One important element in the definition and understanding of the dynamics of interethnic or intergroup relations generally is the attitude which prevails among the particular ethnic groups who are in a contact situation. Attitude formation is a function of the experiences acquired and the opinions formed by the parties to the social contact. For the latter two by their nature are a necessary precondition of the former. Put another way, experience in a social situation and the judgement arrived at as being true and derivable from that experience either intellectually or otherwise (for this essentially is what constitutes opinion) must take place before attitude occurs. Attitude essentially is an acquired, or learned, and established tendency of an individual to react toward or against something or somebody. It does not, we must warn, refer to any one specific act or response of an individual, but is an abstraction from a large number of consistent, related acts or responses of the person to an object or people (Green 1954, p. 336).

An attitude may be characteristic of a person (and as such relate to the given person) or to other persons or to social groups or to society. It may even be social in the sense that is characteristic of a homogeneous group of persons. The place of attitude in intergroup dynamics cannot be overemphasised. For it determines whether or not group members accept one another and a condition of harmony, integration, intergroup wholesome or unwholesome competition or rivalry exist among them. It also determines whether a condition of stability or instability obtains in the overall society in which the contacting groups are active participants in the socioeconomic lives. A group characterised by favourable attitudes toward another group would most probably accept the members of that group. And if acceptance is achieved, an important milestone is reached in the harmonious relations between the groups and in a condition of stability characterised by a minimum of antagonism. And man, it is said, functions fully, effectively under a condition of stability when his potentials are maximised and are fully released or expressed and utilised because of the existing security.

This paper had its genesis in the soul-searching of the now-famous Montreal ASA annual meeting of 1969 and in constructive discussions at the Boston annual meeting of 1970. At the latter meeting, I chaired a panel discussion (under the rubric of “New Directions in Area Programs”) in which a troublesome topic was ably probed by Olu Fadahunsi of Nigeria, John Povey, and Rodger Yeager. Their insights, together with those of others, are here brought to bear on the very real crisis which confronts so-called area studies programs in general and so-called African studies programs in particular.

As Gray Cowan (1970, pp. 346-347) has noted, “We are entering upon a decade, or perhaps longer, in which it has become clear that the resources and opportunities for area study in the United States will be undergoing substantial reduction from those of the previous decade.” He joins others in warning that both the Federal government and the foundations are curtailing their support levels and that other impediments are rising including the growing reluctance of African host governments to allow freewheeling research by expatriates. Far from being unsubstantiated cries of alarm, such warnings are prompted by trends which are all too real. Moreover, the trends may best be regarded as symptomatic of a much deeper crisis--a crisis of concepts much more than merely of such limitations as funding or access to the field.

For many years, it was traditional for the outgoing President of a scholarly association to give a formal address, usually on some aspect of his own scholarly interests. That tradition seems to have died, and I see no good reason to revive it. The newer tendency is for the outgoing President to talk about the affairs of the Association, but we have the Newsletter and the business meeting for that. It seems a good time to look just a little further afield to the affairs of the Africanist community at large, whether members of this Association or not--to try for historical perspective on the question of where African studies has been and is going. (if I concentrate on African studies in North America, I also recognize that the African Studies Association is not merely a national association. Its membership is and always has been international, but most members still belong to a North American community of Africanists; this is the community I happen to know best, though I apologize for the parochialism.)

It goes without saying that any assessment of African studies must be a series of personal judgments, based obscurely on the prejudices and the experiences of the individual who makes it. The moment may be especially opportune for subjective judgments, since they will soon be corrected by the Social Science Research Council's survey of foreign area programs--a survey directed by Professor Richard Lambert of the University of Pennsylvania.

The mandate system may be toothless but it is not bootless.

