Alamin Mazrui

People of Indian descent had long interacted with the Swahili of East Africa. This interrelationship became particularly momentous during British colonial rule that gave additional impetus to Indian migration to East Africa. In time East Africa, in general, and Mombasa, Kenya’s second largest city, in particular, became home to significant populations of Indian settler communities. Motivated by an immigrant psychology and relatively privileged status under colonial rule, Indian immigrants took full advantage of the opportunities to become remarkably successful socially and economically. Local inhabitants were fully aware of the success of Indian immigrants of East Africa, and for some of them, the Indian record became a yard stick for their own successes and failures. Among these was Sheikh Al-Amin bin Ali Mazrui (1891-1947), famed for his reformist ideas about East African Islam. Using his Swahili periodical, Swahifa, he tried to galvanize members of Swahili-Muslim community toward...

Many different reasons have been advanced for the rise of Islamic revivalism in Africa and elsewhere in the world – from the effects of drought in the Sahel region of the continent to Islam’s presumed innate propensity for violence and fanaticism. What I propose to focus on in this essay is the possibility that the many forms of Islamic revivalism that we see today are themselves, at least in part, a consequence of globalization. How, then, has globalization, sometimes acting in concert with other forces, contributed to the resurgence of Islamic revivalism, in its many African faces, in the last couple of decades?

Section one Continental Africa: post-Cold War English in Africa - between complimentarity and competition - introduction, globalism with an American face, intra-NATO competition, the decline of state-nationalism, exit from ethnicity, the West and dissident Islam, the tide of pluralism, the World Bank and IMF factor, Conclusion. English and African Education - between linguistic and intellectual dependency - introduction, the World Bank and the question of instructional media, language, education and development, the problem of intellectual dependency, towards decolonization. Section two Global Africa: English and the Pan-African experience - in search of unity: introduction, Pan-Africanism and English - between slavery and colonialism, English as a diversifying force, English and Black rights, Pan-Africanism and English in the era of globalization, Pan-Africanism beyond the English Language, the expansion of global Africa, Pan-Africanism and the Rainbow Coalition, conclusion. English and the Afrocentric Voice - in search of authenticity: introduction, between Afrocentricity and Pan-Africanism, between relativism and functionalism, between English and Kiswahili, between Islamophobia and Swahiliphilia, conclusion - towards the democratization of Afrocentricity. Conclusion - linguistic appropriation and beyond.

... Its parenting civilisations have included both Africa and Islam: It is at once part of the ... In the United States such people this century have included major political leaders like Malcolm X ... in Sierra Leone in 1902, Blyden was seeking to persuade the new British colonial regimes in ...

... It is on this basis that Daniel arap Moi proclaimed that 'his government was taking care of its em-ployees well and they ... Oduor Ong'wen has described the educational infrastructure in Kenyan public universities as lamenta-ble; this decline includes the depletion of library ...

... The point here is that, even though Sheikh Al-Amin was quite radical, for his time, to even encourage the learning of Enr;lish to the Muslims, he could not emotionally dissociate himself from this community which equated English with Christianity and Christian civilization. ...

... and, conversely, between African languages and mental de-colonisation-can find little support in the colonial and post-colonial history of ... 15 Equally important in Fanon's conception of liberation is the issue of violence, including what we may call linguistic violence. ...

The first edition of Outline of Swahili Literature: Prose Fiction and Drama appeared in 1989, with Elena Bertoncini Zubkova as the sole author. Twenty years later, after enlisting as co-authors several distinguished writers and scholars concentrating on different zones of Swahili-speaking East Africa, Zubkova has launched not only a creative initiative of major value to Swahili literary researchers, but also a contribution of great intellectual merit in the critical study of Swahili literature. Much of the analysis and documentation that was carried out by Zubkova in the first edition has been maintained in this edition, along with the division of the chapters—defensible in some ways and not so defensible in others—into Kenyan, Tanganyika mainland, and Zanzibari authors and texts. The major difference is the introduction, co-written with Mikhail Gromov, which incorporates extensive revisions in both analysis and outlook. Although some statements in the introduction are still problematic—as, for example, the claim that the misogynist attitude often evident in Swahili writing can somehow "be traced back to Swahili Islamic poetry" (6)—in general this revised introduction corrects the problems and flawed assumptions of the first. The whole of chapter 1 on prose fiction in precolonial and colonial times is a modestly revised version of Zubkova's original text. Chapter 2 ("Contemporary Prose Fiction") and chapter 3 ("Drama") now have multiple authors: Zubkova covers the period from the 1960s to the 1980s for Kenya, mainland Tanzania, and Zanzibar; Gromov focuses on the Tanzania mainland from the 1990s to the present; Khamis and Wamitila look at texts arising from Zanzibari writers and Kenyan writers, respectively, in the post1990 period. As would be expected, the first appendix, which lists contemporary authors of novels, short stories, and plays, has also been revised, with added entries for writers such as Rashid Ali Akwilombe and Boukheit Amana. The second appendix is a revised and expanded list of novels, short story collections, and plays from the late 1980s to the present. Of the 685 entries, close to 80 percent are publications from Tanzania (both from the mainland and Zanzibar). Only about one-fifth originate from Kenya. Bearing in mind the several cases in which the boundary between Kenyan and Tanzanian texts is fuzzy, these statistics conform to the disparity in literary production that we would expect, given the differences in colonial and postcolonial language histories and policies. But is there reason to believe that this literary landscape is beginning to change? Is Kenya catching up with Tanzania in terms of Swahili literary output?

