clothing that belonged to a beloved who is gone. The Poems combine a dark humour and terrible grief with a lightness and restrained sensuality. Her language has the qualities of dance: uninhibited and polished, accomplished and vivid. Fourth Child shows a poet courageously facing deep feelings while being committed to accurate writing, making beautiful and living things out of the fabric of loss, grief, and emptiness.
Burnt Offering
(2008)
Burnt Offering is Joan Metelerkamp's seventh colllection of poems. The title comes from a poem in a cycle that embodies the labours of the medieval alchemists - heating and burning, transformation of passionate intensity, the search for an enduring element. In the process malignant doubt is burnt off, and what takes its place is trust in the everyday: 'take this day, here, take it all its clarity, all its gold' - Like all of Metelerkamp's work, these generous poems draw on and weave together, with her distinctive energy and passion, the details of family and rural life, dreams, landscapes and journeys.
Life in translation
(2008)
Azila Talit Reisenberger is a Bible scholar, a rabbi, a mother, a wife, and a poet. In all these selves she grapples with translating her life from Hebrew to English and back again. Life in Translation is full of wry humour, longing, bitterness, sweetness, playfulness, and subversions of traditional meanings and texts - a delightful book that charms and surprises anew with each reading.
Women Writing Zimbabwe
(2008)
The fifteen stories in Women Writing Zimbabwe offer a kaleidoscope of fresh, moving, and comic perspectives on the way in which events of the last decade have impacted on individuals, women in particular. Several stories (Tagwira, Ndlovu and Charsley) look at the impact that AIDS has on women who become the care-givers, often without emotional or physical support. It is often assumed that women will provide support and naturally make the necessary sacrifices. Brickhill and Munsengezi focus on the hidden costs and unexpected rewards of this nurturing role. Many families have been separated over the last decade. Ndlovu, Mutangadura, Katedza, Mhute and Rheam all explore exile's long, often painful, reach and the consequences of deciding to remain at home. In lighter vein, but with equal sharpness of perception, Gappah, Manyika, Sandi, and Holmes poke gentle fun at the demands of new-found wealth, status and manners. Finally, Musariri reminds us that the hidden costs of undisclosed trauma can continue to affect our lives for years afterwards. All of the writers share a sensitivity of perception and acuity of vision. Reading their stories will enlarge and stimulate our own understanding.
Gender studies in Zimbabwe have tended to focus on women and their comparative disadvantages and under-privilege. Assuming a broader perspective is necessary at a time when society has grown used to arguments rooted in binaries: colonised and coloniser, race and class, sex and gender, poverty and wealth, patriotism and terrorism, etc. The editors of Manning the Nation recognise that concepts of manhood can be used to repress or liberate, and will depend on historical and political imperatives; they seek to introduce a more nuanced perspective to the interconnectivity of patriarchy, masculinity, the nation, and its image. The essays in this volume come from well-respected academics working in a variety of fields. The ideals and concepts of manhood are examined as they are reflected in important Zimbabwean literary texts. However, if literature provides a rich vein for the analysis of masculinities, what makes this collection so interesting is the interplay of literary analysis with chapters that provide a critical examination of the ways in which ideals of manhood have been employed in, for example, leadership and the nation, as a justification for violent engagement, in the field of AIDS and HIV, etc. Manning the Nation: Father figures in Zimbabwean literature and society sets the stage for a fresh and engaging discourse essential at a time when new paradigms are needed.
Intwasa Poetry
(2008)
Intwasa Poetry is a book of memorable poems from inside and outside Zimbabwe. The fifteen poets who are brought together in this collection have all read from their work at the Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo. There is a diversity in their work. The poems of love, of sensuality, of humour, of compassion, of yearning, of sadness, of loss and of outrage. They range from the intensely personal to reflections of life at this pivotal time in Zimbabwe's history.
