This study is about four interrelated key issues, namely, critique of Thomas Sankara as a political figure and erstwhile president of Burkina Faso; examination of Pan-Africanism as a movement, theory, ideology and uniting force for Africans and people of African descent globally; evaluation of leadership and governance lessons drawn from Burkina Faso’s August 1983 revolution, its successes, challenges, and shortcomings, and lastly; it draws socioeconomic and developmental lessons from the Burkina Faso experience under Sankara’s administration during the brief period from 1983 until his untimely assassination on 15 October 1987. The ousting of Blaise Compaore in October 2014 brought to the fore Sankara’s long buried and suppressed legacy, and this is what, in part, led to me deciding to do a systematic and thorough study of Sankara and the Burkina Faso Revolution. Two theories were used in the study – Pan Africanism and Afrocentricity - because they together centre and privilege the African people’s plight and agency and the urgent need for Africans to find solutions to their own problems in the same way Sankara emphasised the need for an independent endogenous development approach in Burkina Faso. Methodologically, a Mixed Methods Research (MMR) approach was employed so as to exploit and leverage the strengths of each individual approach and due to the complex nature of the phenomena studied. The study argues that the nerve centre of developmental efforts in Burkina Faso was a self-propelled, self-centred, and endogenous development model which placed the agency and responsibility, first and foremost, in the hands of Burkinabe people themselves using their own internal resources to improve their lives. Secondly, agrarian reforms were designed in such a way that they formed the bedrock of economic self-reliance and industrial development in Burkina Faso. Lastly, overall findings of the study indicate that the revolutionary cause and intervention in all critical sectors such as education, health, and the economy were prioritised and the pace at which these sectors were overhauled was crucial. Implication of these findings for development in Africa is that development cannot be externally imported either through foreign direct investments or through a straight-jacket policy transfer where African countries often borrow European economic policies and try to implement them in drastically different contexts and historical epochs. / Political Sciences / Ph. D. (Philosophy)

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The Iraq War and the War on Terror were pivotal issues in the presidential race for the White House in 2004. Competing frames about the meaning of September 11, 2001, terrorism, and American power were constructed by the rival candidates and established a limited debate that marginalized alternative interpretations of war and peace. It is likely that the dilemma over U.S. forces in Iraq and the War on Terror will continue to be a major issue in the upcoming 2008 Presidential Election. Therefore, the campaign speeches of the presidential candidates, President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, during the 2004 Election regarding terrorism were important to understanding the themes that initiated public debate in the U.S. about the conflict in Iraq and the War on Terror. In this document analysis, these candidates’ public addresses illustrated how the role of the U.S. power to combat terrorism shaped a particular perspective about the post-9/11 world. Ideas that challenged “official” debate about war and national security were excluded from mainstream media coverage of the campaign. In order to examine the narrow debate over terrorism and how alternative “ways of seeing” war have been and continue to be marginalized, this study compared how the candidates framed the war in contrast to anti-war voices. Cindy Sheehan, who is an emergent leader in the peace and social justice movement, and more “official” voices of dissent like Representative Dennis Kucinich, have criticized “official” framing of the war. Dissenting perspectives about the Iraq War and the War on Terror invite a different understanding about U.S. hegemony, terrorism, and the consequences of the War on Terror for foreign and domestic policies. The impact of the war upon domestic policy and national crises, such as the widely televised and heavily criticized federal response to Hurricane Katrina Summer 2005, were examined to explore how domestic crises undermine “official” framing of the Iraq War and the War on Terror and empower alternative understandings of war and peace.

Text in Afrikaans / This study investigates postcolonial aspects of the prose oeuvre of André P. Brink, with specific reference to his historiographical texts `n Oomblik in die wind, Houd-den-Bek, Die eerste lewe van Adamastor, Inteendeel, Sandkastele and Donkermaan. The texts can be described as links in a textual history of South Africa: a history corresponding to the official version, revisioning it in an imaginative way. The texts also criticize political (mal)practices, and the pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial social contexts of the country are critically scrutinized. The texts offer suggestions for a new political dispensation. Since the seventies the Brink oeuvre has developed a multi-dimensional postcolonial approach. Aspects of post-colonialism, post-structuralism, magical realism and feminism as articulated in the texts, are analyzed and interpreted. Brink's investigation of problems concerning historiography, and the relation between history and fiction, comprised an important aspect of the research leading to this report. / Afrikaans & Theory of Literature / D.Litt. et Phil

This study examines carnival and ritual in Breyten Breytenbach's dramatic oeuvre and focuses on his Afrikaans drama texts Boklied (1998) and Die toneelstuk (2001). Seeing that these dramas had their debut performances at the Afrikaans national arts festival, the Afrikaans festival phenomenon, as well as Breytenbach's texts will be discussed as framed Events, within a carnival environment, as defined and described by Russian philosopher Bakhtin. The study evolves around three critical questions: 1. How does Bakhtin define the term "carnival" and could Afrikaans national arts festvals be seen as platforms for carnavalesque expression? 2. How does Professor Temple Hauptfleisch define an Event and why can the Afrikaans national arts festivals, as well as the drama texts under discussion, be seen as such Events? 3. How does Breyten Breytenbach's texts link up with Bakhtin's carnival theory and the ritual nature of the Dionysos festivals? / Afrikaans & Theory of Literature / M.A. (Afrikaans)

