During the 1950s, and particularly after the 1964 military takeover, industrialization produced a transformation of Brazil — a nation of continental proportions occupying half of South America. Modernization affected every facet of Brazilian society, altering the economy and influencing the development of political and educational institutions. Such internal change had considerable impact on Brazil's foreign policy. Brazilians no longer viewed their national interest in traditional and restrictive terms but in a revisionist, expansive and expansionist manner. Populist politicians and writers of the late 1950s, riding on a wave of nationalism, argued that Brazil should become an active participant, a new and aggressive force in world affairs.

The passage of legislation late in 1971 which in effect caused the United States unilaterally to breach the United Nations sanctions against Southern Rhodesia surely constitutes one of the most shameful episodes in the recent conduct of our country's international affairs. One commentator quite correctly did not mince words in describing the action as a “chrome-plated treaty violation.” And yet, even today, it is doubtful whether any great numbers of American citizens realize that their government has broken its treaty obligations to an international institution which our country did most to initiate and to promote until very recent times. An especially saddening aspect of the affair is the fact that an Administration which rightly has condemned and often contested growing neo-isolationist sentiment in our society's outlook on the world scarcely lifted a finger to prevent precisely the kind of result it decried.

At the risk of being called unscholarly, or unnecessarily pedantic, I would like to revive an old issue: the role of Africanists vis-à-vis Africa. In most intellectual circles, this issue is shunned. Generally, criticism of Africanists has been presented in terms of the relevance and/or nature of African/ non-African, Black/White involvement in Africa. The defense of the Africanist community, however, has been based on the impartiality of scientific investigation and the cumulative nature of all knowledge– without regard to cultural bias. My purpose here is to take a slightly different route and to interweave the two views in an effort to restate the case against Africanists.

To those who peer into the shadows beneath the dazzling peaks of media-lit summitry, the shape of America's projected post (Vietnam) war foreign policy is becoming discernible. Thoroughly nationalist and pragmatic, it stresses advantage and comity in relations with other major powers — whether politico-military (China and the Soviet Union) or economic (Western Europe and Japan). Coonskin zealotry having given way to cost-benefit real-politik, military withdrawal from Southeast Asia is being accompanied by strategic retrenchment. From Guam and Micronesia in the Pacific, to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, to Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, to the Azores in the Atlantic, American air and sea power is taking on an insular “low profile” — while maintaining a long reach. At the same time, domestic postwar introversion threatens a further decline in already minimal American concern for the fate of the world's relatively powerless and economically disadvantaged.

There is much about the Central African republic of Zambia to make it indistinguishable to the casual Western observer among the multitude of black independent fragments into which the monolith of colonial Africa was blown by the wind of change. Its borders are all too familiarly arbitrary and just as paradoxically treasured; its population, though of one ethnic group, is divided in loyalty by strong tribal and regional affinities which nurture the ghosts of ancient feuds never entirely laid by the 60-year interregnum of alien rule; its economy is dependent upon primary product export and thus at the mercy of markets well beyond its control; the frailities of the new princes of the political kingdom have become all too clear in the eight years since the last unlamented duty at the midnight stroke in the independence stadium; and the expectations so feverishly aroused in the popular breast in the euphoric march to freedom remain, for many, as distant a prospect as ever.

Criticism is frequently expressed about the manner in which the African group at the United Nations injects southern Africa into discussions at every conceivable opportunity in the political, the economic, and the social forum. A question often posed is whether the emphasis on this issue, particularly at the international level, is proportionate to its import for the world community as a whole. As we Africans view the matter, the situation in southern Africa challenges the basic assumptions which brought the United Nations into being, and it is therefore the responsibility of the entire world community. In the political context, the situation is seen as a threat to regional and international peace and security; in the moral context it is considered a crime against humanity. The concern of African states was expressed by the late Kwame Nkrumah when, as President of Ghana, he declared: “The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked with the total liberation of Africa.”

During the first week in August 1972 General Idi Amin Dada, President of the Second Republic of Uganda, announced the mass expulsion of Asians over a period not to exceed three months. Thus began the final chapter in the story of the Indian presence in Uganda. General Amin had once again made newspaper headlines all over the world. While press coverage had not been favorable to the General, it became particularly scathing in October when he expressed his views on Hitler and the Jews. What began as consternation quickly turned into intense vitriol against Amin, and newspapers throughout the world reflected this change. With the exception of a few papers in West, East, and Central Africa, however, most of the African press did not comment on the General's pronouncements. Black African leaders — with the notable exception of President Kaunda of Zambia and President Nyerere of Tanzania — adopted a curious attitude of non-interference.

Time and again students of contemporary Africa have stressed the impact of ideologies on the literary works of contemporary African writers. Authors have also insisted on the imperative need to link closely the study of the new written literature from Africa with the study of the general cultural and political renaissance of the past two or three decades in Africa.

On April 19 of this year the President and Fellows of Harvard College announced their intention to “send a representative to Angola to provide us first-hand information on Gulf's performance, the problems it faces, and opportunities for constructive new steps, and thereby to help us determine our future actions as a responsible Gulf shareholder.”

While the world press has focused over the past year on problems surrounding the creation of still another refugee population in Africa — that of Uganda's Asians — far too little attention has been directed to the remarkable though still fragile process of repatriation and resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Southern Sudanese. This population of displaced persons includes both refugees who fled to other countries and large numbers of homeless who hid in the bush during the civil war that wracked the Sudan for seventeen years, from 1955 through the first months of 1972. Responding to the initiatives of President Gaafar al-Nimeiry of the Sudan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (HCR), under an explicit mandate from the Secretary- General of the United Nations, has been raising funds, organizing activities on behalf of the most pressing needs and working closely with all local interests to meet overwhelming problems.

The 10,739 square miles which make up Burundi constitute one of the smallest countries in Africa. Burundi's population of between 3.5 and 5 million experienced six governments during the three years between independence in 1962 and the eruption of major ethnic violence in 1965. In 1966 the army took power in a coup that proclaimed Burundi to be a presidential republic. The change was not sufficient to resolve ethnic tensions, however, and by 1969 these were further complicated by regional divisions. During that year ethnic violence erupted once again but received little notice in the foreign press. The violence has pitted factions of the Hutu majority against factions of the Tutsi minority. Burundi's pre-colonial social system (which was grounded in a traditional monarchy) and its particular colonial experience account for the fact that the Hutu have had very little power over the country's political and economic affairs.

One positive result of the controversy concerning the mission of the African Studies Association has been the formation of the Committee on Current Issues. The Committee arranged several important panel discussions during the 1971 Annual Meeting in Denver, and it was agreed at that time that a special effort should be undertaken to promote a wider understanding of the situation in southern Africa. The 1972 election campaign provides a unique opportunity for discussion of the emerging crisis in southern Africa and for exploration of useful U.S. responses to that crisis. Richard Sklar, chairman of the Committee, was authorized by the Committee to appoint a subcommittee to plan such an effort for the 1972 election campaign. The work of the subcommittee—referred to as Politics ’72 — constitutes the subject of this article.