Kwesi Kwaa Prah

>Capitein's claim to fame or infamy derives from his thesis that slavery is not contrary to Christian principles. Slavery has long been banished from human social intercourse. Capitein continues to be remembered as the African who defended slavery. > >The resurgence of interest in Capitein is also partly due to this current debate and its political undercurrent. Was Capitein such an irredeemable devil's advocate? "How could he betray his roots so thoroughly?" it is often asked. Lobengula in 19th century Southern Africa was tricked into a drunken stupor to "sign" away lands to colonialists. For Lobengula, it took alcohol to do the trick; for Capitein, was it not the over-kill of a dominant intellectual culture? Are the "black skin white masks" of today seriously different from Capitein? > >Capitein's contraditions, the outer manifestations of his inner wranglings loom large when examined today. The absurdities of the period dramatized by the length of the ensuing historical time span and the changes in beliefs, values, and scientifically verifies facts of life, present in effect Capitein's weaknesses, in an almost trangicomic light. - [publisher](

Placed in the same context as volume one, volume two of the Fifth Congress Proceedings of the Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa is focused on political and economic reforms, and transformations and gender issues. The papers included are: culture and productivity, the welfare state on trial, civil service reform in Uganda, traditional leaders in the decentralised process civil society, indigenous populist institutions and implications for political reforms in Uganda,the nature of economic reforms in Tanzania and Botswana, tradition and modernity in our times, economic liberalisation and civil society in Sudan, pauperisation of the middle class in Sudan, authoritarian populism and democratisation in Ethiopia, the political economy of democratisation in Swaziland, political culture and the limits if institutional reforms,incorporating women in development, the participation of women inpolitical activities in Africa, economic structural adjustment programmes in Zimbabwe - their impact on the gender dimensions, the effects of structural adjustment programmes on women's health in Kenya, gender sensitivity and development in health policies, poverty and food nsecurity in Tanzania.

"Some of us have argued that without education through the mother tongue or another equally familiar African language at all levels of education there is no future for African development.The experience of post-colonial Asia and Western Europe point irrefutably to the inherent value in mother tongue education or at least education in popular, widely spoken, local languages. We have frequently argued that the prosperity and economic prowess of modern Asia is, in no small measure, attributable to the use of languages confidently understood, spoken and written by the overwhelming masses of the people"--Cover.

"Most of the contributors suggest that, much as the work of these missionary groups laid the foundations for the literary rendering of African languages, the wider object of African education was not their principal aim. The central purpose of missionary endeavours was to use African languages to win African souls for Christianity. Missionary approaches to the writing of African languages have also, because of rivalries and the unsystematic selection of these languages and dialectal variants for literary expression, after decades of often hard work, created classificatory confusion, multiplication of ethnicities and effectively an African Tower of Babel"--Cover.

"This lucidly written and accessible book gives a unique account of Marcus Garvey, a Black Nationalist, and a leader of the Pan Africanist movement, and his vision of African freedom and development, as well as his mission to unify and connect all people of African descent. The book does not only offer insights into Marucs Garvey's philosophies and the various endeavours he embarked on to promote Pan-Africanism and African development; it also outlines contradictions afflicting people of African descent, and how these can be overcome within the broader context of a shared decolonial African cultural project of emancipation and unity..." Professor Felix Banda, Department of Linguistics, University of the Western Cape."--Back cover.