Globality and Locality

Adeleke Adeeko

This issue of West Africa Review brings you engaging analyses of the theory and practice of globalism. Amin Alhassan illuminates the not so bright corners of the deregulation and privatization processes of the telecom industry in Ghana. Teju Olaniyan examines the implication of new theories of global relations for people who reside outside of the main metropolitan centers of capitalism. Osita Agbu dissects the global tentacles of human trafficking in Nigeria. Olaniyan says, “Globality and the global diaspora seem to be an unequal and one-way traffic.” Compare these words to Alhassan’s on the European model of privatization being applied to Ghana’s telecom industry: “Europe . . . is now using the market model after successfully using the state to put in place the basic telecom infrastructure.” Both articles speak eloquently and passionately about the prospects and problems Africa has to counterbalance in order to profit from contemporary global economic and political constellations. While we ought to lament “brain drain”, it should be considered that in 1999 foreign currency remittance from its citizens living abroad was the second largest source of “hard” currency for Ghana. Only gold export earnings were ahead. The personal remittances exceeded even cocoa import revenues! The antinomies of global cultural criticism are also the implied subject of Sanya Osha’s review essay on Abiola Irele’s latest book on literatures of the African diaspora, The African Imagination. In her review of Aspects of Feminism and Gender of Three West African Women Writers, Miriam Gyimah questions the value of Kohrs-Amissah book to the study of gender in African. N. F. Ogoanah’s interview with Niyi Osundare reminds us that every identity is local, first. There may be something to learn from Osundare’s interview because African writers have always been able to see around the corner.

Copyright 2003 Africa Resource Center, Inc.