' Dancing with Life is a collection of short stories by Christopher Mlalazi. He has had stories published in anthologies inside and outside Zimbabwe, this is his first collection. ''Christopher Mlalazi may well be the most promising young writer in Zimbabwe today. His fiction captures the edgy energy of townships where young people have learned to be light on their feet, their dancing born of economic necessity and mocking disrespect for traditional authority. Mlalazi depicts contemporary life in Zimbabwe with an uncompromising determination to explore grievous social wounds and with a creative panache that will win him readers within and beyond his home country.'' - Patricia Alden, Professor of African Literature, St Lawrence University ''Christopher Mlalazi is the rising voice of the ghetto, with all its violence, sharp anger, bitter protestations and tangible promise of a better tomorrow.'' - Raisedon Baya, Writer and Columist ''This collection sparkles with wit, sizzles with style and dances with life. It is a welcome addition to Zimbabwe's growing canon and will be read and enjoyed for years to come.'' - Petina Gappah, Writer and Critic'
Long Time Coming brings together short stories and poems from thirty-three writers that provide snapshots of this turbulent period in Zimbabwe's history. Snapshots of living in a country where basic services have crumbled: where shops have no food, taps no water, banks no money, hospitals no drugs, bars no beer. Snapshots of characters surviving against seemingly insurmountable odds. Horrific snapshots of the abuse of power, of violence and oppression, of the destruction of dreams. But this is Zimbabwe and there are lighter moments and moments of hope: in some of life's simple pleasures, in the coming of the rains, in the wink and the smile of a stranger, in a challenge to patriarchy, in the inner strength of the people, in fighting back. The writers are Raisedon Baya, Wim Boswinkel, Diana Charsley, Brian Chikwava, Julius Chingono, Mathew Chokuwenga, Bhekilizwe Dube, John Eppel, Peter Finch, Petina Gappah, David Goodwin, Anne Simone Hutton, Monireh Jassat, Ignatius Mabasa, Fungai Rufaro Machirori, Judy Maposa, Deon Marcus, Christopher Mlalazi, Gothataone Moeng, Wame Molefhe, Linda Msebele, Mzana Mthimkhulu, Peter Ncube, Thabisani Ndlovu, Pathisa Nyathi, Andrew Pocock, John S. Read, Bryony Rheam, Lloyd Robson, Ian Rowlands, Owen Sheers, Chaltone Tshabangu and Sandisile Tshuma.
Lichens are the object of investigation within the framework of the BIOTA Southern Africa project, subproject S04 (http://www.biota-africa.org). This interdisciplinary research project, installed in 2000, focuses on the analysis of biodiversity and its changes along climatic and vegetation gradients (transects) in Namibia and in the Republic of South Africa. In the context of this project, studies on the diversity of lichens are carriedout. Special reference is given to the monitoring of lichens growing on soil, which form the so called biological soil crusts.Lichen diversity is assessed and analysed with respect to its spatial and temporal changes. These are related to various abioticand biotic factors such as climate, soil features and land use. The indicator value of certain terricolouslichen taxaand/or lichen groups (communities) is investigated for the study area, and it is intended to use itin a future long-term monitoring programme in the region. In this brochure, we whish to explain what lichens are, how do they live and where do they grow, and why they are so important as bioindicatorsin arid and semi-arid areas of the world. The activities of the S04 subproject along the BIOTA transect are described, as well as the methods used for monitoring environmental changes in Southern Africa using soil-inhabiting lichens.
The Video Vortex Reader is the first collection of critical texts to deal with the rapidly emerging world of online video – from its explosive rise in 2005 with YouTube, to its future as a significant form of personal media. After years of talk about digital convergence and crossmedia platforms we now witness the merger of the Internet and television at a pace no-one predicted. These contributions from scholars, artists and curators evolved from the first two Video Vortex conferences in Brussels and Amsterdam in 2007 which focused on responses to YouTube, and address key issues around independent production and distribution of online video content. What does this new distribution platform mean for artists and activists? What are the alternatives?