--Parker T. Moon (Imperialism and World Politics)

Students of comparative politics and international relations generally admit that one of the more outstanding political developments of the post-World War II era has been what Hans J. Morgenthau calls “the Colonial Revolution”--the granting of independence to colonial territories and dependencies in Asia and Africa. “What seemed to be almost inconceivable at the end of the Second World War,” Morgenthau comments, “has become an accomplished fact only twenty years later” (1967, p. 344). To Morgenthau this colonial revolution “is in its essence a triumph of the moral ideas of the West…carried forward under under the banner of two moral principles: national self-determination and social justice.” Organski (1968), on the other hand, sees the attainment of independence by these colonies as part of an inevitable historical movement, not necessarily owing to ideas as such: “…colonialism sows the seeds of its own destruction. No sooner is a colony conquered than its population begins to move, slowly and imperceptibly at first, then quickly and noticeably, toward political independence” (p. 234). F. H. Hinsley (1967) sees the declining strategic importance of these colonies as a partial reason for the colonial revolution. Arguing in this vein, he contends that the “withdrawal [of an imperial power] from territory since the second World War has been due…to the growing recognition that it is not vital to hold it from the strategical point of view and not feasible to hold it in the face of metropolitan opinion” (p. 359).

The subject of colonialism is still imbued with emotive overtones, and it is perhaps too early to expect complete agreement in the description and evaluation of the impact of colonial rule on Africa. This article utilizes an important indicator of government activity, public expenditure decisions, to aid in describing the nature of British rule in the Gold Coast from 1901 to 1939. The intention is twofold: first, to check the validity of certain propositions about British colonialism and, second, to investigate how well the apparent uniqueness of one particular Governor, F. Gorgon Guggisberg (1919-1927), is supported by this information source.

The descriptive strengths of government expenditure data are readily apparent. Expenditure is quantified and thus fairly comparable both over time and cross-nationally. Moreover, expenditure provides an empirical measure of nearly the entire range of government activities. Consequently, changes in governmental goals might be expected to be reflected in expenditure allocations.

There are, however, several problems which may impair the usefulness of government expenditure as a descriptive tool. First, every government, even the wealthiest, must operate within the constraints placed on it by the size of the revenue and, more fundamentally, the structure of the national economy. Strongly desired programs may, therefore, languish because of a shortage of funds. As is the case elsewhere in the social world, objective acts are often imperfect measures of subjective motivations. Second, the distribution of funds among various sectors is not always amenable to rapid restructuring, so that a change in goals may be sluggishly reflected in government expenditure.

In this paper an attempt will be made to provide answers to the following questions: (1) What was the pattern of political values held by members of the Zambian elite soon after independence? (2) How did these values develop out of the experiences of elite members during the struggle for independence? (3) How have the events of subsequent post-independence years influenced these elite values, and specifically, what is the relationship between earlier elite values and the ideology of “Zambian Humanism” which has only recently been articulated in a systematic way? (4) What have been the consequences for the Zambian political system of the interaction among elite values, ideology, and problems of exercising power? The answers given to these questions will be more meaningful and more easily understood if we first present briefly a theoretical framework which includes definitions of the principal concepts employed in the paper and a discussion of the interrelations among them.

This paper constitutes a section of my dissertation on “Resource Perception and Its Developmental Determinants in Ashanti, Ghana: A Study in Cultural-Resource Geography.” The purpose of the primary study is to determine the factors of economic progress--in this case, that aspect dealing with the perception of and development of the natural resources as evidenced within the Ashanti region of Ghana. In the pursuit of the basic purpose of the study, the underlying problems of economic or cultural underdevelopment of the Ashanti were to be identified.

I recognize the role of such a variety of factors as ecology, history, culture, science, and technology in understanding the development of natural resources and the problems connected with their development. In this section, I wish to emphasize that a vital element in evaluating the relationship of man to nature is the human element or human culture involved and then to bring out aspects of the cultural resources of the people relevant to the primary study.

