Re: Africa

>3. Beatty: "It might be of interest to you that Jules Nyerere's writings
>(I'm not able  to provide a citation now unfortunately, since I got this
>information years  ago in a conversation) make the argument that the
>nation-state based upon territory is an idea foreign to African culture.
>This, he argues, is so because of the nomadic ways of life of Africa's
>indigenous peoples.  Communities would simply relocate to new areas when
>resources in a particular area became sparse.  Such practices as these
>don't seem likely to conduce to great respect for nature  This might be
>consistent with your suggestion above.  In any event, Nyerere's writings
>are a potential source of African discussion of the issue you raise."
>
>If Beatty is going to present Nkrumah's statements responsibly, he had
>better not just rely on a dim memory of some conversation with somebody
>years ago. The notion that "the nation-state based upon territory is an
>idea foreign to African culture" is outlandishly false.

what you call 'outlandishly false' i call one of the biggest truths in
modern africa. it has been the nation state system that has directed african
energies towards internal and external accumulation AND that has frustrated
so many cultural structures as to lead to the extreme hate, violence and
cynism that occurs in Africa today.

What IS funny, although, is that the man that supposedly declared this, has
been the constructor of one of the most stable nations in Africa: Tanzania.

c.