Dans sonétude sur la critique américaine de la littérature française (“the achievements, the shortcomings, the distinguishing features”), Henri Peyre (1966, Introduction), déplorant le silence relatif de cette critique vis-à-vis de la littérature non-métropolitaine, déclarait peut-être prématurément:

Si la critique contemporaine et l'enseignement des littératures d'expression française dans les universités américaines démentent, en partie, la justesse de cette observation, c'est que d'autres événements d'importance non moins considérable ont amené les critiques et les professeurs à se tourner vers l'Afrique noire et à étudier sa littérature, qu'elle soit d'expression française ou d'expression anglaise.

Quoi qu'il en soit il n'est plus permis de douter que la littérature nord-africaine d'expression française a atteint aujourd'hui l'age de raison—tant par la quantité des oeuvres produites que par leur qualité. Il va sans dire que cette littérature ne date pas d'aujourd'hui. L'algérianisme qui se manifeste si brillamment de nos jours remorte à la seconde moitié du XIXe siécle et trouve son origine dans la pénétration de la pensée française en Afrique du Nord à partir de 1830.

Pendant plus de cent ans, ne l'oublions pas, l'Afrique du Nord, et plus particuliérement l'Algérie—a été le prolongement de la France métropolitaine et beaucoup de Français y ont fait carriére comme ils l'auraient fait en France.

The purpose of this study is to examine the problems of development in Africa. The word “development” is used here in a much broader sense than in the accustomed meaning assigned to it by an economist seeing it narrowly as economic growth. It is used here to encompass social growth by which I mean not only the development of new social institutions and cultural forms in keeping with modernization and the development of a technological civilization in Africa, but also the development of social attitudes, skills, and, if you will, “mental sets” which will favor modernization in the economic field, in education, in politics, and in religion. In my view, the demands for modernization are such that they will challenge traditional cultural norms, values, and prejudices. I do not assume here that the adoption of modernity will necessarily condemn all traditional values and social forms. I only assume that the challenge of modernity will be so thorough-going that no area of African life will go unchallenged. The values and institutions which will show themselves adaptable will survive while those which fail to pass the test of usefulness and meaningfulness will be discarded. In my view, there is nothing to worry about in this, for, as I have had occasion to poinṭ out before (Vilakazi 1957), there is neither moral nor intellectual excellence in a people's sticking to the past merely because it belongs to their forefathers.

The international system is becoming increasingly characterized by the evolutionary development of integrated subordinate regional systems (see Masters 1961; Haas 1949, 1965; Miller 1967; Segal 1967; Herz 1959; Yalen 1965). The leading scholars in the field have responded to this change by formulating new analytical concepts. Indeed, several preliminary studies have already been published on the developing subordinate regional systems of the Middle East, southern Asia and Africa (Binder 1958, Brecher 1963ab, Zartman 1967, Saenz 1968bc).

The advocates of regionalism and integration theory generally agree that developing subordinate regional systems have basic characteristics in common. These systems are considered to be autonomous, but not entirely independent of the overall international system. The subordinate systems are usually limited to a general geographical identification area. The nature of the system is reflected in a regional organization designed to foster mutual coordination and cooperation on matters of common interest to its members. As is usually the case in the development of new analytical concepts, however, there are several issues of contention concerning the utility of the subordinate regional systems concept (Hanson 1969, Rye 1968, Saenz 1969).

This article will not attempt to deal with all the unanswered questions relating to regional integration. It will, however, attempt to formulate some tentative and exploratory conclusions about those issues that relate specifically to the role of the Organization of African Unity in the developing subordinate African regional system.

The first and perhaps the liveliest and most controversial political debate on Nigerian foreign policy arose over the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Agreement. Both the publication and the ratification of the agreement were followed by severe outbursts of public indignation all over the country, particularly in the South. Despite these widespread criticisms and mass protest, the agreement was not without ardent supporters and sympathizers. The purpose of this paper is to examine not only the main lines of division that existed between those organized groups and individuals that supported the Defence Pact and those that opposed it and relentlessly fought for its rejection, but also the rationale behind the various positions taken by these individuals and groups in that foreign policy debate. Some of the ramifications and implications of the Defence Agreement as well as the accuracy and relevance of various opinions held or expressed will also be discussed. Such an overall treatment of the articulate opinion that formed around the issue of the Defence Pact, it is believed, will help us to understand which of the basic factors of Nigerian foreign policy—personality, organizational, societal, political, and environmental—played an important role in the definition and implementation of the post-independence Nigerian foreign policy.

