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CODESRIA’s 30th Anniversary Celebrations
East Africa Sub-Regional Conference
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 30 - 31 October, 2003
Call for Abstracts
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. It will be recalled that the Council was established in 1973 out of the collective will of African social researchers to create a viable forum in Africa through which they could strive to transcend all barriers to knowledge production and, in so doing, play a critical role in the democratic development of the continent. As part of the series of events planned to mark the anniversary, five sub-regional conferences are being organised in Central, East, North, Southern and West Africa. These sub-regional conferences will be followed by a grand finale conference to be held at the Council’s headquarters in Dakar, Senegal, in December 2003. The East Africa sub-regional conference will take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 30 and 31 October, 2003. The theme of the conference will be: East Africa: In Search of National and Regional Renewal
The East African sub-region presents an interesting mix of experiences which, both historically and contemporaneously, have been at the heart of some of the main preoccupations of African nationalists and the quest for the realisation of the pan-African ideal. Established in Archaeological Research as the place of origin of humankind, the sub-region is significant in African history in several other important respects. It is home to the only African country – Ethiopia – that escaped direct colonial rule and whose resistance to Italian military invasion was instrumental in galvanising the African resistance to foreign domination. Precisely for this reason, Addis Ababa was easily designated Headquarters of the Organisation of African Unity when it was established and, as a consequence, the sub-region has played host to some of the most important moments in the post-independence African quest for collective action. Furthermore, several of the leading giants of African nationalism, as well as some of the boldest experiments seeking to give content to independence, were undertaken in East Africa. In this connection, the personal example of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and the attempts he made to concretise the ideals of African nationalism are perhaps the most consistent and outstanding . He promoted the Africanisation of governance structures, adoption of Swahili as official language of Tanzania, sensitisation of the populace on the merits and imperatives of self-reliance, the investment of energies into the building of the East Africa Community. He offered unwavering support to the liberation struggles in Southern Africa, and also launched the Ujamaa programme. And yet, the experiment in African socialism, which Nyerere embraced, was not the only path that was followed in East Africa. Tanzania’s immediate neighbour, Kenya, led by another giant of African nationalism and a veteran of the Mau Mau resistance to British rule, opted for a completely different approach which consisted essentially in the adoption of a private capitalist system of development with a strong accent on a major role for foreign private investors. Ethiopia was governed for a long time by a hereditary monarchy until Haile Selasie’s rule was ended by a military takeover that occurred on the back of popular protests; the monarchy was abolished and the country was subsequently proclaimed a Marxist state. In sum, all of the countries of the sub-region had regime types that spanned the ideological spectrum and, in some cases, such as Siad Barre’s Somalia, involved official swings from one ideological framework to another in line with the exigencies of political survival and shifting Cold War alliances.
Whether colonised or not, and irrespective of the ideological and policy choices they made, all of the countries of East Africa faced numerous and broadly similar challenges of nation-building and socio-economic development. These problems were not eased by the various burdens of history that played an important part in shaping domestic political alliances in contexts which are highly pluralistic – especially along ethnic and religious lines – and which exhibited significant levels of social polarisation. As a consequence, the sub-region was exposed to major conflicts both of an inter-state and intra-state nature that implicated virtually all the countries in the sub-region. The worst of these conflicts have been played out in Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, the Zanzibar component of Tanzania, and the Comoros. While the roots of the conflicts are varied and may be open to debate, their consequences have, however, been the same across the sub-region and have consisted in a reinforcement of political authoritarianism, a widening of the gulf between state and society, an exacerbation of social inequalities and a widespread disruption of economic activities. The weakening of states by prolonged conflicts has also been experienced, even as several of the countries succumbed to military rule. In all cases, de facto and de jure single party rule was imposed in one form or the other at some point after the achievement of independence. It was only in the period from the 1980s onwards that concerted pressure, mainly from social movements, began to push most of the regimes in power towards a reform of the political space. As in the rest of Africa, much of the reform effort entailed the adoption or re-introduction of multiparty politics, the most significant exception being Uganda under Museveni and the so-called “movement system” on the basis of which the NRM has exercised power. Political decentralisation exercises and efforts at constitutional reform have also been undertaken, including the ethno-regionalist federalist model introduced in Ethiopia after the fall of the Dergue. Furthermore, there has been a revival of interest in the sub-region in the rebirth of co-operation and integration processes aimed at promoting common inter-state objectives and seeking shared solutions.
An overview of the challenges facing East Africa would suggest that, in the main, these centre around the accommodation and management of diversity; the re-thinking of citizenship in the framework of a renewed social contract between state and society; the expansion of the base for social inclusion, including especially the rural and urban working poor; the promotion of a civic culture underpinned by basic democratic rights and which pays particular attention to disaffected youth; the revitalisation of associational life in a direction that strengthens popular democratic participation; the restoration of a developmental agenda to the policy process; the promotion of an all-round project of regionalisation; the encouragement of the further opening up of the political space to allow for the exaction of greater accountability; and the rebuilding of the state and the policy process in an environment of peace and stability. These challenges lie at the heart of the quest for national and sub-regional renewal; the extent to which they are achieved will also be crucial to the realisation of the ideals of autonomous development and social justice that, in the first place, fired African nationalism and the pan-African movement. The East Africa sub-regional conference, which is being convened by CODESRIA as part of its 30th anniversary, celebrations will be devoted to an exploration of different dimensions of the challenges of renewal confronting the countries in the area. This would be done in a manner that does not neglect the weak points and/or blind spots of the theory and practice of African nationalism and which also takes full cognisance of the changed contexts and conditions shaping the African world today. Papers reflecting on different dimensions of these challenges, the various strands of reform and renewal being pursued and their potentiality for establishing the foundations for the emergence of an inclusive, democratic and developmental state system are welcome. Contributions on alternative readings of problems confronting the sub-region and alternative approaches to meeting these challenges are also strongly encouraged.
Researchers interested in participating in the conference are invited to submit abstracts of their papers to the CODESRIA Secretariat by 15 August, 2003. The authors of abstracts selected will be notified by 20 August, 2003 and they will be expected to send in their full papers by 30 September, 2003. All abstracts and full papers should be addressed by post, e-mail or fax to:
Ms. Francine Adade,
CODESRIA 30th Anniversary
East Africa Conference,
P.O. Box 3304, Dakar, Senegal
Tel: +221 – 825 98 22/23 / Fax: +221 – 824 12 89
E-mail: francine.adade@codesria.sn