The once-popular idea of an African renaissance is now almost forgotten. The African renaissance first advanced by South Africa supposedly as a slogan leading its post-apartheid political and economic revival, had also caught attention in Ethiopia, where an Ethiopian version of the renaissance was expected to deliver the promises. Unfortunately, both countries have now abandoned the idea because time proved that it was not working for specific reasons. In both countries, the notion of renaissance was narrowly focused, ill-articulated, and pursued without passion or in a sustainable manner.
The African renaissance started as more of a political and less of an economic renaissance, focusing not on concrete achievements but on the longing for freedom that Mandela’s release had produced in the popular consciousness. As it later on transpired, the much-vaunted African renaissance that started in South Africa and spread across the continent, the expected political and economic freedom largely failed to materialize. Although the election of Nelson Mandela was a historic moment pregnant with many promises, the presidents who came after him largely failed Mandela’s legacy.
In South Africa, the idea was relatively more attractive during the last years of the 1990s and the early 2000s, and then it lost momentum as the process was more complex than it was first assumed.
The presidents who came to power after Mandela quickly became the new wealthy black ruling elites whose plutocratic appetites announced the beginning of the end of the much talked about African renaissance. Class differences started to widen rather than narrowing down. Poverty became the lot of the majority of black South Africans living in the overcrowded ghettoes. The expectations of average south Africans were dashed while the group of leaders who came to power within the ruling ANC started to show their true colors as people not much different from their colleagues in other African countries. Mandela mania was followed by a period of collective depression and disappointment.
The reason for the decline of the idea of African renaissance was largely its conception as a political and economic freedom and as such it was narrowly focused. One of its main weaknesses was that the movement failed to articulate the other parameters of African renaissance or rebirth.
African renaissance was not a home-grown concept or idea. It was borrowed from Europe whose renaissance was holistic in it approach and included multifaceted dimensions of change or rebirth. Renaissance in Europe included various aspects of social, artistic and literary facets. The political and economic aspects of the idea were secondary considerations. According to available information, “European renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages. Generally described as taking place from the 14th to the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, literature and art.”
The idea of the Renaissance that started from a narrow focus quickly lost momentum and proved to be a momentary infatuation rather than having a lasting impact. Elsewhere in Africa, the political temperature that reached its crescendo after Mandela’s election quickly fizzled out and gave rise to a deafening silence. The idea of renaissance had started to take root in countries such as Ethiopia, where the authorities borrowed it from South Africa with critical assimilation, but largely as a high-sounding slogan with little substance.
Thus, the once famous and attractive idea was quickly forgotten as a passing fad because there were not many original or creative ideas that were articulated to make the vision a vibrant reality. Apart from Ethiopia, the notion of renaissance failed to catch the popular imagination elsewhere on the continent simply because it was largely based on empty discourses rather than delivery of promises.
Postcolonial African arts and literature is defined as the body of literary works that appeared in Africa following the independence decade of the 1960s up to the present. Colonial Africa hardly had an autonomous history of literary development. As the publishing industry was not developed and writers in African languages had not yet appeared, colonial literature was largely dominated by books published and distributed in Europe. These books were largely devoted to spreading colonial arts and culture as part of the effort by the authorities to maintain colonial rule on the continent. This does not, however, mean that Africa did not have an independent literary tradition of its own.
Pre-colonial African literature consisted mainly of oral traditions of telling stories by word of mouth and based on African traditional life that was based on the lives of village communities with their specific beliefs, morals, values and world views.
We generally remember the 1990s as a buoyant moment of liberation when the idea of African renaissance started to take roots in the conscience of the average African on the continent. The idea was triggered by the release from prison of Nelson Mandela and his election as the first black president of South Africa.
That was a moment of African political assertiveness although the renaissance that was welcomed with so much emotion started to decline a decade or so afterwards.
Africa’s economic renaissance required close cooperation with the developed West because needs massive capital and technology infusion in order to make the vision a vibrant reality. Unless there is a paradigm change in relations between Africa and the West, from neocolonial to equal opportunity ones, there is obviously little prospect for success. Africa may depend on itself politically to realize the vision of economic renewal. Unfortunately, the West proved unable or unwilling to help Africa conduct an economic renaissance that could lift hundreds of millions of Africans out of poverty and into fast growth.
Although the idea of renaissance has now become a distant memory, Africa has been working to overcome its infamous reputation as a dark continent as the Western media still portrays it. On the contrary, a real renaissance that had started later on in the fields of arts and literature is proving to be more important than the short-lived political and economic renaissance that was supposed to lift Africa from its underdevelopment. Although lately, a new renaissance is taking shape in Africa and proving itself more sustainable than the political experiments of ealier decades.
What we may dub genuine renaissance in African art long started to assume global dimensions particularly since the advent of the new inventions in global information and communication technology, a process which had barely started a few decades back. African art and culture have immensely benefitted from the ongoing technological advances.
In a sense, the revolution in technology has facilitated the birth of African revolution in art and culture. The revolution in African art is tightly linked to black art in the general and the first black American who is considered the father of the new art is a man from Nashville Tennessee whose name is Aaron Douglas who was, “the most prominent artist-illustrator of the Harlem Renaissance, a movement of the 1920sduring which African Americans developed a unique artistic style.”
Modern African art is often considered revolutionary art not only because it aspires for an African renaissance art but also because, “it is a form of modern art through which artists express their personal convictions about certain issues in society. The pieces of art might also depict political themes. A true revolutionary artist does not care whether the needs of speculative dealers are met or not.”
Modern African writers are out to conquer the world as their achievements testify. Modern African are started to get increased recognition in the early years of the 1980s. “The long -deserved appreciation for African art and artists in the West increased rapidly in the 1989 exhibition, Les Magiciens de la Terre (the magicians of the Earth) at Centre Pompidou in Paris. Africa has witnessed a period of creative flourishing, as more and more international galleries open their door to African exhibitions worldwide.”
The New York Times newspaper in the US recently published an interesting article on 12 African artists that have claimed the global limelight in recent years. The article is justifiably entitled “Meet the African Artists Driving a Cultural Renaissance Around the World.”. The subtitle says that “as digital connections bring the African Diaspora together, these 12 creative artists are at the center of the global shift.”
When we talk about the African art renaissance these days, we are not talking only about music or literature. Art in its broader sense includes filmmaking, writing, of course, and also culinary art, or the art of cooking. African art also includes fashion designing, architecture, and visual art. According to a recent survey or project, the children of the African art renaissance who are currently impacting the global art industry are, among others, “twelve leading creators from Africa and the Diaspora, as far afield as Asia, Europe, and the United States. They include a two-time Oscar winner and a first-time filmmaker, a Michelin star chef and a bestselling author, a fashion designer and an architect, a visual artist and a pop star.”
There is, of course, a great deal to learn from the above developments. Is the first African renaissance, which focused on politics and the economy, now dead and buried, or is there a potential for its revival? Can we keep on advancing on the artistic and literary fronts and then return to the political and economic spheres? Or is the idea of a renaissance entirely discarded as unrealistic? These are ideas that could provoke heated debates and fresh perspectives. Unfortunately, the idea of a holistic renaissance has so far failed to catch the attention of the educated elites across the continent.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 2 FEBRUARY 2025