TABLE OF CONTENTS (here without authors) Introduction 1. Em Busca dos Sítios do Poder na África Centro Ocidental. Homens e Caminhos, Exércitos e Estradas (1483-1915) 2. The Supply and Deployment of Horses in Angolan Warfare (17th and 18th Centuries) 3. Wagon Technology, Transport and Long-distance Communication in Angola 1885-1908 4. Trade, Slavery, and Migration in the Interior of Benguela: The Case of Caconda, 1830-1870 5. The Economics of the Kwango Rubber Trade, c. 1900 6. As Vias de Comunicação e Meios de Transporte como Factores de Globalização, de Estabilidade Política e de Transformação Económica e Social: Caso do Caminho-de-ferro de Bengela (Benguela) (1889-1950) 7. Nas Malhas da Rede: Aspectos do impacto económicoe social do transporte rodoviário na região do Huambo c. 1920-c. 1960 8. Communications between Angola and East Central Africa Before c. 1700 9. Long-distance Caravans and Communication beyond the Kwango (c. 1850-1890) 10. A Escrita em Angola: Comunicação e Ruído entre as Diferentes Sociedades em Presença 11. Escrever o Poder: Os Autos de Vassalagem e a Vulgarização da Escrita entre as Elites Africanas Ndembu 12. Do Passado ao Presente: Tráfego Comercial e Redes de Comunicação, Factores Privilegiados de “Modernidade” 13. Refugees on Routes. Congo / Zaire and the War in Northern Angola (1961-1974) 14. Crossing the River: Myth and Movement in Central Africa 15. From Group Mobility to Individual Movement: The Colonial Effort to Turn Back History Notes on Contributors
The Oryctini (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae) is a large tribe of worldwide distribution with approximately 26 genera and 230 species. Fourteen genera and 113 species are found in the Neotropical region. Knowledge of the tribe in the Neotropics is fragmentary, necessitating further studies that address taxonomy, biology, and geographical distribution patterns. This study surveyed the Oryctini of the Brazilian Amazon. The composition of the group in the study area consisted of 7 genera, 18 species and 2 subspecies found in 7 states, 91 municipal districts, and approximately 167 specific localities. States with larger number of species are Amazonas and Pará, with 17 and 13 species respectively. Heterogomphus eteocles Burmeister, Heterogomphus aidoneus (Perty), Heterogomphus telamon Burmeister, Megaceras crassum Prell, and Megaceras laevipenne Prell are reported for the first time from the study area. Megaceras laevipenne is reported for the first time from Brazil. The taxonomy, descriptions, distribution maps, and biological and ecological data are provided for all species. A character analysis is provided as well as an identification key for all oryctine species that occur in the Brazilian Amazon.
Classificatory changes are made for some taxa of New World Melolonthinae based on the examination of specimens (including type specimens) and a reevaluation of some of the characters used to justify previous classification decisions. Blepharotoma angustata (Blanchard) (new combination) is transferred from the genus Aplodema Blanchard. The Neotropical members of the genus Heteronyx Guérin-Méneville are transferred to the genus Blepharotoma resulting in the following new combinations: Blepharotoma boliviana (Moser), Blepharotoma corumbana (Moser), Blepharotoma cuyabana (Moser), Blepharotoma heynei (Moser), and Blepharotoma schencklingi (Moser). The genus Blepharotoma is transferred from the tribe Liparetrini to the tribe Sericoidini. The genus Aplodema and the junior synonym Haplodema Harold are transferred from the tribe Liparetrini to the tribe Sericoidini and synonymized with the genus Sericoides Guérin-Méneville. Sericoides magellanica (Blanchard) (new combination) is transferred from the genus Aplodema and placed as a senior synonym of Apterodema acuticollis Fairmaire (new synonymy). Ampliodactylus (new genus) is described for two southern South American species: Ampliodactylus marmoratus (Curtis) (new combination) and Ampliodactylus vestitus (Philippi) (new combination). The genus Chremastodus Solier is placed in synonymy with the genus Macrodactylus Dejean (Macrodactylini) and Chremastodus pubescens Solier is placed as a junior synonym of Macrodactylus chilensis Solier (new synonymy). Macrodactylus crassipes Philippi and Macrodactylus nigrinus Philippi are placed as junior synonyms of Macrodactylus farinosus Philippi (new synonymies). The genus Astaenosiagum Martínez is placed in synonymy with the genus Pristerophora Harold (Macrodactylini). Pristerophora longipes (Philippi) (new combination) is transferred from the