Since World War II anthropological research in the new nations has come under increasing criticism on both ideological and pragmatic grounds. To those who regard the creation of a modern life-style and cultural integration as urgent national goals, the concern with traditional institutions seems conservative, if not reactionary, and any interest in ethnicity seems divisive. To those responsible for planning rural development, the anthropologist's detailed report on a single community all too often seems unnecessarily obscured by professional quibbles, devoid of concrete policy recommendations, and of unknown representativeness.

This short article was written in June 1972 as an attempt to provide an eye-witness account of the Busia Government and its difficulties, and is published now as a contribution to the continuing discussion about the reasons for that régime's collapse. Professor Le Vine was Head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Ghana, Legon, during 1969–71, and is the author of Political Corruption, the Ghana Case (Stanford, 1975), a study of the Nkrumah period.

‘Autopsy’ is, perhaps, too harsh a word; possibly ‘requiem’ would have been more appropriate. Unfortunately, however, save for the members of the Government displaced by the coup d'état of 13 January 1972, the régime of Dr Kofi A. Busia had few mourners in Ghana. Most Ghanaians appear to have shaken their heads, gone about their usual business, and awaited the future with cynical patience. As coups go, Colonel Ignatius Acheampong's exercise was a model of quiet efficiency – it met virtually no resistance, took no casyalties, and had almost no noticeable effect on the ordinary bustle of life and affairs in the capital cuty. The ensuing celebrations were perfunctory, and what dancing in the streets there was seemed to be half-hearted at best.

The security services of every state are determined by two overlapping imperatives: a functional one flowing from actual or perceived threats to the country's safety, and a societal one stemming from the dominant ideologies, structures, and institutions prevailing within the state. Thus defence policy is not produced in a vacuum but in the context of a set of circumstances – historical and contemporary, external and domestic – which influence the policy-makers and their advisers. Decisions regarding the appropriate levels, patterns, and time-frame of security spending are not purely political, since they are also about the allocation of resources and about competing claims on public expenditure.

Let it be said that African history and politics are not among the ‘overblown’ disciplines in Australian universities. Compared with America or Britain, Australia lacks profound historic connections with Africa, while as yet domestic pressures in the direction of black studies are few and, with rare exceptions, uninfluential. A glance at the consolidated index to Australian Outlook (Melbourne), the journal of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, shows that from 1947 to 1972 it carried only 27 articles on African countries and international relations. Apart from the annual gatherings of the All-African Students' Union of Australia, only one conference concerned exclusively with contemporary African politics has yet been held: at the Flinders University of South Australia, in May 1971.

Most analyses of the problems of collective production in Tanzania have focused upon the political, social, and cultural contexts within which attempts to establish that organisational mode took place.1 Economic dimensions have taken a central place, as well, but the primary concern here has been the socio-economic and the political-economic i.e. the influence of stratification and of the opposing interests of the various classes. That brand of conventional western (‘neo-classical’) economics which preoccupies itself with theoretical questions of individual behaviour and choice has played no real rôle in analysis and research. This fact can probably be attributed to two causes. First, given Tanzania's socialist orientation, and the impact which this has had upon the staffing and research interests of its University faculty, non-radical economics was held in low esteem by most researchers and writers working in Tanzania, particularly by those who concerned themselves with socialist development issues. Second, owing to the fact that western economics has traditionally offered ideological support to private enterprise, it could easily be assumed that this discipline would have nothing constructive to say about ujamaa.

It is March 1970 and a quiet warm Sunday afternoon in the town of Yungay. Most of the children are attending a performance by the visiting circus in the stadium, while their parents are relaxing in anticipation of the busy week ahead. The market is crowded with peasants who are selling and tourists who are buying. This picturesque town of 4,500 inhabitants is festive, and from many a house the radio can be heard broadcasting the World Cup soccer match from Mexico City.

Stephen Ellis's response can be divided into two parts. One concerns my interpretation of the violence of rebel movements in Africa; the other relates to my misunderstanding of his position. With respect to the former, Ellis raises four objections. I will start with these.

