Africa Insight - Volume 16, Issue 1, January 1986

The World Conference on the United Nations Decade for Women, held in Nairobi in July 1985, marked the end of the UN Decade for Women. The Decade was launched in a world-wide attempt to improve the status of women and to increase their social and economic opportunities. There is no doubt that the Decade has been successful. General progress has been made in such spheres as health, education and employment. Ninety per cent of the world's governments now have organizations promoting the advancement of women: half of them were created in the last ten years. The Decade saw the birth of three international institutes: The Voluntary Fund for Women; The International Research and Training Institute; and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. However, much still needs to be done. This can be seen from the research collected by the various UN agencies during the Decade. The findings have been published in a UN report on the Decade of Women.

""I am a pragmatist who believes that people should be brought together,"" says Dr Nico Smith, a courageous man who sacrificed a promising academic career at the University of Stellenbosch to work in a black parish in Mamelodi, near Pretoria, as an ordinary clergyman. He has dedicated his life to reconciling white with black in South Africa. ""I am not without hope,"" he says. ""As long as I can bring people together to talk to each other there is hope. It is still possible for whites and blacks to find each other. "" Smith points out that the Nationalist government created four worlds within South Africa in 1948. This, he says, was a very dangerous thing to do because black people were forced out of whites' lives to become labour units. ""During the day they are physically part of the white environment, but at the same time they are not seen as part of the society.""

They call it the ""Switzerland of Africa"", this tiny, land-locked kingdom in which the poverty of its people contrasts so starkly with the magnificence of its mountain scenery. But the mountains is all that Lesotho has in common with its democratic, stable, rich, neutral and well-ordered European counterpart. Twenty years of iron-fisted rule by Chief Leabua Jonathan have subverted traditional Basotho democracy, alienated South Africa, linked Lesotho with the radical East and produced precious little in the way of development and jobs - and paved the way for southern Africa's first full-blown military coup. Despite the Jonathan government's tirades against South Africa, its accommodating attitude to the African National Congress, its successful begging trips to the West and its links with the Communist bloc, Lesotho remains utterly dependent on South Africa.

""Why should we pay more for transport when apartheid forces us to live so far apart ?"" The above argument, from both management and workers, was provoked by a warning from the Minister of Constitutional Development that employers should expect to pay more towards subsidies for their workers' transport from the beginning of 1986.1 Recently many private organizations, in order to ease social tensions, urgently recommended the phasing out of urban influx control measures affecting South Africa's black citizens. However, the government still seems to favour only a technical modification of this instrument of segregation. Its reluctance to scrap influx control was indicated again in September 1985, when it emphasized its intentions to retain the policy of segregation. This will make any relaxation of influx control unfeasible in practice, forcing black ""immigrants"" to accommodate their families in spatially restricted and infrastructurally inadequate areas.

The white South African has come a long way since the 1930s when over half of the white population, mostly Afrikaners, were officially classified as ""poor white"". By the 1970s, the whites' per capita income ranked among the six leading nations in the world. Of the white male population, nearly 30 per cent had twelve years of education, and 7 per cent had university degrees. However, according to the Human Sciences Research Council's Institute of Social and Demographic Research, South Africa's white population is shrinking dramatically as a proportion of the total population and is on the way to zero growth. Between 1979 and 1981, the white population increased by 118 000 to 4 063 000 (inclusive of 50 000 immigrants) while blacks increased by 703 000 to 17 479 000 (of which an estimated 10 million reside outside the homelands) coloureds increased by 99 000 to 2 671 000 and Indians by 32000 to 838 000.

Equatorial Guinea was known as Spanish Guinea or the Spanish Equatorial Region until 1963. This independent African state consists of the mainland province Rio Muni, the island province of Bioko (originally Fernando Po) and the smaller islets Annobon, Corisco, Elobey Grande and Elobey Chico in the Gulf of Guinea. Continental Rio Muni is a forest enclave bordered by Cameroon in the north and by President Bongo's Gabon (with which there has been a long-standing border dispute) in the east and south. The island Bioko lies about 125 miles north of the mainland and houses the capital of the republic, Malabo (formerly Santa Isabel) - a city with one of the most inhospitable climates in Africa. In 1960 approximately 7 000 of the country's 250 000 inhabitants were European. Since then, the population of both blacks and whites has suffered a serious decline.

The problems of great cities in the Third World, states Hauser, derive not so much from ""urbanism as a way of life"", but from the problems of the nation at large, especially low productivity and mass poverty. Urban policy, therefore, can be viewed as the adoption of those measures most likely to alleviate the worst aspects of urban problems derived from the national state of affairs. However, there is a more positive side to urban policy, i e, how to effectively use the urban system, from the largest city down to the smallest village, as a vehicle for achieving the wider goals of national development. The issue revolves around the key question, ""what type of urban development (will) bring about the full and total mobilization of the population of a country?""

The concept of regional development in southern Africa is based upon the idea of interstate co-operation and on the formulation of a regional development strategy. Although it is possible to divide the history of interstate co-operation in southern Africa into the colonial and post-colonial phases, a good case can also be made for regarding 1975 as the real watershed, for it was then that South Africa's policy of detente with black Africa came to an end. The period since then has certainly been eventful, marked by the consequences of Portugal's withdrawal from Africa, the subsequent upheavals in its erstwhile colonial empire and the independence of Zimbabwe. From the perspective of this article, however, of even greater significance has been the emergence of the TBVC states and South Africa's concomitant formulation of a comprehensive policy of economic decentralization, which was characterized by greater private sector participation in a national development strategy.

