East Africa. In Search of National and Regional Renewal

The papers in this work ensue from a conference of the eastern Africa sub-region, convened by Codesria in Addis Ababa in 2003, as part of its thirty-year anniversary celebrations.

The contributors explore different dimensions of the challenges confronting the countries of the sub-region, lending particular emphasis to historiography and the nationalist legacy. They stress the centrality of the role of the intellectual community, language policy and the management of diversity and multilingualism in the strengthening and restoration of popular democratic participation and state and policy processes. At the heart of the debate are the quest for an all-round project of regionalisation and renewal and the ideals of autonomous development and social justice. Contents: the rise, the fall and the insurrection of nationalism in Africa; intellectuals and Africa’s renewal; language and regional integration: foreign or African languages for the Africa Union?; language and the east African parliament; ethnicity: an opportunity or a bane in Africa’s development?; ethno-centralism and movement politics in Uganda; and intellectuals and soldiers: the socialist experiment in Africa.

The contributors include such distinguished scholars as Chachage C.L. Chachage, Issa Shivji and Bahru Zewde.