African Citizens Research Articles

The African Joseph and his contribution to Africa and Ancient Israel (Gen. 41: 41-45)

The contentious Africanness of ancient Egypt/Egyptians is discussed at a great length since most Eurocentric biblical scholars erroneously believe that ancient Egypt/Egyptians belong to either Europe or Asia, despite the ancient Egyptian claim in their monuments (inscription of Hasheptsut) that they belong to Africa, precisely Punt. A close examination of Genesis 41:41-45 shows that the purpose of the elaborate ceremony/ritual is not only for Joseph’s promotion to the position of a vizier, but also mainly to make Joseph a full citizen of Egypt/Africa in order that he may be able to perform his duty as an Egyptian Deputy Governor. Unfortunately biblical scholars miss this fact. I have also emphasized that Joseph’s contribution to ancient Israel and Egypt/Africa is of great importance, despite the underestimation of these achievements of an African Joseph. This article aims to emphasize the fact that Joseph was made an African citizen and that he made great contribution to ancient Israel and Africa which is seldom recognized by many biblical scholars.

Neoconservatives and the Demise of a Humane Juvenile Justice Program: A Conversation About Social Science and Racism

Institutional racism often results in events such as an unjustifiable death of an African American citizen at the hands of the police. These events induce the leaders of the dominant white society to call for “a conversation about racism,” which results in no meaningful change. This article suggests that a meaningful conversation could be had about the influence of social science on U.S. criminal justice policy—especially juvenile justice. The focus of that conversation should be on neoconservative social science, which has had a major impact on the criminal justice system as it exists today. The author briefly highlights the leading neoconservatives of the last half of the twentieth century. The demise of the Achievement Place/Teaching‐Family model—a rehabilitative, nonpunitive, community‐based treatment program for youthful offenders—is discussed as an example of neoconservative utilization of inadequate science in their claim that “nothing works” in rehabilitation programs. It is argued that perceived inherent deficiencies in African Americans—as a “race”—were a fixation of leading neoconservative scholars.

China’s Public Diplomacy in Zimbabwe: perceptions, opportunities and challenges

Contemporary Chinese engagements in Africa have been described in many terms by scholars and media practitioners. One of the threads in the China-Africa discourse is the role of public diplomacy and the desire by the Chinese government to engage African governments and citizens. Using insights from the concept of public diplomacy and new public diplomacy, this study seeks to understand China’s public di-plomacy in Zimbabwe by analysing news stories from the Chinese Embassy Website in order to discern the key actors and instruments used. Furthermore, the study uses the media reports from the private and public media as a barometer to form valuable insights on how the Chinese engagements and public diplomacy initiatives are perceived. Focus is particularly placed on convergences and departures between official Chinese public diplomacy narratives and the local media perceptions. The study finds that China has maintained the traditional state-centred public diplomacy model and that it has extensively focused on relationship building in its public diplomacy approaches in Zimbabwe which is in line with new public diplomacy. However, there are divergences between the themes prioritised by China and those prioritised by the local media which points to a possible communication gap. The study, therefore, proposes a proactive approach by China for effective public diplomacy in Zim-babwe.

Judging South Africa’s past: The sense of shame experienced by first-year History students of the University of the Free State’s Bloemfontein campus

Shame as a self-conscious emotion is an important contributing factor controlling and motivating people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour in socially appropriate ways, especially during interactions with one another. Shame in its own capacity causes discomfort when the behaviour of individuals and/or the group violates personal or social standards. The article aims to determine what the perceptions are of undergraduate students registered for first-year History at the University of the Free State’s Bloemfontein campus who took History as a school subject up to Grade 12; what enhances a sense of shame in them as South African citizens when judging the country’s past. The article contextualises the concept of shame; explains the methodology and approach that was used; and highlights the perceptions of these students and the issues that enhance a sense of shame in them as students studying at the capital of the Free State when judging the country’s past. In the process, the article assesses what is the level of the student’s historical consciousness, background, insight and in-depth knowledge of South Africa’s past, so as to be able to make a judgment on what they are ashamed of in past events in the country and the reasons why.

