The pace of conflict-resolution in the Third World has been nothing short of astounding since 1990. A whole array of low-intensity wars have been terminated. Some, such as in Nicaragua and El Salvador, had occupied pride of place in the reinvigorated test of wills between Moscow and Washington during the 1980s. Others, as in Kampuchea, were fuelled by the parallel rivalry between Moscow and Beijing, which both fed off and had an impact on the key dispute between the United States and the Soviet Union. A few, such as the ‘bush war’ in Namibia and the fighting in the Western Sahara, never became serious testing-grounds for the superpowers.

Scholarly concern with Africa is of ancient origin. But modern African studies in departments at major universities date only from the aftermath of World War II. As I approach the age of seventy, I find myself a member of the diminishing group of scholars that helped to create this particular field, as well as also belonging to the last generation which, at one time, wished to serve the British Empire. An intellectual autobiography is not a confession. But this brief account does seek to delineate those forces which shaped my career as an Africanist during the last 40 years.

The wealth of ethno-linguistic units in Nigeria has been the object of anthropological, linguistic, historical, and political study since the country was first so named at the beginning of this century. But since independence in 1960, the federal motto of ‘Unity in Diversity’ has raised a central principle of language use which has been gradually articulated in successive constitutions and white papers on national policy in the educational and cultural spheres.

The implementation of economic reforms in Africa under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.) has undoubtedly produced the kind of social dislocation so well described by Barry Riddell in a recent article in this Journal. The structural adjustment programmes (S.A.P.s) have also in some cases generated growth, as noted by Michel Camdessus, director-general of the I.M.F. in 1991: ‘Soon more than 30 African countries will apply these growth strategies. Where the programmes have been applied rigorously, results have been impressive. ’

This article examines the trajectory of the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo), currently the ruling party in Mozambique, focusing on the complex interplay between various factors which contributed to the metamorphoses it has undergone since its founding in 1962. Recent work in the field of international relations and historical sociology has thrown light on the rôle of the state as an administrative-coercive entity constantly cross-pressured by domestic and foreign forces, and acting simultaneously on both fronts in pursuit of advantage. While this scholarship has not focused on ruling parties per se, it is arguable that the standard government versus state dichotomy is of limited analytical value in cases such as Mozambique, where the distinction between party and state remained in practice, until recently, a constitutional nicety. When the ruling party has been institutionalised to the extent of Frelimo, and where the state has become almost an extension of the party, it is the latter that is the key variable in any explanation of political and economic change within society.

To be a political leader in many parts of the world is to follow an extremely hazardous and insecure occupation. In addition, in sub-Saharan Africa, but elsewhere as well, the element of personal danger exists in a particularly acute form. Althought the extent to which this is true varies considerably not only from place to place but also over time, the evidence of the past 30 years clearly suggests that there are remarkably few states in which an individual could contemplate embarking on a career in politics free from the dauger of incurring severe personal penalties at some stage.

Namibia gained independence on 21 March 1990 after 106 years of colonial rule, first under Germany and then for 76 years under South Africa. As a consequence, throughout the greater part of the twentieth century the South West Africa/Namibia issue has been a constant item on the political and legal agendas of the international community, primary because of its ‘double-victim’ status as unwilling host to both imperial conquest and apartheid. Not unnaturally the independence process when it finally came, was widely hailed as a triumph for the United Nations and the ‘new political thinking’ that signalled the end of the cold war and the tentative (no more than that) beginnings of a ‘new world order’. Thus, sub-Sahara's last colony was also the first to proceed to self-determination unsullied by the need to define its existence in terms of superpower bipolarity. At the systemic level at least, the new state began with a virtual blank sheet, as well as a great deal of international goodwill and bonhomie.

The ruling National Party (N.P.) asked white voters during the 1989 election campaign for a mandate to negotiate with all concerned about a new constitution, an undivided South Africa, one citizenship, equal votes, protection of minorities, and the removal of stumbling blocks such as discrimination against people of colour.1 Although the N.P. achieved a cleat majority – 93 seats against 39 for the Conservative Party (C.P.) and 33 for the Democratic Party (D.P.) – the right-wing opposition made destinct progress by gaining 17 seats. After the C.P had captured a further three from the N.P. in by-elections, including Potchefstroom in February 1992, President F. W. de Klerk announced in Parliament that whites would be asked the following month to vote in a referendum in order to remove any doubts about his mandate. The carefully worded question which the electorate had to answer was as follows: Do you support continuation of the reform process which the State President began on February 2, 1990 and which is aimed at a new constitution through negotiation?

When Dag Hammarskjöld flew to Ndola in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) on 17 September 1961 it was to meet Moïse Tshombe, the self-styled President of secessionist Katanga, in order to bring about a ceasefire to the fighting that was going on between his soldiers and those of the United Nations, especially in Elisabethville (now Lubumbashi). One of the more spectacular components of diese hostilities was a French-built Fouga Magister, which had strafed some unprotected U.N. positions from the air, and journalists quickly located the Belgian pilot as a ‘Major’ Delin, depicted as a kind of modern ‘Lone Ranger’ defying the world community. The importance of ‘the little Fouga’ soon got blown out of all proportions, and when Hammarskjöld's DC-6B, nicknamed ‘Albertina’, took off from Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) it was decided to take a roundabout route in order to avoid being attacked by the Fouga. After the Secretary-General's plane had crashed, the press jumped to the conclusion that it had been shot down by the Fouga, and U.N. spokesmen confirmed that Ndola was within its range.

The African continent currently faces severe political and economic crises. Massive debts, unpopular structural adjustment programmes (S.A.P.s), spiralling population growth, democratisation, and régime transformation are all testing national cohesion. Externally, the rapidly changing global environment, marked by the demise of the cold war and the continuing difficulties being experienced in Europe and the Middle East, also provides immense challenges to African policy-makers.

Gurage is a cover-term for a dozen south Ethiopian-Semitic tongues spoken by some half-a-million people in a small and compact area about 70 miles south-southwest of Addis Ababa bounded to the north by the Awash River, to the east by Lake Zway, and to the south and west by the Omo River. Completely surrounded by Cushitic languages, especially Galla and Sidamo, Gurage forms, as it were, a tiny Semitic island floating in a vast Cushitic sea. The variety, diversity, and fragmentation of tongues in such a small area, 100 miles at its broadest and widest, is puzzling and problematic, not least because Gurage represents the highest concentration of linguistic diversity attested in the Semitic world. A satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon has not yet been offered, and unless and until further data, both synchronic and diachronic, becomes available, this short note will have to suffice, for better or for worse.

The Congo constituted the largest peace-keeping operation in the history of the United Nations, at least until recently, being only exceeded in scale by current actions in Yugoslavia, Cambodia, and Somalia. It included, during 1960–4, not only civilian advisers who helped run the central règime in Lèopoldiville, but also an army which, at full strength, comprised 19,000 troops. They intervened extensively in the politics of the country, thereby not conforming to the popular image of a passive ‘peace-keeping’ force.

The number of ethno-regional conflicts in the world has grown in intensity during the last few decades as a result of political and economic crises, and one of the unsolved paradoxes of this world-wide trend is that there seems to be a basic contradiction between the two core concepts of ‘democratisation’ and ‘ethnic self-determination’.