By cultural resources of the Ashanti, I am referring to the institutions, cultural traits, and tools of the Ashanti that were evolved or designed to ensure the survival and development of the individual members of the group, the group as a whole, and the resources of the land. In a sense, the cultural elements discussed below bring out those attitudes, beliefs, objectives, and technical knowledge possessed by the Ashanti that help make possible a judgment as to how the group perceived and utilized the raw materials of nature within their region.

In Kenya today there are a variety of conflicting views concerning the present performance and the proper societal role of the public bureaucracy--the civil service. Consider the following statements. On March 17, 1971, in the Parliament of Kenya, the Assistant Minister in the Office of the Vice-President, Mr. M. Shikuku, stated that “the foremost enemies of the wananchi (citizens) were the country's senior civil servants” (East African Standard, March 18, 1971, p. 1). Another M. P., Mr. M. J. Seroney, stated that a type of “silent coup” had taken place and that Government (meaning the Cabinet and the very top political leaders) had “silently taken the powers of the National Assembly and given them to the civil service.” Mr. Seroney termed the National Assembly “a rubber stamp of some unseen authority” (p. k).

On March 18 the National Executive Officer for Kanu (the Kenya African National Union, at present the sole legal political party in Kenya) announced:

The National Executive Officer called for a restructuring of the system so that administrators would receive directives from the party.

By the end of the second decade of the twentieth century a new nationalist movement had emerged in British West Africa which was significant of a new political awakening in that part of the world. This was the National Congress of British West Africa (NCBWA), which differed in important respects from earlier “nationalist” movements in the area. The NCBWA, unlike previous movements, envisaged a united British West Africa as a political objective to be attained, was organised on a scale that simultaneously embraced all four colonies of British West Africa, and was led almost exclusively by the educated elite of the area.

A study of the background to the emergence of the NCBWA reveals not only that the germ of the movement was rooted in a fairly distant past but also that a variety of interesting forces of a fairly recent occurrence “conspired” to ensure its birth. The incipient nationalism which the movement embodied reflects a line in a chain of reactions to the British advent into and “colonization” of West Africa. British involvement in this area was chiefly the result of her need to safeguard her trading interests. In the establishment of her regime in West Africa, educated Africans were regarded as allies in the task by the colonial master. Consequently from the 1840's to the 1880's Africans rose to high positions in the colonial service. In Sierra Leone, for example, William Ferguson, Afro-West Indian by origin and a medical graduate of Edinburgh, was appointed its governor in 1844, while John Ezzidio, a Nupe ex-slave who had become a wealthy trader and a pillar of the Colony's Wesleyan Church, was appointed a member of the Sierra Leone Legislative Council in 1863 (McIntyre 1966, pp. 155-156; Fyfe 1962, pp. 229-232 et passim).

No doubt, social problems cannot be fully understood by a mere comparison between any present situation and that prevailing in the past, say even sixty or seventy years ago. Nevertheless, there seems to be no little justification for the tendency, frequently seen in important research works on Africa, to make a parallel between the status and fight of the working classes in Europe at the end of the last century and those of the emancipating nations in general and in the African continent in particular.

It is pointed out in these works that in both cases the revendicatiohs made by the working classes in the first instance, and by whole nations in the second, were prompted by the desire for a fuller democratization of the society, an amelioration of their economic situation and legal status. Such changes were and are being achieved, amongst others, by the abolition or through reform of discriminatory legal, political, and socioeconomic systems which had previously been imposed by privileged ruling classes to the detriment of the other classes, on a national scale, where poor classes of the population were concerned in countries that now rank among the most developed ones, and on an international scale, where it is a question of peoples who have only recently passed from a state of slavehood to national independence.

Thanks to a political and social legislation containing elements of social compromise, most Western countries have become modern, democratic, affluent welfare states, with at least a minimum of social justice and no expropriation of the means of production. But in those countries where the ruling classes were uncompromising, refused to make concessions, and caused revolutions, they were completely chased from the political scene, as was the case in Eastern Europe, which gave birth to an altogether new regime (Roling 1960, p. 56).