Discipline, Governmentality and ‘Developmental Patrimonialism’: Insights from Rwanda's Pyrethrum Sector

An ongoing academic debate examines the implications of ‘developmental patrimonialism’ for African citizens. Rwanda is a key case study in this debate, with proponents of developmental patrimonialism and ‘party capitalism’ arguing that companies owned by the ruling party or the military play positive roles in economic development. This debate often focuses on macro‐level, elite politics. This paper instead uses a Foucauldian lens to examine the micro‐level politics of pyrethrum production in Rwanda, which is managed by a military‐owned company. The company utilizes incentive‐based governmental strategies, in line with state discourses, in addition to punitive, disciplinary regimes. The paper demonstrates that state agricultural strategies depend on multiple factors, including multi‐scale political tensions between the ruling party's desire for control and its discourse of ‘entrepreneurship’.

Trial by media: The framing of Oscar Pistorius as the media spectacle

Abstract The coverage of the Oscar Pistorius bail application proceedings is examined using the notions of ‘trial by media’ and ‘the media spectacle’. A sample of 54 issues was taken from the Cape Argus and quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. The research substantiated the hypothesis that Pistorius was subjected to a trial by the media, in which he was convicted in the court of public opinion. Furthermore, the coverage of the legal proceedings by the Cape Argus elevated the status of the case to that of ‘the megaspectacle’, which emphasized the importance of Pistorius, while demoting the importance of Reeva Steenkamp. ‘The megaspectacle’ also highlighted the societal struggles that South African citizens face, including poor gun control, domestic violence, subordination of women, as well as racism.

African voters indicate lack of support for climate change policies

Will African voters support climate change policies? By 2020, the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund intends to provide tens of billions of dollars per year to African nations to support climate adaptation and mitigation policies. It is widely assumed that African citizens will support implementation of these climate policies. We observe the opposite result. In this article – across two experimental studies – we find evidence that Sub-Saharan African politicians who commit to climate change policies may lose electoral support. Electorally important swing voters with weak party affiliations are least likely to support party statements about climate change. Interviews with standing elected officials from Malawi and South Africa corroborate our experimental findings. The combined results suggest voter preferences may hinder the successful implementation of climate change policy in Sub-Saharan African democracies.

Toxicovigilance Systems and Practices in Africa

African consumers and citizens are growingly aware of the wide range of toxic poisoning scenarios from different products and hazards. Recurrent episodes on poisoning that have been reported in Africa include toxic hazards in consumers’ products ranging from food to herbal medicine, drugs, and cosmetics. Chemical poisoning remains an issue that is overlooked by public health stakeholders in Africa. Available information on toxicovigilance systems and practices in African countries is reviewed in terms of increasing development, organization and articulation levels. Less than nine out of 54 African countries have a legally recognized toxicovigilance system. Of these, the majority have created toxicovigilance systems recently, and are facing many challenges in developing them, at regional and country levels. Basic structures for a good toxicovigilance system include a phone line service (available 24/7), and hospital facilities. Pesticides emerge as the hazard recognized by all of the toxicovigilance systems, and may represent a prototypic toxicant towards a toxicovigilance system that is inclusive of a wider spectrum of toxicological hazards for the protection of community health. Toxicovigilance today is more reactive than preventive in Africa, but some milestones are present that constitute some promising seminal efforts.

African states and global challenges in democratic local governance: any lessons from the European region?

