Lesotho beyond the elections
Abstract This article examines the mammoth political challenge facing the Basutoland Congress Party‐led government in Lesotho, assessing in particular the regime's capacity to deliver on its key election promises. Thus the main argument is that Lesotho's newly won democracy will mean little or nothing to the people of Lesotho unless it can address their future as a nation within a politically transformed South Africa and their country's seething economic, political and social problems, namely the deepening joblessness, falling agricultural production coupled with malnutrition, stagnant industrial growth, declining living standards, especially among the poorer sections of the population, recurrent political instability and the increasingly inadequate health and education facilities.
The ‘unsaying’ of indigenous homosexualities in Zimbabwe: mapping a blindspot in an African masculinity
Many black Zimbabweans believe that homosexuality was introduced to the country by white settlers and is now mainly propagated by ‘the West’. The denial of indigenous homosexual behaviours and identities is often so strong that critics have been quick with accusations of homophobia. Yet those critics unfairly impose a rather crude and ultimately unhelpful analysis. Without denying that violent forms of homophobia do exist in Zimbabwe, the invisibility of indigenous homosexualities has more complex origins. This article examines the many, overlapping discourses that are constructed into the dominant ideology of masculinity and that contrive to ‘unsay’ indigenous male‐to‐male sexualities. It seeks in that way to gain insight into the over determination of assertively masculinist behaviour among Zimbabwean men today. It also draws lessons for researchers on the importance of interrogating the silences around masculinity.
Political Developments: Some Conclusions and an Interpretation
When the political decisions and achievements of the post-Khrushchev Soviet leadership are considered as a whole, it is not immediately obvious that there is any pattern to them. It may, nevertheless, be useful to begin by devoting attention to some of the major policy tendencies and outcomes of the past decade, most of which have already been considered in greater detail by other contributors, before going on to enquire if any broad strategy underlying them may be discerned and to attempt to place the various changes in a broader political context.