It is something of an understatement to say that the historiography of Islam in Africa came of age during the period 1960-1970. Looking back on this decade of active scholarship, and contrasting it with a previous era of “darkness” (a sort of jāhiliyya, at least for Western scholars), one cannot help but be astonished by the comparison. Before 1960 there were no university centers devoted to the study of Islam in Africa; there was only a handful of scholars fully engaged in Islamic studies, and of these very few trained in the historical discipline. With such a serious shortage of trained scholars, it is not surprising to note the absence of suitable historical monographs pertaining to the history of Islam in Africa.

The last decade has told a rather different story. Several prominent centers of African studies have been established, and while a serious shortage of Arabist-historians continues, it is encouraging to note that each of these centers has placed high priority upon the acquisition of scholars in African Islamic studies. Importantly, to stand Professor Trevor-Roper's argument on its head, it is no longer possible to speak of the “unrewarding gyrations of barbarous” Islamic peoples “in picturesque but irrelevant corners of the globe.” The good Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford has had to consume much humble pie over this unfortunate statement, and it is not intended here to cram his palate much further. Suffice it to say, however, that the Jāhiliyya has always been an area of rewarding research, and despite Trevor-Roper, even “darkness” is a subject of legitimate historical study.

Although a few trade unions had been formed in Nigeria before 1938, it was not until after the passage in that year of the Trades Union Ordinance by the Nigerian government that many trade unions were formed by Nigerian workers. Between 1940 and 1950, some 144 trade unions with a membership of over 144,000 were formed (Nigeria 1940-1950), and the prospects for further trade union growth were very bright. With the increase in the number of unions as time went on, the country was rocked by a number of industrial disputes (many of which were ill-advised), and a number of misappropriations of union funds by union officials also occurred. It was generally held that these problems could largely be overcame if the unions and their leaders were given adequate trade union education. In consequence, the government initiated a policy for giving trade unions and their leaders some basic training in trade union organisation and leadership.

The execution of this policy was the responsibility of labour officers in the trade union section of the Department of Labour. They were people with wide experience in trade union organisation and leadership. Such officers as Mr. R. Curry and his assistant Mr. M.A. Tukunboh were men with profound knowledge of trade unionism. Mr. Curry was “for many years the London and Eastern Counties Organiser for the National Union of Tailors and Government Workers,” and Mr. Tokunboh was “a former secretary of the Nigerian Trade Union Congress” (Nigeria 1946, par. 46). The main function of these officers was to work with the trade union leaders and assist trade “unions in such matters as accountancy, administration and organisation; to encourage the formation of benefit sections and, above all, to encourage and educate trade union officials and members in (1) the objects and functions of conferences, (2) the duties and responsibilities of officers and executive committees, and (3) the proper function of local committees and members' meeting” (Nigeria 1946, par. 46). The Department of Labour seems to have attached special importance to the education of trade union leaders. This was so because the leaders were the men on the spot to carry on the trade union education work in the interest of the rank-and-file trade unionists.

The African states, as they emerged into international politics, did so with certain well-defined common goals. These goals were shaped in large part by the experiences and ideologies of their independence movements. The achievement of most of these goals, particularly those which conflict with interests of other more powerful states, still remains a dream owing to the realities of the international political system which tend to place more powerful states in a better position to realize their goals than do the less powerful states. The African states, because of their lack of material power--economic and military in particular--have been forced to rely greatly upon the United Nations for the realization of their goals. It is possible that in the long run the moral force of the United Nations resolutions might accomplish what the African states are seeking, but so far they have had very little or no material effect. This African experience, at least for the short run, appears to confirm the theory that material power, economic and military in particular, determines in a large degree the extent to which states or group of states can achieve goals in international politics (Rosenau 1964, pp. 170-174, 334-349). States or group of states with relatively little power can realize their goals only if they accord with the interests of other more powerful states. This essay is an analysis of the goals of the African states toward Southern Africa and how the realization of these goals has been frustrated by the realities of the international political system.