Local governments in many parts of Africa are yet to be fully accepted as important levels of government by political actors at the central and sub-central levels. This gives rise to the contradictory scenario whereby, such political actors at the central and sub-central levels remain the apostles of centralization on one hand and exponents of democracy as a model of national government on the other hand. Nigeria is the most populous African country. This marginalization of the local government in the democratic process is prevalent in Nigeria. Invariably, the pervasive effect of this condition, as it negatively affects the availability of dividends of democracy to the African citizen, is worrisome. In the meantime, the continent of Europe is perceived in the study as having possibly taken local government to a model level of local self-governance, through its European Charter of Local Self-Government. Europe is thus, seen in this study as a region conceivably in the lead in situating the local government, within its proper democratic context. The theoretical framework of deliberative democracy is adopted in the study to challenge African states to embrace local selfgovernance as a critical component of democratization.Keywords: Democracy, Local Governance, Africa, Global Trends, Self-Government

Multiracial Women and the African Press in Post-World War II Lourenço Marques, Mozambique

Based on original research of the biweekly publication of the women's pages in Lourenço Marques' only ‘African’ newspaper, O Brado Africano, this paper addresses racial and class dimensions of urban ideals of feminine modernity in the colonial capital of Mozambique. Between 1948 and 1958 the Pagina para a mulher produced rich and at times radical content. During this period, an urban multiracial middle class of Christian, educated women used the Pagina para a mulher to transmit, discuss, and debate ideas of what it meant to be a modern woman, mother, wife, daughter, and contributing member of society. The article looks specifically at feminine ideals of modernity that gave meaning to colonial categories of ‘civilised’ and ‘non-civilised’ Africans within an assimilationist legal framework of ‘native’ African subject and ‘non-native’ African citizen, and the racial tensions produced by a colonial ideology of European racial and cultural superiority. I argue that the content of the women's pages of O Brado Africano merits scholarly attention as a site of female social and political discourse and aspiration in a post-WWII era of possibility.

Global Challenges in Democratic Local Governance of the African States

Local governments in many parts of Africa are yet to be fully accepted as important levels of government (by political actors at the central and sub-central levels). This gives rise to the contradictory scenario whereby such political actors at the central and sub-central levels remain the apostles of centralization on one hand and exponents of democracy as a model of national government on the other hand. Nigeria is the most populous African country. And this marginalization of the local government in the democratic process is prevalent in Nigeria. Invariably, the pervasive effect of this condition, as it negatively affects the availability of dividends of democracy to the African citizen, is worrisome. In the meantime, the continent of Europe is perceived in the study as having possibly taken local government understanding to a model level of local self-governance, through its European Charter of Local Self-Government. Europe is thus, seen in this study as a region in the lead in situating the local government paradigm, within its proper democratic context. The theoretical framework of deliberative democracy is adopted in the study to engage African states to embrace local self-governance as a critical component of democratization.

The security dilemma evident in South Africa’s foreign policy towards Africa

South Africa’s (SA) ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), is looking to expand SA’s influence and power in the region and on the African continent in order to advance domestic socio-economic development. In the process, SA’s political identity is changing. Much of the article also focuses on the evolution or adaptation of the national political identity of SA. This discussion shows that there is a risk that the new political identity may not be accepted by the majority of South African citizens or by its allies in the region and on the continent. If the new political identity fails to take hold and domestic socio-economic problems are not addressed, the ANC could lose its future political support while anarchy and uncertainty, in the context of the ‘security dilemma’, may further perpetuate to the general public and partnering states. An exacerbating factor is the fact that SA’s domestic policies are linked to its foreign policies. Failures to successfully introduce domestic policies may also hold negative consequences for its foreign policy objectives and may well lead to unintended rivalry and conflict in the region and the continent.