genus Astaenosiagum and Schizochelus ursulus Philippi is placed as a junior synonym of this species (new synonymy). Pristerophora paulseni (new species) is described. Pristerophora picipennis (Solier) is placed as a senior synonym of Schizochelus breviventris Philippi (new synonymy) and Schizochelus serratus Philippi (new synonymy). Pusiodactylus (new genus) is described for two southern South American species: Pusiodactylus mondacai (new species) and Pusiodactylus flavipennis (Philippi) (new combination). The genus Paulosawaya Martínez and D'Andretta is placed in synonymy with the genus Clavipalpus Laporte (Macrodactylini) resulting in the new combination Clavipalpus ornatissima (Martínez and D'Andretta). The following replacement names are proposed for three junior secondary homonyms the genus Plectris LePeletier and Serville: Plectris evansi (new name) for Plectris cinerascens Moser (junior secondary homonym of Plectris cinerascens (Blanchard)), Plectris katovichi (new name) for Plectris bonariensis Frey (junior secondary homonym of Plectris bonariensis (Bruch)), and Plectris tacoma (new name) for Plectris comata (Blanchard) (junior secondary homonym of Plectris comata (Blanchard)).
New Phycitiplex Porter (Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae) from Subandean Desert in northwest Argentina
(2008)
Six new species of Phycitiplex (P. obscurior, P. tricinctus, P. unicinctus, P. peralta, P. trichroma, and P. lepidus) are described from material taken by Malaise trap in a humid ravine at Santa Vera Cruz in the Subandean Desert (Monte) of La Rioja Province (Argentina). These are keyed along with several closely related described species. Except for P. eremnus from central Chile, this genus is known only from the semiarid Chaco and Subandean biogeographic provinces in the northern half of Argentina. The only available host record is of Phycitiplex doddi (Cushman) reared from larvae of Cactoblastis cactorum (Berg), a phycitid moth that attacks prickly pear cacti.
The Chanukah omission
(2008)
The Bay of Diego-Suarez, considered to be one of the finest and largest natural harbours in the world, is located towards the northernmost tip of Madagascar in the Antsiranana province. Despite its historical and current use as a port, much of its convoluted perimeter is still somewhat untouched, harbouring pristine shorelines and subtidal coral reefs. The position of the bay between other regions in which high marine biodiversity has already been revealed suggests that it may also harbour high biodiversity. However, the relatively long coastline and limited connectivity of the bay with the Indian Ocean, in combination with existing anthropogenic activities, potentially make its marine environments susceptible to a range of environmental impacts including sedimentation, nutrification and pollution. The Frontier-Madagascar Marine Research Programme (FMMRP) became involved in conducting marine ecological survey work in the Bay of Diego-Suarez, north Madagascar, in April 2005, having relocated from its previous base at Anakao in southwest Madagascar. The rationale for the survey programme stemmed from the affiliation of the FMMRP with the Malagasy organisations Association Nationale pour la Gestion des Aires Protégées (ANGAP) and Service d’Appui a la Gestion de l’Environnement (SAGE), who were interested in identifying areas of the bay with particularly healthy coral reef systems. Additional environmental interest in the bay has arisen as a result of its proximity to surrounding terrestrial protected areas such as the newly managed Ramena complex, incorporating Orangea and Montagne des Français, and also Montagne d’Ambre. Since its relocation to the Diego-Suarez area, the FMMRP has compiled over two years’ worth of marine ecological data relating to benthic community composition, fish species abundance and population size structure, frequency of algae and invertebrate indicator species, and physical environmental parameters. Thus there exists an extensive dataset for the Bay of Diego-Suarez, from which details of the current condition of its marine habitats can be investigated and a baseline for temporal monitoring can be established. The primary purpose of this report is to signify the initial detailed dissection of the dataset and demonstrate the conclusions that can be made regarding the ecological status of coral reef systems within the bay. This has mostly involved the examination of benthic data, focusing upon variations in percentage cover of substrata and coral community characteristics as useful structural