There is without doubt as much criticism of Liberation Theology as there is understanding regarding the need for a theology which seeks answers to the effectiveness of the Christian witness, against a background of mounting poverty, the oppression of woman and continued discrimination by one race against another, worldwide. Many scholars struggle with the revolutionary and often hostile nature and methodology of Liberation Theology. This paper attempts to enter into a conversation between the theology of John Wesley and Liberation Theology. The theology of John Wesley had a tremendous impact on social, political and economic areas of the Eighteenth century England. It was in many ways a revolutionary theology. This paper takes as a standpoint, the need for praxis with regard to Christian witness and therefore seeks to argue that there may be common ground between Wesleyan Theology and Liberation Theology. / Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics / M.Th. (Systematic Teology)

This study deals with various aspects of the life of Henrique Galvão (1895-1970) but principally with the seizure of the liner Santa Maria (1961) in opposition to the regime of Dr Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970). It describes the ship’s hijacking and explores its ramifications within the context of the 1961 Angolan nationalist uprising, Portuguese internal politics and Luso-American relations. A brief discussion of Portuguese history from 1910 to 1933 provides the background to Galvão’s affiliation to Salazar’s regime and his subsequent apostasy. The most salient features of Galvão’s dissidence are discussed: his report on conditions in Portuguese Africa (1947-49); involvement in opposition politics (1951-59); the hijacking of an air liner for propaganda purposes (1961) and appearance before the United Nations (1963). These events are connected to the themes of colonial administration, anti-colonialism, African nationalism, anti-Salazarist politics and the African policy of the United States (1961-63).

The research on xenophobia in South Africa is underpinned by the relationship described by Frantz Fanon between violence and oppression present within the structures of domination. This research addresses the colonial structures that manifested themselves within the oppressive modes in societies. It employs a Fanon analysis of the xenophobic violence of May 2008 and serves to provide an understanding of the experiences of a particular condition and of how a broader invisible context plays an important role in what society sees and assimilates. The question can be asked: Is it safe to say that the xenophobic attacks were racist, or was it mere bigotry? An analysis based on the writings of Franz Fanon coupled with a psychological account of the participants, affirms that the xenophobic attacks revealed that the previously colonised or oppressed black people in South Africa reacted with regard to the assimilation of the master and its slave narrative and dialect. Theories of oppression and slavery posit that patterns of colonialism reoccur and manifest themselves both internally and externally within society. A serious debate is necessary to question whether the incidents came at a time that South Africa should have reflected on society’s interaction with foreign immigrants. / Political Sciences / M.A. (Politics)

Selves and Others: The Politics of Difference in the Writings of Ursula Kroeber Le Guin has two founding premises. One is that Le Guin's writing addresses the political issues of the late twentieth century in a number of ways, even although speculative fiction is not generally considered a political genre. Questions of self and O/other, which shape political (that is, powerinflected) responses to difference, infuse Le Guin's writing. My thesis sets out to investigate the mechanisms of representation by which these concerns are realized. My chapters reflect aspects of the relationship between self and O/other as I perceive it in Le Guin's work. Thus my first chapter deals with the representations of imperialism and colonialism in five novels, three of which were written near the beginning of her literary career. My second chapter considers Le Guin's best-known novels, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and The Dispossessed (1974), in the context of the alienation from American society recorded by thinkers in the 1960s. In my third chapter, the emphasis shifts to intrapsychic questions and splits, as I explore themes of sexuality and identity in Le Guin's novels for and about adolescents. I move to more public matters in my fourth and fifth chapters, which deal, respectively, with the politicized interface between public and private histories and with disempowerment. In my final chapter, I explore the representation of difference and politics in Le Guin's intricate but critically neglected poetry. My second founding premise is that traditional modes of literary criticism, which aim to arrive at comprehensive and final interpretations, are not appropriate for Le Guin's mode of writing, which consistently refuses to locate meaning definitely. My thesis seeks and explores aporias in the meaning-making process; it is concerned with asking productive questions, rather than with final answers. I have, consequently, adopted a sceptical approach to the process of interpretation, preferring to foreground the provisional and partial status of all interpretations. I have found that postmodern and poststructuralist literary theory, which focuses on textual gaps and discontinuities, has served me better than more traditional ways of reading / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