The influence of green marketing on consumer purchase behavior

Global warming, pollution and climate change are some of the problems that have become an increasingly concerning issue internationally. Environmental deterioration has led to businesses changing the way in which they conduct themselves, leading to the emergence of green marketing. A considerable amount of research has been conducted on green marketing and consumer behavior, mainly, in developed countries. There is, however, a noticeable dearth of knowledge pertaining to consumers in South Africa. Thus, the aim of this paper is to examine, at an exploratory level, the influence of green marketing on the purchasing behavior of South African consumers. A survey was conducted on a sample of 100 consumers using a quantitative, exploratory and descriptive design. The results indicate that South African citizens have high knowledge levels on the issues facing the environment. Elements of the green marketing mix, specifically, green promotion, were found to raise awareness and encourage positive change in consumption behavior. A large proportion of respondents preferred to patronize socially responsible retailers. Furthermore, respondents preferred green products over standard alternatives. However, they were price sensitive which affected their purchasing decisions. It emerged that there was no significant difference between low and high income earners in terms of price sensitivity, and no significant difference between lower and higher qualified respondents in terms of knowledge and awareness of environmental degradation and green marketing

Kikuyu or Kenyan? Government Service Provision and the Salience of Ethnic Identities

Ethnicity has dominated recent political science research on Africa. Ethnic divisions, ethnic politics and salient ethnic identities have been blamed for a whole host of political and economic dysfunctions, in particular countries and continent-wide. But why do some ethnic identities become salient? And why do we observe such significant variation in identity salience within countries where ethnicity is thought to be uniformly important? Drawing on social-psychological theories of identity formation, I argue that ethnic identification is rooted, in part, in weak service provision by central governments. State action is a visible reminder of one's national identity. In the absence of state service provision, African citizens have few links to an imagined community at the national level. Instead, parochial sub-national identities remain. I develop a new survey-based tool to measure ethnic identification in the presence of social stigma and use it to test the effect of government service provision on ethnic identification in Kenya. In a survey experiment, I find that respondents who are primed to recall a set of services provided by the Kenyan government exhibit significantly lower levels of ethnic identification. The results have implications for studies that take ethnic diversity as a fixed characteristic of societies, and the study of ethnic politics more broadly.

How njangui socio-cultural houses influence students’ collaboration towards boosting Africanism

ABSTRACTOne visible characteristic that Cameroonian immigrant students have brought to South Africa is njangui/ngumba house, which redefines social inter-relationships among South African and other African citizens who were previously unknown to them. A njangui is a traditional social gathering while a ngumba is a kind of sacred society often reserved for the elderly. However, njangui and the ngumba houses have morphed into a type of social meeting where people meet to discuss and solve personal or collective problems, whether emotional, social or economic and then dine and wine at the close of each meeting. This paper describes one njangui group, its purpose, process of selecting members and activities among a group of students within a South African University. I draw on concept of locality to explore the link between social mobility, language, business, and culture. In order to explain this traditional social gathering I used an ethnographic design. This allowed me to become part of the participants’ daily practices. One argument is that socio-cultural strength culminates in socio-economic relations. Therefore, I conclude that this kind of relation could influence the social cohesion of students which may extend to significant relationships.

An alien in the country of my birth: Xenophobia reinforcing otherness and promoting exclusion

abstractIn South Africa xenophobia conjures up gruesome images of the 2008 and 2015 attacks. Physically violent attacks appear to make local and international headline news. But xenophobia is not simply about nationals and non-nationals, nor does it only occur as irregular violent outbreaks. Such portrayals obscure other far more widely lived experiences of xenophobia, which largely appear as a means of reinforcing otherness with the purpose of excluding such others from the benefits of citizenship or residence in South Africa.To understand this it is necessary to explore South Africa’s xenophobic past, which has to do with continual struggles for limited resources. These struggles have not been effectively overturned by the removal of discriminatory apartheid legislation and the introduction of South Africa’s Constitution. Our argument is based on author Margaret’s experiences as a South African child born of middle-class immigrant parents, which are anchored in the broader political and social context of South Africa. These experiences produce the very real fear of being denied the Constitutional rights of a South African citizen or resident. Such fears are also experienced by South African citizens ‘proper’, and we include some evidence of this when it comes to interaction with naturalisation and police authorities, as well as what it means with regard to employment. While we have achieved a democracy, the next step is to move out of single-minded racial and ethnic silos to achieve a cosmopolitan democracy as envisaged in the Constitution.