Discussion of industrial activity in capitalist Third-World countries has usually centred on a series of dualistic frameworks, most recently the opposition between the so-called ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ sectors of an economy. Such dichotomies attempt to divide the activities of labour as cleanly as possible into two groups sharing common characteristics. The categories that emerge – modern/traditional, large/small-scale, formal/informal – overlap to a considerable degree because, in effect, they all attempt, with varying crudity, to compare the socio-economic characteristics of those dominant capitalist enterprises which are based on intensive capital, high-level technology, and a large scale of production, with those activities in the economy which are not based on such features. As such, the second category tends to have both negative and residual components.

This symposium was organised by the Inter-African Committee on Linguistics—a committee of C.C.T.A. whose chairman is Professor M. Guthrie. It was planned to coincide with the second meeting of the Committee, which accepted responsibility for implementing the recommendations of the symposium after approval by member governments of C.C.T.A.

On 22 October 1966, 393 students, all but 70 of them from the University College, demonstrated in Dar es Salaam against the Tanzania Government's proposals for National Service to be compulsory for students completing their education at Form VI level and above.1 Marching through the streets of the capital to show their disapproval, and carrying banners some of which read ‘Colonialism was Better’2 they were diverted to State House, where they had to deliver their ultimatum to the President, Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere, in person. Flanked by his Ministers, he listened to their demand that unless the terms of the National Service were changed they would not accept the scheme in spirit: ‘Let our bodies go, but our souls will remain outside the scheme’. In his reply, the President made it clear that he had no intention of forcing anyone into National Service against his will. But since these students were unwilling to serve the nation, they should be returned immediately to their parental homes. Whereupon the demonstrators were rounded up by waiting (and obviously prepared) police, finger-printed, and despatched under armed guards to their homes throughout the country.

[Windhoek, 1977]…fellow-workers…the weak point we have [to remedy] in order to change the system is unity and co-operation. And we must not distinguish whether some workers are sleeping in a compound and some are staying in the single quarters and some in the so-called locations. All of us who are exploited, we blacks, we must know that we are all workers. We workers want to be in unity. We workers in Namibia, we want to unite. It doesn't matter what kind of work he is doing, each and every worker should come into that union. After such unity and co-operation have been established, it is only then that it will be possible to campaign for better working conditions, for higher wages and to embark on any other action which will change the working conditions.

For two hectic months in 1972 an I.L.O./U.N.D.P. mission gathered in Nairobi to deliberate on the employment problems facing Kenya. The report which was published before the end of the year received a good deal of publicity,1 much of it complimentary, and served as a blue print for subsequent I.L.O. employment missions to other developing countries.2 Six years later it seems opportune to review briefly those of its recommendations which were specifically aimed at the agricultural sector, and to assess the extent to which they have influenced the policies of the Government.

Peter Oksen's comments on our paper about farmer–herdsman relations in Burkina Faso raise some interesting issues, notably regarding problems of interpretation of oral and archival sources and regarding the broader relevance of insights gained from an in-depth case study. Before answering straightforwardly to his objections, it is useful to clarify the misunderstanding which appears to exist about the meaning we attribute to ‘symbiosis’ and ‘symbiotic relations’. In our article we restricted the use of these terms to the way in which past relations between farmers and herdsmen, depicted as undifferentiated groups, are often represented. In discussions about the change of these relations, the emphasis is on progressive deterioration, again without attention paid to the possible existence of intra-group differentiation or of heterogeneity of relations across group boundaries. In this regard, it is remarkable that from colonial documents the interests of farmers and herdsmen emerge as equally irreconcilable as they are often considered today, and that, just as at present, competition over scarce natural resources constituted a major factor in inter-group relations. If we therefore reject ‘symbiosis’ as a correct description of formerly existing inter-group relations, we do not intend to imply that complementary links – such as those we describe for present-day relations between Mossi and Fulbe – did not exist in the past. A major aspect of our argument is that inter-group relations, whether past or present, cannot be subsumed under simplifying labels such as ‘symbiosis’. Neither can changes in these relations be understood in terms of uni-directionally processes of deterioration. Hence, present-day ‘complementary’ links across the ethnic boundary – established by certain, but not all, Mossi and Fulbe actors – are but a manifestation of the continued presence of diversity of relations, not of ‘symbiosis’. They point to mutual interests between certain actors belonging to different ethnic groups, not between the groups as such.