indicators of reef condition. Additionally, the report includes an assessment of the abundance and distribution of sea urchins and their relation to benthic community patterns, as a demonstration of the ability to interrelate different aspect of the FMMRP dataset to enhance the conclusions that can be drawn. Benthic community data were obtained from 380 line intercept transects conducted in different sectors of the Bay of Diego-Suarez between October 2005 and December 2007, representing a combined distance of 7,600 m. Sediment occupied the greatest overall proportion of the benthos (around 38%), especially in the western areas of the bay. Overall mean hard coral cover was around 15%, and tended to co-vary with other ‘hard’ substrata such as rock and rubble. In total, 38 scleractinian coral genera were recorded during survey work, in addition to a number of unidentified genera. The coral communities of the bay were dominated by Acropora and Porites spp., which comprised around 33% and 20% of total recorded hard coral cover, respectively. Hard coral cover and generic diversity appeared to be positively related. These indicators were greatest in the northeast area opposite the mouth of the bay, reaching mean values of around 37% and 6.8 genera, respectively. Here, the hard coral community was dominated by Acropora spp. and comprised a relatively high proportional cover of Galaxea spp. In the northwest of the bay, coral cover was approximately half as great and consisted primarily of species belonging to the genera Porites and Millepora. Habitats in this area were highly similar in terms of their overall coral community composition. Hard coral cover and diversity were generally lower in the southern portion of the bay, especially in more immediate proximity to the population centre of Diego-Suarez (around 2% and 1.5- 5.5 genera, respectively). Coral community composition was considerably more variable than in the northern portion of the bay. v After sediment and ‘hard’ substrata, seagrass formed the next major interplaying component of the benthic environment (around 10% overall proportional cover). The easternmost areas adjacent to the mouth of the bay were characterised by high seagrass cover, whic h reached around 48%. Little or no seagrass was encountered elsewhere, except at one locality in the northwest (around 13% cover). Macroalgae cover was low and less variable, reaching a maximum value of around 10% adjacent to Diego-Suarez. There were no differences between island and mainland sites in terms of overall benthic substratum characteristics, yet soft coral cover was significantly greater amongst island sectors. Sea urchin abundance data were obtained from 498 belt transects conducted between April 2006 and December 2007, representing a total area of 49,800 m2. A total of 6 species were recorded, of which Diadema setosum comprised by far the greatest relative abundance (96%) and observation frequency (55%). The greatest population densities of this species were encountered in the more exposed areas in the west and northwest, reaching around 1.5 m-2, and very few individuals were recorded in the eastern reaches. Data suggest a possible seasonal increase in D. setosum densities, corresponding with an increase in water temperature towards the end of the year. No significant correlation existed between D. setosum population density and coral cover, although these seemed to be inversely related in the central northern area of the bay. There was also no significant correlation with macroalgae cover. However, D. setosum density was positively and negatively associated with rubble and seagrass cover, respectively. There was a lack of a clear pattern amongst sectors with respect to overall benthic community characteristics, let alone between the density of D. setosum and benthic substratum composition. In conclusion, a relatively detailed map of benthic community composition has been produced for the Bay of Diego-Suarez, which shall be useful in elucidating the primary factors determining the condition of marine environments within the bay and developing effective sustainable management strategies. Further analysis, incorporating additional components of the FMMRP dataset, is required in order to further clarify our understanding of the key issues surrounding the current status of these coral reef systems. It is hoped that continued survey work will enable important long-term ecological monitoring of the marine environment of the bay and assessment of the effectiveness of any management initiatives that may be implemented.