The influence of corruption: a South African case

Purpose– A growing public concern among South African citizens is that of corruption in law enforcement, an awareness of which causes significant tension in the community – police relationship. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how law enforcement corruption influences service delivery satisfaction and public trust.Design/methodology/approach– Data from the Victims of Crime Survey 2013/2014 for all nine provinces in South Africa were utilised, yielding a final sample of 25,605 respondents. By means of standard multiple-regression analysis, the study established that corruption statistically significantly influence service delivery satisfaction and public trust.Findings– The demographic variables that statistically significantly influenced the aforementioned dependent variables were province, population group and age. Gender and religion were not found to influence law enforcement public trust and service delivery satisfaction significantly.Research limitations/implications– It is recommended that the findings be used to stimulate public debate and renew efforts to curb law enforcement corruption specifically by emphasising police integrity.Practical implications– Limited empirical evidence can be found on the influence of law enforcement corruption on service delivery satisfaction and public trust especially in South Africa where police corruption is a serious concern. Determining the consequences of perceived corruption underscore the importance thereof and will renew efforts to curb as such the prevalence thereof.Social implications– The case study of South Africa could provide valuable lessons not only for South African policy makers but for other countries perilled by high crime rates, a lack of public trust and social segmentation.Originality/value– Limited empirical evidence could be found on the influence of law enforcement corruption on service delivery satisfaction and public trust especially in South Africa where police corruption is a serious concern.

The struggle against poverty, unemployment and social injustice in present-day South Africa: Exploring the involvement of the Dutch Reformed Church at congregational level

This article is based on an exploration of the involvement of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) at congregational level in the struggle against poverty, unemployment and social injustice in present-day South Africa. The exploration arises from the thesis that South African citizens continue to regard poverty, unemployment and social injustice as the key challenges to be met in order to build a healthy nation. Historically, the DRC acted as a prominent partner of the government to address the basic needs of the poor and the sick, especially among the country’s white population. But the structural and social changes that followed the transformation to the new democratic South Africa impacted significantly on this partnership. This in turn required that the role of the DRC in addressing social issues in the country be revisited. The essential purpose of this article is, firstly, to provide better insight into the nature and extent of the current social services rendered by congregations of the DRC in addressing the challenges of poverty, unemployment and social injustice; and secondly, from this vantage point, to present some recommendations in conclusion on how the DRC could, in terms of its own striving towards even deeper and more effective social engagement, further enhance its contribution to address the identified challenges at congregational level.

THE LAST STAND?

AbstractIn 2013, the United States Supreme Court decidedShelby County v. Holder, which invalidated Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The ruling is part of longstanding efforts to maintain American institutions that have provided wide-ranging benefits to White citizens, including disproportionate political power. Over time, such efforts are likely to fail to prevent significant increases in political gains for African Americans, Latinos, and other minority citizens. But they threaten to foster severe conflicts in American politics for years to come.

LGBTI-Psychosocial Services and Support Adolescents and Young People in Gauteng, Pretoria South Africa: Profiling the Psychosocial Support Services of OUT (Servicing the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community)

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) case study was undertaken by the National Population Unit (NPU) to assess the activities that is run by the organisation OUT. This study form part of 10 such studies with regard to youth which was undertaken by the NPU. The study made use of a mix method approach where the qualitative aspect was the dominant method. The main aim of the study was to assess how the organisation OUT provide Psychosocial Support Services to the (LGBTI) community including HIV counselling, general lifestyle counselling as well as advice and support. This programme focuses on the psychosocial well-being of LGBTI individuals and communities. This psychosocial support services forms part of the mission and vision of OUT. The study found that LGBTI individuals still experience stigma and discrimination although the South African constitution and Bill of Rights ensure the protection of the rights of all South African citizens. The study made some recommendations in this regard.