INTRODUCTION
  The articles in this number of UTAFm try to reorient the 'social
 scientific' analysis of Africa through a problematic that 'acJcnow"
 ledges the centrality of social struggles in processes.'
       As C.S.L. Chachage writes:
      Such acknowledgement amount to theorizing and examining
      processes from the point of view of how people continually
      struggle and resist all forms of arbitrariness, hierarchization
      and the whole question of the emancipation of the civil society
      from the oppression of the states and capital in general. A
      body of knowledge which does not reflect the social conditions
      of struggles through which men and women are simulta-
      neously transforming circumstances and themselves; a
      knowledge which regards the majority of the people as
      unscientific, incapable of thinking, backward, ignorant of
      theirown interest, superstitious, devoid of initiative or creati-
      vity, .... ad infinitum, even if socialist, Marxist or Africanist;
      is fundamentally oppressive, arrogant and authoritarian and
      reinforces hierarchization.
   In his article, Chachage also shows clearly how the neglect, by
development theoreticians, for the centrality of the fact that it IS
the rebelling masses of people who make history (including that of
 African development) has made them to continuously err. Theories
of development, instead of informing and arming the people's
capacity to development and self-development (to social transfor-
mation). demobilize and frustrate it. Cut from the movement of the
struggles of the African rebelling massei what is claimed to be the
African vision cannot be but blurred.
   Reviewing Walter Rodney's A History of the Guyanese working
People 1881 _ 1980. Bonaventure Swai also re-emphasizes the
fact that even for 'history doing' one must start from the point of
view of struggles of the rebelling masses of people simultaneously
transforming circumstances and themselves. Historical know-
ledge. as a 'social and political act' must aim at mtlting people
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 rrrAFITI-  Vol. 9No. 11987
 understand that they 'could be more than what they seem.'
 It is on that basis, among other things, that Uteir capacity to make
 history can be stirred up. A historical knowl~dge - as theories of
 development - that tries only to make people understand Utat
 they are powerless to transform their own selves and circum-
 stances is thus an oppressive political act ..
    No liberation, no independence, no socialism, no emancipation
of Africans, etc. will take place on the basis of such abwwledg~~
     'African liberation', 'national liberation' , 'African emancipati-
on' .African independence' 'African socialIsm', Authenticity' 'sel-
fr.eljance' etc, all these calls are sayin~ that there. is in Africa, a
foreign presence and it is dominant: Africa is under siege! Crea-
tive arts, political discourse, religious discourse. philosophical
 discourse, scientific dIscourse, etc, on Africa, reflect that fact:
the need to struggle with the foreign presence. To be sure, there
are people, even in Africa, who say laudly that without that foreign
presence, we cannot think, we cannot love, we cannot eat, we
 c«nnot play, we cannot rest, or in brief we cannot live. It seems
.that Africa is constantly summoned by this foreign presence. The
 struggle, in Africa, to reduce the realm of necessity and enlarge
the realm of freedom has been confronted by the foreign presence
 as a 'political unconscious' affecting the African people's beha-
 viour.
    Marked by that 'political unconscious', and removed from the
 rebelling people's struggles, what is claimed to be the African
 vision has been vacillating between a hysterical hostility to the
 foreign presence seen as truth, docility to the foreign presence
 seen as salvation and a zealous search for recognition by the same
 foreign presence (exhibitionism). Such a vision cannot, of course,:
 guide the process leading to a new 'self-emancipating African
 Society.' Howto avoid falling to the pressives of received sanction
 and conceptualize the African authentic self-apprehension?
 From where and with what/how can the African self-apprehension
 be possible? This can only be grasped through an analysis of the
 rebelling masses. Stru~es for African I.!beratiol! in their proper
 historicity and draw certain lessons to help us confront -similar
 probiems'in th.eirpre~nt effective historicity.
    The capacity of the African people (for genuine national indepe-
 ndence, national liberation, people's based project of society or
 development) can only be grasped, evaluated and consolidatfecl"
 through an analysis of specific people' struales (national or cuI-.
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                                                                 lntToduct.pnl
   !ur~l, class. gender etc) against domination. oppression and explo-
   ltatlo~. What h.as been the African PeOple's eXPerience of people's
   ,c,a~a.clty (work~ng class ~liticaJ. ~paci!y, ~ationaJ bourgeosies's
   poh~lcal ~apaclty:. women s pohticaJ cap'aclty, etc). in struggling
   agamst neocolomsm? How, with the lessons drawn from it can
   this African people's political capacity be developed to s~stain
   African social transformation?
        Normal O'Neil's ancfWamba-dia-Wamba's          articles focus on
  specific historica:i experiences in which the people's political capa-
  city in Sudan and Congo-Kinshasa was highlightened. Circumsta-
  nces in which the Sudanese masses of people (clearly specified in
  their class composition) have been struggling up to the overthrow
 of Numeiri's regime are analyzed. It is also clearly shown that this
  partial victory in no way reso1ved the national question in Sudan
  for which the rebelljng masses of the Southern Sudan especially
  (now led by the SPLA/M) have been fighting for many years. By
  highlighting the limitations of the subjective conditions of strug-
  gle, the Sudanese people's political capacity has evolved a little'
 bit.
      The first mass based armed insurection in Africa if not in the
  whole third world, 'against a newly independence'        is briefly ana-
  of Congo-Kinshasa for a 'Second Independence'           is briefly ana-
  lyzed, highlightning     how the leaders of the l!10vement them-
  selves viewed their own weaknesses which led to their failure. The
  self-evaluation oftheir experience. a political act so rare in Africa,
 left us with a remarkable document that has unfortunately been
  almost unknown for many years.
     From George Ruhiik's article on Guinea, it is clear also that a re-
 volutionary regime or movement that neglects or goes against the
 centrality of the rebelling masses of people in the making of revo-
 lutionary history, ultimately changes into its opposite, a counte~-
 revolutionary regime. A repressive machinery developed through
 the process of terrorizin~ the regime's opponents, could not have
 failed 'to emerge and complete, through a coup d' Etat,                the
 reversal process.
     Finally: Virginia U. Ola's review article - dealing p~ncipally
 with forms of consciousness as reconstructed through art forms,
 underlines the gender question in social practices of the African
 mass of people struggling to transform simultaneously their own
.Qlves and circumstances: And here too the process of develop-
 ment of the women's capacity to struggle and overcome gender


UTAFITI- Vol 9 No       1 1987
                        -             -
oppression is singled out as the focal point of analysis and not just
a description of various alternative ideas or attitudes.
   It is hoped that this number will be followed by others analysing
other social struggles in which African people's capacity for social
transformation has been put to test and highlightened.
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