Search results

IT IS BECOMING INCREASINGLY CLEAR THAT THERE ARE NEGATIVE AS WELL AS POSITIVE ASPECTS TO THE NATION-BUILDING PROCESS IN POST-COLONIAL AFRICA. MAJOR PROBLEMS SUCH AS POVERTY AND ILLITERACY ARE STAGGERING, AND THEY OFTEN ARE ONLY EXARCERBATED BY THE POLICIES OF THE ELITIST POST-COLONIAL GOVERNMENTS THAT IN SO MANY INSTANCES DISCOURAGE NATION-WIDE INTEREST AND INVOLVEMENT.

What is Africa doing wrong? Africans as well as others are increasingly asking this question. We are, in effect, invited to consider that there are, perhaps, negative as well as positive aspects to the nation-building process in post-colonial Africa. To the layman, indeed, the image of Africa has tended to accentuate the negative. The strife in the Congo during the early 1960s, the civil war in Nigeria, numerous military coups d'etat and political assassinations, bureaucratic corruption, disappointing progress in the economic field, and more recently famine and drought, all could lead to the conclusion that efforts at nationbuilding have been less than successful.

An understanding of the character & culture of bur'cy is essential for those concerned with programs of econ growth & soc change in econ'ly less developed countries. Community development involves the 3 stages of planning for the people, with the people, & finally by the people. Both the 1st & 2nd stages call for considerable direct participation by the burley. In most former colonies & dependencies, bur's became efficient instruments of admin, showing all the classical characteristics of formal org. Certain special characteristics as a distinct sub-cultural entity emerged & crystallized during the colonial phase: (1) bur'cy constituted the high prestige strata of the society; (2) it maintained a dual traditional & modern identification; (3) bur'tic positions carried powers beyond formal role & status definitions; (4) the bur'tic machine had, in general, a paternalistic attitude to the masses; (5) the general admin'or enjoyed supremacy over subject-matter specialists; (6) bur'cy was carefully trained in formal admin'ive procedure & routine; (7) it found a self-contained system in the limited framework of its functions; (8) its att to the nat'list forces within was marked by ambivalence. In the first decade of independence, burley found itself in a difficult & uncomfortable position. The more important areas in which it had to work for a redefinition of its position were: (a) the culture of pot, (b) the emerging ethos, & (c) the expanding sphere of state activity & the new instit'al arrangements. In the new order pot replaced administration in supremacy, with an unmistakable tendency towards the merging of pol'al roles with personal & soc roles. The bur'cy accepted pol'al direction in many countries, but the new order posed a threat to its structure, values & interests. The emerging ethos also presented bur'cy with problems regarding the maintenance of its image of power, its existence as a high-prestige class, & its paternalistic tone of admin. Bur'cy has resisted innovations in its structural arrangement, esp those which encroach on the position of the general admin'or. While it has played an important part in the process of econ & soc growth, functioning as a model & as an instrument for modernization, its effective utilization has been blocked by paradoxes of the new pol'al culture & by inner contradictions in its own structure & values. J. Field.