The key challenge to socio-economic transformation in South Africa is closing the gap between the poor and the rich. What is distinctive about South Africa is the uneasy coexistence of poverty and opulence. This study seeks to explore the structural, historical roots of poverty among the blacks in South Africa by deploying Fanonian Critical Decolonial theory. This is the ideal theoretical approach to unmask the structural causes of poverty and inequality in South Africa. Colonial ambitions and the global political engineering of the world by America and Europe spans more than four hundred years, and is still very much alive today in subtle forms. This study asserts that this imperial history is the cause of poverty, lack of agency, and the hellish conditions under which many black people live. The rise of industrial capitalism and attendant urbanisation is at the core of this impoverishment of the black man. It is also shown that, once impoverished, the black man’s poverty gathers its own momentum, leading to more poverty that is then handed down to succeeding generations. Contrary to Eurocentric theorising, the study shows that blacks are not ‘problem’ people but people with problems, who, instead of being condemned, should be regarded with sympathy. This research thesis focuses on Alexandra Township and Sandton as symbols of poverty and privilege, respectively. The former represents Fanon’s zone of non-being where life is lived in conditions of want and poverty, whilst the latter represents the zone of being characterised by good living and prosperity. The thesis will demonstrate the fact that these anomalous socio-economic disparities are not natural but man-made, and therefore require the action of human beings to correct them. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)

Text in French / Member of the union of black workers in the port of Marseille, in France, and an eyewitness to the misery of black workers in the European environment, Sembène Ousmane, in 1956, wrote, using his personal experiences, his first book entitled The Black Docker. In this novel, he describes the sufferings of the working class, the struggle between colonisers and colonised. In 1960, he uses as a pretext the strike of the Senegalese railway workers in 1937 to write a book entitled God's Bits of Wood. In this story where two forces clashed, on one hand, the colonised struggling against the colonial system and want, at all costs, to improve their living conditions, and on the other hand, the colonisers that are in support of their colonialist ideals and refuse the changes, the author tells the epic story of strikers in Senegal and their relentless struggles against the colonisers to change their living conditions for better. In 1973, an eyewitness of the daily realities of his native country, Senegal, after gaining national sovereignty, Sembène Ousmane wrote and published a book entitled Xala. In this book, he describes the evils of neo-colonialism and criticises the new African middle class, born after independence. After reading these novels, one notes that Sembène Ousmane, a defender of freedom, denounces the injustices done to the blacks, both in the colonial era as well as in the post colonial period. This is why from a book to another, he continues tirelessly his struggle against colonialism and neo-colonialism, evoking the sufferings and tragedies endured by the Africans. It occurs constantly in his imaginary creations, a theme, or better still a dialectical; commitment and militancy. What does he mean by « commitment » and « militancy » ? How do these two concepts manifest themselves in the works of the Senegalese writer? What strategy does he propose to the oppressed in the struggle against the oppressors? What means has he put at the disposal of the disinherited struggling to break the yoke of oppression and exploitation in order to achieve freedom and equality? / Membre du syndicat des travailleurs noirs, au port de Marseille, en France, et témoin oculaire de la misère vécue par les ouvriers noirs dans ce milieu européen, Sembène Ousmane, en 1956, écrit, en se servant de ses expériences personnelles, son premier ouvrage intitulé Le Docker noir. Dans ce roman, il décrit la souffrance de la classe ouvrière, la lutte entre colonisateurs et colonisés. En 1960, il se sert d’un prétexte, la grève des ouvriers sénégalais en 1937, pour écrire un ouvrage intitulé Les Bouts de bois de Dieu. Dans ce récit, où s’affrontent deux forces, d’une part les colonisés qui luttent contre le système colonial et veulent, à tout prix, l’amélioration de leurs conditions de vie, et d’autre part, les colonisateurs qui soutiennent les idéaux colonialistes et refusent le changement, l’auteur relate l’histoire épique des grévistes au Sénégal, et la lutte implacable qu’ils mènent contre les colonisateurs pour le changement de leurs conditions de vie. En 1973, témoin oculaire des réalités quotidiennes de son pays natal, le Sénégal, après son accession à la souveraineté nationale, Sembène Ousmane écrit et publie, un ouvrage intitulé Xala. Dans ce livre, il décrit les méfaits du néocolonialisme et critique la nouvelle classe bourgeoise africaine, née après l’indépendance. Après lecture des trois romans, on constate que Sembène Ousmane, défenseur de la liberté, dénonce les injustices faites aux Noirs, aussi bien à l’époque coloniale qu’à la période postcoloniale. C’est pourquoi, d’un ouvrage à l’autre, il continue, inlassablement, sa lutte contre le colonialisme et le néocolonialisme, en évoquant les souffrances et les drames endurés par les Africains. Il revient, constamment, dans ses créations imaginaires, à une thématique, ou mieux une dialectique, l’engagement et le militantisme. Qu’entend-il par « engagement » et « militantisme »? Comment ces deux lexèmes se manifestent-ils dans les écrits de cet écrivain sénégalais? Quelles stratégies propose-t-il aux opprimés dans la lutte qui les oppose aux oppresseurs? Quels moyens met-il a la disposition des déshérités en lutte pour briser le joug de l’oppression et celui de l’exploitation afin d’obtenir la liberté et l’égalité? / Linguistics and Modern Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (French)