African Problems

...I am in agreement with Dumont that in certain areas of Africa "a donkey pulling water from a well could water a large garden and orchard which could supply the school canteen," not discount ing the fact that the products can also be sold to improve the schools while giving the students knowledge of practical economics through co operatives...

...This may be true, but Dumont produces no evidence...

...He blames them for certain worthless installations, typified by the many Fonds d'Investissement pour le Developpement economique et social, which independent Africa was forced to inherit...

...But if Dumont is critical of the old colonial ists, he is even less lenient with the "African leaders" who have become de facto "neocolonialists" and who in many instances are far more removed from their people than their colonial predecessors were...

...Dumont advocates a shift from abstract edu cation, with which Africa is plagued, to a more practical education in science and technology...

...The need for simplification of the legal system to cut down the parasitic notaries, law yers, and litigants cannot be overemphasized...

...The encouragement of cottage industries may, he contends, prove to be more productive than the grandiose, yet poorly-built steel plants...

...He contends that "Africa would be more efficient if unified...

...It contends that "there is no curse on Black Africa," and it goes on to elucidate the special aspects of African development...

...He calls for volunteers to enlist in the struggle against these malignant epidemics, but he is not too clear about the ammunition they should employ...

...While admitting that African countries are receiving a large amount of public funds from the Western nations, he notes that its usefulness is minimized by the outflow of capital through business and trade imbalances and the sums repatriated by Europeans...

...The farm school, according to Dumont, should satisfy two requirements, "basic education and vocational training...

...The techniques he proposes, which include small processing plants for locally grown nuts to alleviate the high cost of foreign processing, the introduction of paper mills to process paper pulp, the planting of shrubs and trees for future marketing, the introduction of modern fisheries, all in the forest regions of Africa, may prove to be good and useful...

...Again like Fanon, Dumont argues against the multiplicity of Lilliputian empires in Africa...

...Africa, he rightly notes, can do better with orange juice, which provides the necessary vitamins for hard work, than with the prevailing high consumption of beer, which acts as a deterrent to effective work...

...While strongly criticizing training in schools of administration, whose courses are geared to maintaining "law and order," Dumont advocates the removal of bureaucratic ineffi ciencies which seem to cripple the new states of Africa...

...The need for a revolution in rural education is still more acute...

...Dumont sees as the only legitimate objective for Africa "the honorable battle against hunger and misery, ignorance and sickness, and for dignity of all men, liberated from their diverse forms of servitude...

...Like the late Frantz Fanon, Dumont has great faith in grass-roots organization and believes BOOKS that the development of Africa must have its foundations in mass mobilization and rural activism for a defined objective—which at the moment is lacking...

...The author rightly places blame on the Western powers for their lack of concern with African development...

...And like most advocates of a unified Africa, he fails to say how to bring this about...