Two primary goals are commonly shared by the African states with respect to Southern Africa. The first is the eradication from the area of colonial and settler rule in order for their fellow Africans, numbering about 30 million in the area, to achieve “national self-determination.”

The problem in determining what areas of research should be discussed under the rubric of African economic history lies less in the definition of the term “economic” than in that of “African” and of “history.” For a subfield like this historians must lean to some extent upon the work of other Africanist social scientists. There does exist a considerable body of writing by economists and anthropologists about economic activities in Africa. However, the economists have concentrated their efforts upon those sectors of the contemporary African economy which, at least historically, are identified with alien enterprises. Anthropologists do write about economic systems rooted in the indigenous African past, but their focus has been almost entirely upon the arrival of “primitive”--that is, subsistence-oriented--levels of production and exchange within these systems, thus offering little insight into the dynamics of historical development.

Historians can, of course, learn a great deal from these studies and must consider the Impact of European enterprise and the role of subsistence sectors in their own work. But if economic history is to make a major contribution to African studies, it must attempt to explore the continuities between past and present; this requires attention to what one important recent contribution has called “an intermediate category” located “midway between subsistence and a fully-fledged market economy” (Gray and Birmingham 1970, pp. 4, 1). The only serious attempt to investigate such developments has been in the further subfield of precolonial trading history, which will be discussed first in this paper.

As used in this article, indigenous cooperatives refer to those informal arrangements under which some or all members of different families help one another by working together or by consuming food and drink together while maintaining their separate existence as economic entities. This definition, I hope, clearly distinguishes them from modern cooperatives, which are joint undertakings formed for the purpose of running a modern business. I speak of African indigenous cooperatives because the ones that I have experience of are based on African practices and customs. While I am aware from the writings of economic anthropologists that this mode of economic organization is used in other continents, it is conceivable that details may differ among different peoples. Such issues, however, are not my concern here.

The purpose of this study is the humble one of attempting to classify the cooperative arrangements that have been briefly described above. To the researcher or intending researcher in this field, a knowledge of what types of cooperation exist would probably help him in clarifying his research proposals and in planning what information to collect, among other things. Given the hazards of research, it may save him effort and other resources.

Second, the matter is important because of the significance which some African leaders attach to such cooperatives as instruments for socializing their economies. The issue here is which types of cooperation should be used to achieve economic growth and in which activities, while at the same time leading to what is deemed an equitable distribution of income and wealth. Unless careful research has been done on all aspects of cooperation, it would be rash to say that this should be discarded or that should be adopted. Suppose that cooperative labour proves to be less efficient than hired labour. Do we then rely on hired labour, hoping that cooperation in consumption or in using property will take care of equity in income and wealth distribution?

This bibliographical essay, it is hoped, will lead to an uncommon view of the opportunities for study of the trends in Nigeria's educational growth from its modest and feeble beginnings in the 1840's to.the elaborate and radical changes that are taking place today. The topics and problems discussed are not restricted to those bearing on schools, teachers, and formal instruction, but touch on all the questions that arise from the effort to understand the process and content of cultural transfer in early Nigerian education. It must be pointed out, however, that this work is not an attempt to provide a synthetic organon of topics whose investigation will complete the study of all facets of education in Nigeria, nor is it an attempt to present a definitive bibliography. It is, rather, an annotated listing of what I consider to be the key writings whose examination will lead to an understanding of the main developments in the trends. The comments I have added to a number of items are notes, not pronouncements ex cathedra. At best, a bibliographical essay of this nature may serve as a storehouse and a guide to a chest of tools from which each person must select for himself those items best suited to his work. If this essay should help investigators to take into account some relevant facts, questions, or materials which otherwise might not have come so soon to their attention, it will have fulfilled its primary purpose.

