ISSN 1821-6544 African Communication Research a peer-reviewed journal Published by the Faculty of Social Sciences and Communications at St. Augustine University of Tanzania, Mwanza, Tanzania as a service to communication research in Africa. African Communication Research is available on line Simply enter the title in any search engine This issue dedicated to Communication and Pan-Africanism African Communication Research, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2011) African Communication Research, Vol 4, No. 1 (2011) African Communication Research Contents Volume 4, No. 1 May, 2011 Absalom Mutere, 1955-2010: In memoriam Alfred E. Opubor WANAD Centre, Cotonou, Benin 01 The rhetorical foundations of Pan-Africanism Cecil Blake Pittsburg University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. 05 Language, mobility, African writers and Pan-Africanism Francis B. Nyamnjoh & Katleho Shoro Cape Town University, Cape Town, South Africa. 35 The oral-aesthetics of Michael Jackson: A model of Pan-African Communication Malaika Mutere Marina Del Rey, CA 90295, USA. 63 Nollywood and post-colonial Pan-Africanism: Deciphering the trans-nationality of African cultures in the Nigerian popular film industry. Innocent Ebere Uwah Centre for the Study of African Culture and Communication Port Harcourt, Nigeria. 87 Non-verbal forms of communication in Akan society Kofi Asare Opoku African University College of Communication, Accra, Ghana 119 Communication and the Pan-African dimension to community Molefi Kete Asante Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA 139 African Communication Research, Vol 4, No. 1 (2011) Pan-Africanism... or globalizing capitalist modernity? The dilemma of African media in the 21st century Muhammed Musa University of Canterbury, Christchuch, New Zealand 153 , Journalism education, Pan-Africanism, and the quest for Africa’s modernity Ayo Oyeleye Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK. 175 Pan-Africanism and the effects of information and communication technologies. Ndirangu D. Wachanga University of Wincousin-Whitewater, USA Ali A.Mazrui State. University of New York at Binghamton, 203 Binghamton, New York African Communication Research, Vol 4, No. 1 (2011) In July 2010 Absalom Mutere proposed to edit an issue of African Communication Research on Communication and Pan Africanism His lifetime of teaching, administration, struggling for media freedom, research and publication to establish the academic field of communication in Africa was to be summed up in this. He had invited many of his colleagues to contribute to this issue of African Communication Research. He himself was planning to write the review article. Due to his untimely death, he was not able to carry out the task, but his many life-long friends in Africa and in the diaspora have rallied in solidarity. In many ways this issue of African Communication Research is a symbol of the solidarity, mutual respect and mutual support in the community of African scholars working in the field of communication - something that Prof. Alfred Opubor has summed up well in his memorial to Absalom Mutere. *Absalom Mutere, 1955-2010: In memoriam* When Absalom Mutere passed on in Lusaka , Zambia , on 10 November, 2010, at the age of 54, the African communication education and research community lost a valuable and respected colleague. Absalom Mutere was first and foremost a journalist. The sensibilities and reflexes of the profession he chose and practiced with devotion marked his other pre -occupations and achievements. He had the journalist’s intense need to know and a robust antipathy to injustice and impunity in high places, which was reflected in his popular writing, public speeches and especially his teaching. When I first met him at the University of Nairobi ’s School of Journalism , twenty five years ago, he was an ebullient, even irreverent, young academic. He was committed to teaching and his enthusiasm rubbed off on his students. His manner was easy, friendly, and approachable; but his discourse was serious and rigorous, especially about professional standards and ethical behavior. Outside of Kenya, in Zimbabwe where we were both living in the late 1990s, his assignment, was also to bring professionalism in skills, attitudes and values to the rather literary graduate journalism programme based at the English Department of the University. He went out to cultivate the Zimbabwean media gate keepers and soon had his students being accepted for internships in local newspapers and broadcasting stations, resulting in enhanced credibility for the University and offers of media collaboration. I observed this same talent for creating rapprochement between journalists inside and outside academia, in the period we spent together at the African University College of Communication, AUCC, in Accra , Ghana, where he was Dean of Journalism for two years, 2008-2010, and I was visiting faculty. His obvious understanding of professional issues, his passionate and knowledgeable defense of freedom of expression, and his concern that African journalists be well-informed and