Madams and maids in Southern Africa: coping with uncertainties, and the art of mutual zombification

Drawing largely on a just completed empirical study this paper argues that like elsewhere in Africa & the world, maids in South Africa & Botswana, notably migrant maids from Zimbabwe, are subjected to the vicissitudes of ultra-exploitation. They, like their employers are all concerned with the uncertainties that plague their lives. Although employers are assumed to be in positions of power, their reality is often more nuanced & prone to constant negotiations with & concessions to maids. At one level, their own preoccupation with avoiding uncertainties by maintaining whatever advantages they can cultivate implies that vis-a-vis their maids, the employers cannot always afford to enjoy the benefits of being in control. Structural inequalities notwithstanding, mutual zombification seems to be the order of the day between maids & madams

The Anglophone Problem in Cameroon

The root of the 'anglophone problem' in Cameroon may be traced back to 1961, when the political elites of two territories with different colonial legacies - one French and the other British - agreed on the formation of a federal State. Contrary to expectations, this did not provide for the equal partnership of both parties, let alone for the preservation of the cultural heritage and identity of each, but turned out to be merely a transitory phase to the total integration of the anglophone region into a strongly centralized, unitary State. Gradually, this created an anglophone consciousness: the feeling of being marginalized by the francophone-dominated State. In the wake of political liberalization in the early 1990s, anglophone interests came to be represented first and foremost by various associations and pressure groups that initially demanded a return to the federal State. It was only after the persistent refusal of the Biya government to discuss this scenario that secession became an overt option with mounting popularity. The government's determination to defend the unitary State by all available means, including repression, could lead to an escalation of anglophone demands past a point of no return. Notes, refASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

‘Our Traditions are Modern, Our Modernities Traditional’: Chieftaincy and Democracy in Contemporary Cameroon and Botswana

In this paper, I have argued that, instead of being pushed  aside by the modern power elites – as was widely predicted both by  modernisation theorists and their critics – chieftaincy has displayed  remarkable dynamics and adaptability to new socio-economic and  political developments, without becoming totally transformed in the  process. Chiefdoms and chiefs have become active agents in the quest  by the new elites for ethnic, cultural symbols as a way of maximising  opportunities at the centre of bureaucratic and state power, and at the  home village where control over land and labour often require both  financial and symbolic capital. Chieftaincy, in other words, remains  central to ongoing efforts at developing democracy and accountability  in line with the expectations of Africans as individual ‘citizens’ and  also as ‘subjects’ of various cultural communities. The paper uses  Cameroon and Botswana as case studies, to argue that the rigidity and  prescriptiveness of modernist partial theories have left a major gap in  scholarship on chiefs and chieftaincy in Africa. It stresses that studies  of domesticated agency in Africa are sorely needed to capture the creative  ongoing processes and to avoid overemphasising structures and  essentialist perceptions on chieftaincy and the cultural communities  that claim and are claimed by it. Scholarship that is impatient with  the differences and diversities that empirical research highlights,  runs the risk of pontification or orthodoxy. Such stunted or reductionist  scholarship, like rigid notions of liberal democracy, is akin  to the behaviour of a Lilliputian undertaker who would rather trim a  corpse than expand his/her coffin to accommodate a man-mountain,  or a carpenter whose only tool is a huge hammer and to whom every  problem is a nail.

Mind Searching

In Mind Searching Nyamnjoh has attempted to do something rather clever - to expose, through the attitudes, feelings and thoughts of one man and a very simple story, the hypocrisy and corruption of Cameroon society and humanity in general, often using understatement and irony in good effect. The commentary is unremittingly cynical and returns again and again to corruption, callous squandering, exploitation, prostitution, and other fairly worn butts. The book depicts a society where basic freedoms are shackled, and thinking aloud treasonable. Hence the mental ramblings of the narrator and central character Judascious Fanda Yanda, in the form of an extended monologue full of observations, anecdotes and asides written from the point of view of an apparently insouciant naive. The basic method is to foreground the opinions and conversational elegance of the narrator, while having events going on as a background to his thoughts. We trace the narrator's progress from a disenchanted 'Damn? de la Terre' to a comfortably well off Private Secretary to a Vice Minister over a number of years. It is a clear illustration of how the system perpetuates its mediocrity and buys off any spark of initiative. Nyamnjoh has a good command of ironic tone and sound control over form and structure. He employs a very fluent style, and often has very urbane and neat turns of phrase. He captures the bored, superior, cynical and ultimately predatory tone of voice of his narrator extremely well