The reason why I became involved with African music was to promote new African church music for the Catholic Church. As a priest and a musician, I had had quite a lot of experience with liturgical music, but when I had to tackle African church music in 1977, it was without any preparation. However, the first composition workshops went incredibly well, so that by the end of 1978 I had recorded and published on tape and in transcription some 400 church songs in four languages. That was when I started working for Lumko Institute full time. All the publication is done through this institute now, except the music that finds its way into the hymnbooks of the different language regions. Presently about 1 000 songs are available, in 19 Africa languages, many of them also in English and Afrikaans.

Swaziland, with a surface area of 17364 km2, is one of the smallest countries in Africa and has an estimated population of 650 000 (1985). It lies between the Drakensberg mountains in the west and the Lebombo mountains in the east and is traversed by six large rivers. One of the most attractive features of Swaziland is the ease with which the modern world has been assimilated into traditional Swazi life. Tarred roads pass traditional settlements where beehive shaped huts are still in use. And not much further on one passes modern casino hotels filled with tourists and locals. The traditional Swazi monarchy is assisted by a parliament, supreme council and cabinet. At present, since the death of King Sobhuza II, the Queen Mother Ntombi is ruling as regent. Her son, Makhosetive is expected to be installed as king in April this year.

The Jeziret al Maghreb or ""Island of the West"" is the westernmost limit of the Arab and Islamic world. Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco make up the three countries known as the Maghreb. Separated from Spain by the narrow Strait of Gibraltar, Morocco is also the African country closest to Europe. The Kingdom of Morocco is one of three remaining monarchies in Africa - the other two being Lesotho and Swaziland. The kingdom has a multi-party political system dominated by a king whose policies have generally been conservative, with foreign relations orientated towards the West. King Hassan's reign has been marked by vigorous campaigning to regain territories which had been controlled by Morocco's Muslim dynasties in ancient times. Moroccans take pride in the country's role as the centre of medieval empires - based on cities like Fez, Meknes and Marrakesh - which at various times controlled northwestern Africa as well as Spain. Spain, notably Cordoba and Granada, was Muslim territory from the early 8th century until Granada fell to Charles the Great in 1492. The original Berber (Moor) inhabitants of Morocco were conquered by the Arabs at the beginning of the 8th century and converted to Islam. As Muslim power declined towards the end -of the 15th century the Portuguese captured several Moroccan ports, including Tangier and Ceuta, while Spain secured a foothold in Melilla in 1496. Portugal ceded Ceuta to Spain in 1580. In 1860 Ifni enclave to the south on the Atlantic coast became Spanish and in 1884 Spain also annexed the desert land of Rio de Oro (the future Western Sahara).

The Islamic Republic of Mauritania is situated on the upper west coast of Africa, almost wholly within the Sahara Desert. Despite the harsh environment, Mauritania's economy has been transformed since independence, by the exploitation of iron ore and the fish resources in its coastal waters, which together account for 99 per cent of the country's foreign earnings. Although it is one of Africa's largest territories, Mauritania, with less than 2 million inhabitants, is also one of the most sparsely populated countries. Like its northern neighbour, Western Sahara as well as Libya, Gabon, Botswana and SWA/Namibia, it has less than two persons per km2. The bulk of the people live in the few towns and along the northern bank of the Senegal River, which constitutes the southern border.

Located south of the equator, and approximately 800 to 1 200 km east of Madagascar, is a group of three islands known as the Mascarenes. The trio comprises Mauritius, Rodrigues and Reunion. Like many of the smaller Indian Ocean islands, the Mascarenes are the result of volcanic activity in prehistoric times. Some of the volcanoes, on Reunion for instance, are still active. Almost completely surrounded by coral reefs, these mountainous islands are renowned for their scenic beauty. The climate is subtropical with abundant rainfall and occasional cyclones. Mauritius has several dependencies including the small island of Rodrigues 585 km to the east, the Cargados Carajos Archipelago 370 km to the north-east and the Agalega Islets 935 km to the north. Mauritius also claims Tromelin Island, 556 km to the north-west, which belongs to France, and also seeks the return of the Chagos Archipelago 1 900 km to the north-east. The Chagos Islands were administered from Mauritius during colonial times, but in 1965 they became part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. Advocating the declaration of the Indian Ocean as a ""zone of peace"", the Mauritian government has often denounced the development of a United States military base on Diego Garcia, the main island in the Chagos group.

Occupying the tropical south-eastern coastal plains between southern Africa's Great Escarpment and the Indian Ocean, Mozambique is endowed with a large proportion of the continent's finest natural harbours. Stretching some 2 000 km from north to south, this large, elongated country separates land-locked neighbours from the sea. Therefore, the transport routes linking Mozambican ports with the interior have always been a major source of income. In ancient times, gold, ivory and slaves from Zimbabwe and Monomotapa were exported through the ports of Mozambique Island (near present-day Nacala) and Sofala (just south of present-day Beira). These trading centres were the southernmost points of the Islamic sphere of influence that had been created along the east African coast by Arab traders. The Portuguese arrived at the turn of the 15th century and established themselves on Mozambique Island, which was apparently named thus after an Arab sultan, Mussa ben Biki. They dislodged the Arabs, established trading posts and explored the interior, hoping to conquer for Portugal a vast African empire stretching from the Indian Ocean to Angola on the Atlantic coast. These hopes were shattered by the establishment of a British sphere of influence at the end of the 19th century and the demarcation of most of the present artificial borders in 1891.