The content of this book will explain A For various reasons Europeans and Germans left their Homeland. B How they travelled in groups and individually. C How they landed in South Australia. D The Newcomers reception in a British colony. E The treatment they received in Australia. F What the Germans and Europeans achieved in Australia.
Youth movements
(2008)
Rwanda entered independence following a transition marked by violent internecine conflict. The conflict was stoked by the departing colonial rulers as they sought to place control of the levers of state in the hands of an ethnic majority, which they had hitherto marginalised in favour of a minority they now sought to exclude. It carried on into the country’s post-colonial politics. For nearly three decades Rwanda’s postcolonial rulers presided over an ethnocracy that perpetuated the negative colonial legacy of ethnic division. They systematically practiced a politics of exclusion and repression that placed the country’s long-term stability under threat, eventually led to civil war, and culminated in the genocide of 1994. After the genocide and the defeat and overthrow of the ancien regime of ethnic supremacists, the new ruling elite - most of whom had spent nearly three decades in exile or been born there - embarked on re-building a collapsed state and re-ordering the country’s politics. The last fourteen years have witnessed deliberate efforts to re-orient the country away from three decades of politics of division and exclusion under the First and Second Republics, towards a system which privileges national reconciliation and unity, equity, and inclusion. This paper examines developments in post-1994 Rwanda against the background of pre-1994 politics and society, and the factors that led to and facilitated the war that culminated in the genocide and eventual overthrow of the Second Republic. It provides insights into the efforts and achievements made by the new ruling elites in pursuit of long-term peace and stability. A great deal, however, remains inadequately explored, including political organisation and the role of political parties, economic reform and management, and the reform and management of the security sector, all of which are the focus of on-going research.
Since independence, the government of Botswana has practiced an exclusive language policy in which only English has been used in government circles at the exclusion of all the 26 languages represented in the country, with a limited use of the national language, Setswana. However, in recent years more positive statements have been heard in Parliament, opening up to recognize the use of other languages in education and society. These statements have provided a conducive environment for Non-governmental organizations to develop other languages for use in education and out-of-school literacy. This paper focuses on the work of one such organization. It reports on a project this organization is undertaking to revive the language and culture of the Wayeyi people in North Western, and Central Botswana. It gives findings on attitudes towards Shiyeyi as a language of instruction for literacy and shows how the preference expressed for Shiyeyi has great potential for a literacy program.
In response to rising anti-Semitism worldwide, including in some of the strongest democracies, the U.S. Congress passed the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004. On October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the legislation into law (Public Law 108-332). The Act requires the U.S. Department of State to document and combat acts of anti-Semitism globally. To advance these goals, the Act mandated a one-time report on anti-Semitic acts, which the U.S. Department of State submitted to the U.S. Congress in January 2005. The Act also established within the U.S. Department of State an Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. On May 22, 2006, Gregg Rickman was sworn in by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as the first Special Envoy.The U.S. Department of State’s January 2005 Report on Global Anti-Semitism surveyed anti-Semitic incidents throughout the world. The annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and the annual Report on International Religious Freedom include country-by-country assessments of the nature and extent of acts of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incitement. The Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism contributes to the anti-Semitism sections of these annual surveys, pursuant to the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. Both reports have revealed that incidents of anti-Semitism have become more frequent in recent years. Consistent with the U.S. Department of State’s commitment to assess and counter anti-Semitism, this report is provided to the U.S. Congress to further assess contemporary anti-Semitism by exploring anti-Semitic themes and practices. This report is meant to be used as a resource for increasing understanding of and informing public discourse about contemporary forms of anti-Semitism and for shaping policies to combat anti-Semitism worldwide.