meticulously trained, won for him and AUCC, ready acceptance and respect from Ghanaian media leaders. He was often invited to local media gatherings discussing these issues, being quoted as an authority, and seized the opportunities provided to introduce new ways of engaging capacity building and offer new tools for reporting on various issues, including corruption and conflict, on which he had published research papers, curricula and instructional materials.. With the approaching Ghana Presidential elections of 2008, he was actively involved in training African Communication Research, Vol 4, No. 1 (2011) 1 Alfred E. Opubor programmes for preparing journalists for the challenges of ensuring free and credible elections through well-planned monitoring and coverage. He later organized forums at AUCC to analyze the performance of media after the elections. His views were actively solicited, especially to compare the Kenya and Ghanaian experiences. He came to these tasks with rich knowledge and data, having been Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Media Council of Kenya, MCK from 2004 to 2007, coinciding with the unfortunate post electoral massacres in his home country, for which the media have been roundly condemned as partisan instigators. He had a keen observer and pungent commentator on the Kenyan media, and so had many important insights for his Ghanaian hosts. Earlier, in the mid 1980s, Absalom had done a published study on Kenya’s communication policy, and had come to see its underbelly, especially in terms of lop sided ownership and control of public and private media, and intimate linkages with the power centers of politics and the economy. He saw in this also a growing potential for strangling freedom of expression. He pursued the implications of media-government relations over the next decade; both as a practitioner and a critical observer. He soon came to be seen by his peers in journalism and his academic colleagues and students in Kenya as a strong and unrelenting voice for freedom of expression; but also as a crusader for responsible behavior and professionalism in media practice. His appointment to MCK legitimized his leadership on these issues; and he threw himself into the role with energy and the doggedness of the talented rugby player that he was. His disappointment with the performance of the media, especially what he perceived as their ethical feebleness regarding temptation from leaders in politics and business led him to question whether the Fourth Estate was a reliable institution for ensuring Kenya ’s unsteady march to democracy. According to him, the other three Estates were actively buying out the Fourth in a bid to wield massive influence and control. If the government owned press was institutionally partisan, and the private press was in the pocket of owners and business interests, who would look after the interests of the people? He began to consider an alternative; a Fifth Estate! In his couple of years in Accra, he was busy designing new Master’s degree programmes to reflect the current and emerging challenges for journalism in Africa, collaborating with colleagues in 2 Absalom Mutere, 1955 - 2010: In memoriam Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa, and Kenya, so that the curriculas could be adopted by a network of institutions across the continent. In October, 2010, he relocated to Tanzania , to join the graduate programme in communication at St Augustine ’s University of Tanzania, SAUT, an institution that he was very fond of, from previous happy assignments, and where students and colleagues remember him warmly. On a brief visit to Lusaka on family business, Absalom fell ill, and passed on. As I write this, I try to picture Absalom as I last saw him. It was in the garden of the Avenida Hotel in Accra. We had met to discuss yet another draft of the master’s programme that he and a group of colleagues were planning to implement. He was sitting across from me in his customary open neck shirt., his booming voice waxing strong, as he leaned forward to me to explain some details I had questioned. I struggle now to remind myself when last I saw Absalom wearing a suit. Then it cam back in a flash: it was that lovely Saturday afternoon at the Meikels Hotel in Harare. Absalom was wedding his Zambian sweetheart, the lovely and elegant Chalwa. They had done me the honor of asking me to witness their vows. We will all miss him! Alfred E Opubor WANAD Centre, Cotonou, Benin Prof Alfred E. Opubor Email : [email protected] Tel : + 229-21-315732;229-21-315887; (mobile): 229-90-085358;+229-97-181048 Fax : +229-21-315461 Address: Secretary-General, Centre WANAD, BP 378, Cotonou,Benin African Communication Research, Vol 4, No. 1 (2011) 3 Alfred E. Opubor 4 The rhetorical foundations of Pan-Africanism By Cecil Blake Abstract The article introduces rhetorical theory into the debates on Pan-Africanism. The author traces the growth and development of the idea of a movement which started with a Pan-Blackist agenda, and changed later into the Pan-African movement, with a focus on the campaigns between 1900 and 1958.