Of all the “subfields” of African history, religion is in the most preliminary condition. It is also, in all probability, the most difficult to treat in an orderly fashion, owing to the constant spillover into other areas generally regarded to be more preemptive in modern historiography. Our task in isolating religion as a subfield entails in part an operation of retrieval from political, social, and intellectual sectors of the discipline. Problems of definition must also be tackled. Are we primarily concerned with religion in history or the history of religion? Where is the cutoff mark in considering myth, ritual, and other phenomena that are related, but not at all times central, to religion?

The following frame of reference is necessarily sketchy but is offered as a foundation for ensuing historiographical remarks. References to the major types of religion, whether “traditional,” Christian, or Muslim, will be minimized for the present.

Religions have secular and spiritual aspects, the secular being most frequently observed and reported in connection with political and social institutions or behavior. The spiritual aspect and the internal development of a belief system are comparatively inaccessible, but highly significant. Popular beliefs, as well as more formal ideological and theological tenets, fall into this category. Owing to the role of religion in supporting a style of life and/or a political system, the survival of certain religious values may offer clues about a former epoch and the process of historical change in a society.

We have thought it necessary to write this paper in order to define the basis of the concepts and philosophy of democratic African socialism. It has been necessary because of the prevailing misinterpretation and suspicion of this philosophy as seen in the eyes of many people outside the continent of Africa, who, as we conjecture, have held the view that the philosophy is but a blueprint of communist ideology transplanted into the continent of Africa. We are aware of this view because time and again many people outside Africa, and we mean those of the western hemisphere, have been heard calling it “socialism in Africa,” which to us in Africa would indicate a mere transfer of the same from one hemisphere to that of Africa. We dismiss this terminology as completely untrue because in fact “socialism in Africa” and African socialism are two different concepts. The former is nothing more than a borrowed philosophy whilst the latter means that which is itself indigenous carrying with it the African heritage with, of course, some modification to march with the world's transition. However, we do accept the fact that our views are not conclusive as we do not officially represent any one government in Africa, but notwithstanding, this is almost the same view we have heard many African leaders such as Jomo Kenyatta express in various circles. Therefore, the explanations expressed here are designed to dispel suspicion and misinterpretation.

The expression “democratic African socialism” is actually meant to convey the African roots of a system that is itself African in its characteristics. In other words, “African socialism” is a term describing an African political, economic, and social system that is positively African (see Markowitz 1967). Precisely, the whole system is based on African traditions.

While the purpose of this brief article is to draw attention to the invaluable service performed by J. M. Dallet, P. B., and his collaborators at the editorial center of the Fichier de Documentation Berbère (For National, Algeria), I find it difficult to resist the temptation to suggest a few ideas on oral sources and historians. Clearly, anthropologists, ethnologists, linguists, and sociologists are not shy about using a variety of sources for their learned research. Oral traditions, for example, have long fascinated many of these specialists; but historians, until quite recently, have continued to plod along with their sacrosanct written records. This hesitation is unfortunate, for historical interpretations of many important questions are impossible as no relevant documents survived, if indeed such ever existed. Algerian historians--as opposed to European historians of Algeria--are involved in a breakthrough in this context. Particularly since independence, a small group of Algerian authors has begun to write and publish enlightening new interpretations or reinterpretations in which they unhesitatingly utilize oral traditions in the development of their theses. They, of course, know the traditions firsthand. Foreign specialists are not so fortunate. In any case, Mostefa Lacheraf (1965), Saadia-et-Lakhdar (1961), and Amar Naroun (Juin and Naroun 1963) come to mind immediately as examples of a new, vigorous, and probably very valid school of historical interpretation which draw upon oral sources.

Anyone who has worked in European archives on topics relevant to North Africa knows that the traditional written and static category of documentation leaves many questions unanswered. How, for example, can a question about Algerian reactions to French policies be fairly and fully answered on the basis of only colonial administrative reports and of the memoirs of colons and official representatives of the imperial system? Occasionally reactions were quite clear.