Part 1 Global Africa: language an drace in the black experience - an African perspective African languages in the African-American experience linguistic Eurocentrism and African counterpenetration - Ali Mazuri and the global frontiers of language language and the quest for liberation - the legacy of Fritz Fanon. Part 2 Continental Africa: language in a multicultural context - the African experience language planning and gender planning language policy and the foundations of democracy - an African perspective language policy and the rule of law in "Anglophone Africa". Part 3 Regional case studies: dominant languages in a plural society - English and Kiswahili in post-colonial East Africa a tale of two Englishes - the imperial language in post-colonial Kenya and Uganda roots of Kiswahili - colonialism, nationalism, and the oral heritage the secularization of an Afro-Islamic language. Concluson: the linguistic balance sheet - post-Cold War, post-apartheid and beyond structural adjustment.

© 2008 by J. Joseph Errington blackwell publishing 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of J. Joseph Errington to be identified as the ...

Many different reasons have been advanced for the rise of Islamic revivalism in Africa and elsewhere in the world – from the effects of drought in the Sahel region of the continent to Islam’s presumed innate propensity for violence and fanaticism. What I propose to focus on in this essay is the possibility that the many forms of Islamic

Thepresumedoppositionbetweenlinguisticrelativismand linguistic universalism has long been at the center of the debate about the use of language in African literature. Relativists regard the use of African languages as indispensable in the quest for an authentically African literature. For them language is the reservoir of a people's culture (e.g., Biobaku 76) or the medium that structures a people's perceptions (e.g., Irele 43) in culturally bound ways. As a result, relativists consider non-African languages less than adequate in conveying an African cultural-cognitive essence that, they believe, should be a defining characteristic of all truly African literary works. Only African languages, they claim, can perform this task satisfactorily. Chidi Maduka, for example, argues that, even though "the sources of Achebe, Awoonor and Soyinka, for example, are from Igbo, Ewe and Yoruba, respectively,... they are cast in a language that captures the spirit of the worldview of th...

Cette etude se penche sur les interactions de la religion comme ideologie, et du patriarcat comme systeme social, a partir de l'analyse du roman de Nawal el-Saadawi et, plus particulierement, en se fondant sur l'examen de l'utilisation que l'ecrivain fait du sexe et de l'urine, qui deviennent alors les symboles des relations entre la politique et l'Islam au niveau de l'oppression de la femme

It is generally accepted that Arabic has had a major impact on the growth of the Swahili language over the centuries. The meaning of this linguistic stimulus of Arabic, however, has been a matter of far lesser consensus in both the colonial and postcolonial dispensations. Does the Semitic influence reduce Swahili’s African credentials, and does it amount to some degree of linguistic Islamization? If so, is the development an argument in favor of or against Swahili in relation to its role as a language of Christianity and, later of national belonging and expression? And can one be anti-Arab and antiIslam but pro-Swahili at the same time without having to dis-Arabize Swahili? These are some of the central questions addressed in this article, reflecting conflicting positions of various interest groups, even as Swahili’s own momentum and dynamism have increasingly neutralized the contestation over its identity.