Until Nigeria's independence in 1960, the federal powers over defence and foreign affairs were exercised by the British government. During the Nigerian Constitutional Conference of 1957, however, it was decided that British control over Nigeria's military forces should cease after April 1958.

It is commonplace to refer to southern Africa as an area of confrontation and strife — an area where conflict between white and black could engulf the southern half of the continent in total warfare. President Kaunda's warning that “warfare in southern Africa would make Vietnam look like a child's picnic” characterizes the opinion of a large number of concerned lookers-on.

Adding to the severity of the situation is the possibility of big-power involvement. With the outbreak of open hostilities in southern Africa, it is possible that the major powers would be seized by a crisis of brinkmanship. Even while failing to lead to war, such a crisis would threaten the modus Vivendi which enables the big powers to regulate their conflicts and to forestall armed hostilities.

Motivated in part by these concerns, the arms control project of the Center for International Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology simulated the conduct of American and foreign leaders under conditions of conflict in southern Africa. In this article, I will report on some aspects of CONEX III, as this simulation was called. I will leave it largely to the reader to assess the validity of the findings and will furnish materials to enable such assessments. Questions of validity aside, the study is an important one. It brings to light the options possibly available to the leaders of black Africa for preserving the peace of the continent while advancing the goals of self-determination and majority rule.

There is no consensus among students and politicals, particularly in Africa, on the importance of efforts to obtain political and organizational unity in Africa and the role of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). (See Duffy and Manners 1961.) Some scholars follow K. Nkrumah's (1963) views that the continent will he unable not only to rid itself of backwardness, but it will not even be able to live in freedom and peacefully coexist with other nations without unity, considered by them to be a precondition to putting an end to colonialism and imperialism on its territory. Others stress that as in other parts of the world the conditions are not ripe for the realization of this end, and even not for larger cooperation and coordination, and that in Africa, above all, there is only room for limited frameworks between the different sovereign states. However, the latter—according to this approach—may contribute with time to greater partnership and, in spite of differing interests, develop into an important subsystem in international relations (Dekkers 1964, McKay 1963) free from subordination (compare Zartman 1967, P. 545 and Rivkin 1963). Some consider the OAU as absolutely helpless, stressing its failure even to prevent the United Kingdom's open decision of July 1970 on arms supplies to South Africa. Others stress that this decision is, above all, a result of U.N. weakness. Accordingly this has nothing to do with the prospect of the OAU's becoming an important factor in the international arena (Burke 1964).

The hearts of many cities in Nigeria are like islands of poverty in seas of relative affluence. It does not require professional skill in environmental perception to note the difference between the residential, environmental, and the overall physical structure of the central parts of Lagos and Ibadan, for example, and their suburbs. Well-designed and relatively well-maintained neighbourhoods in the suburbs and in the newer sections of these cities are inhabited by the affluent, the middle-class, and the privileged. At the other polar end are the majority of urbanites— citizens massing themselves in the unkempt and often squalid hearts of the cities, living under conditions that are at times sub-human and sharing sub-standard houses in areas which, by any standard, are slums. Unfortunately, concern over the slums, on the part of the privileged, the public authorities, and the citizens themselves, is insignificant. There has been much talking, much academic analysis, and much propaganda, but little or no action. Hence there has been little accomplishment and hardly any change in the plight of the low-income people who are directly bearing the brunt of the urban problems.

Many academicians, both nationals and expatriates, have drawn attention to the multi-dimensionality of the urban problems facing Nigeria (see Bascom 1955; Lloyd 1960; Mitchel 1962; Miner 1960; Herskivits 1930, 1962; Mabogunje 1961, 1962ab; United Nations Economic Commission for Africa 1962). Most of their studies, however, have been confined to general description of the ugly urban phenomena, to historical emergence of slums, and to geographical and sociological analyses of the urban problems.