Being and becoming African as a permanent work in progress: inspiration from Chinua Achebe’s proverbs

This lecture explores what we could learn about being and becoming African as a permanent work in progress from how Chinua Achebe adopts and adapts Igbo proverbs in his writing

A Relevant Education for African Development—Some Epistemological Considerations

This paper argues that education in Africa is the victim of a Western epistemological export that takes the form of science as ideology and hegemony. Under the Western epistemological export, education in Africa and/or for Africans has been like a pilgrimage to the Kilimanjaro of Western intellectual ideals, the tortuous route to Calvary for alternative ways of life. Sometimes, with rhetorical justification about the need to be competitive internationally, the practice has been for the elite to model education in Africa after educational institutions in the West, with little attempt at domestication. Education in Africa has been and mostly remains a journey fuelled by an exogenously induced and internalised sense of inadequacy in Africans, and endowed with the mission of devaluation or annihilation of African creativity, agency and value systems. Such cultural estrangement has served to reinforce in Africans self-devaluation and self-hatred and a profound sense of inferiority that in turn compels them to ‘lighten their darkness' both physically and metaphysically for Western gratification. The paper argues that the future of higher education in Africa can only be hopeful through a meticulous and creative process of cultural restitution and indigenisation even as African scholars continue to cooperate and converse with intellectual bedfellows in the West and elsewhere. If Africa is to be party to a global conversation of universities and scholars, it is only appropriate that it does so on its own terms, with the interests and concerns of ordinary Africans as the guiding principle. Résumé Le présent article pose comme postulat que l\'éducation en Afrique est victime d\'une exportation épistémologique qui présente la science comme idéologie et hégémonie. Conformément à cette logique d\'exportation épistémologique occidentale, l\'éducation en Afrique et/ou pour les Africains est comparable à un pèlerinage au Kilimanjaro des idéaux intellectuels du Nord, comme le chemin tortueux du calvaire, à la recherche désespérée de moyens de survie. Parfois, sur la base d\'une rhétorique justificative quant à la nécessité d\'être compétitif sur le plan international, la pratique pour l\'élite a toujours été de calquer l\'éducation en Afrique sur le modèle des institutions éducatives de l\'occident, sans le moindre effort d\'adaptation. L\'éducation en Afrique a toujours été et demeure largement un parcours alimenté par un sens d\'inadéquation induit et intériorisé de manière exogène chez les Africains, avec pour mission d\'annihiler le sens créatif, le dynamisme et les systèmes de valeur des Africains. Cette aliénation culturelle n\'a servi qu\'à cristalliser chez l\'Africain le sentiment d\'auto dévaluation et de haine contre soi-même, ainsi qu\'un profond sentiment d\'infériorité qui à son tour l\'oblige à «éclaircir sa noirceur» tant physique que métaphysique pour faire plaisir à l\'occident. Cet article soutient que l\'avenir de l\'enseignement supérieur en Afrique ne peut être prometteur que s\'il subit un processus de restitution et d\'inculturation culturelle méticuleux et créatif, bien que les intellectuels africains continuent de collaborer et de converser avec des collègues intellectuels du Nord et d\'ailleurs. Si l\'Afrique souhaite participer au débat mondial des universités et des intellectuels, il n\'est que convenable qu\'elle le fasse en ses propres termes, avec pour principe directeur les intérêts et les préoccupations de l\'Africain ordinaire. Africa Development/Afrique et développement Vol.XXIX, No 1, 2004: 161-18

The Travail of Dieudonné

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