The outcome of a three-day conference held at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands, in September 1998, this book on the 1997 Kenya general elections is organized in four parts: the direct pre-electoral background; technical and national analysis of the general elections, including the performance of the Electoral Commission, international observation, and the role of the media; regional studies focusing on the grassroots level of Kenyan politics at the Kenya Coast, among the Kenya Somali, in Ukambani, Meru and Embu, Central Province and Nairobi, and Maasailand, among the Kalenjin and the Gusii, in Luo Nyanza, and in Western Province and Trans-Nzoia district; and the Njoro and Laikipia violence in the aftermath of the elections, political developments in 1998 and 1999, and the meaning of electoral politics in Kenya. Contributors: Francis Ang'ila Aywa, Norbert Braakhuis, Marren Akatsa-Bukachi, Fran†ois Grignon, Charles Hornsby, Joe Kadhi, Peter Mwangi Kagwanja, Karu...

... in Kenya, for example, back came the following reply from Meghani, a non-British Kenyan: It is not at all wisdom on the part of a tiny English population in this wide world to claim that English, as presented and pronounced by Americans, Canadians, Africans, Indians, and the ...

Doctrine and Gender in Islam Any major university in the United States may have more computer literate individuals than several states of the Nigerian Federation. This disparity between computer-skilled and computer-challenged highlights the depth of the digital divide. Literacy as a source of empowerment has shifted from the print to the computer medium. There is the lingering danger that cyberspace will solidify the gap between the haves and the have-nots. However, this gap cannot merely be reduced to economic difference and financial access to Internet technology. Certainly, what appear to be cultural reasons for the digital divide are often due to differences in economic opportunity. But while it is difficult to distinguish whether economic or cultural factors are more salient in explaining the digital divide, the different levels of interaction between religious traditions and technological changes raise several crucial questions: how will a computer revolution shape the changes within religious doctrine, and how do religious traditions affect people's ability to adapt to such a revolution? Examining how technology has affected doctrine and gender in Islam will illuminate a key example of the interplay between technology and religion. By exploring the effect of the Internet on the internal logic of Islam, as well as the enlarged global influence Islam must play when digital barriers are broken, we hope to highlight the possibilities for a dual reformation. Information to Reformation The impact of the first industrial revolution on western Christianity undoubtedly led to the momentous movement of the Christian Reformation. Will the impact of the new revolution of information lead to a comparable Islamic Reformation? In the 20th century Westerners have debated whether the Protestant Reformation was the mother of capitalism in Europe or whether the Christian Reformation was itself a child of earlier phases of the capitalist revolution. Max Weber's book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism advances the view that the Protestant Reformation was the mother of capitalism rather than a child of economic change. Other thinkers, however, have identified pre-Reformation technological inventions as part of the preparation for both the birth of Protestantism and modern-day capitalism. Francis Robinson, professor of history at the University of London, has placed the printing press at the center of the Protestant movement and within the Catholic counter-offensive. He writes, "Print lay at the heart of that great challenge to religious authority, the Protestant Reformation; Lutheranism was the child of the printed book. Print lay at the heart of the Catholic counter-offensive, whether it meant harnessing the press for the work of Jesuits and the office of Propaganda, or controlling the press through the machinery of the Papal Index and the Papal Imprimatur." The question here is whether the Internet and cyberspace and the third industrial revolution will do to Islam what the first industrial revolution did for Christianity. In some respects the Christian Reformation was a return to the biblical roots of Christianity. Likewise, the information revolution may help Islam realize some of its earliest aims more effectively. The first casualty of the information revolution, however, may be national sovereignty, which will shrink in the wake of the Internet and cyberspace. The printed word played a major role in the construction of nation-hood and in reinforcing national consciousness. Computer communication, on the other hand, is contributing to the breakdown of nationhood and may play a role in the construction of trans-ethnic communities. While the first industrial revolution of capitalist production and the Christian reformation became allied to the new forces of nationalism in the Western world, the third industrial revolution and any Islamic reformation will be increasingly hostile to the insularity of the state. …

A domain that demonstrates a particularly high incidence of the interplay between language ideology and translation/interpretation is no doubt the law court. The linguistically embedded power relations that are integral to the interactional process between various parties in a law suit often become accentuated when meaning has to be mediated between two or more language varieties through the agency of a court interpreter. Contrary to the common belief that court interpreters are unobtrusive parties in the court process, they can make a significant difference in the outcome of cases partly because of the influence of the respective language ideologies they imbibe (Berk-Seligson, 2002). Keywords: language and social interaction; linguistic anthropology; sociolinguistics; ideology; interpretation; translation

... The following material on Kenya has appeared in previous issues of Index on Censorship: Ahmed Rajab, 'Detention of Ngugi wa Thiong'o', Index 3/1978 Ngugi wa Thiong'o, 'The making of afebel' (interview), Index 3/1980 Ngugi wa Thiong'o, 'Detained: A writer's .diary' (book ...