BY MULUGETA GUDETA
Dakar in Africa and Prague in Europe are examples of how a major city can also be a major cultural center.
It is remarkable that both cities have produced at least one major artistic figure who shined on the world stage. One of the most prominent African poets, namely Leopold Senghor, who studied in France at the Sorbonne and later became president of his country, is one example.
The other is a renowned political dissident and playwright in Vaclav Havel who was the most influential intellectual during the anti-communist Prague Spring who later become the first president of free former Czechoslovakia that later on split into two independent states following the end of the communist era.
What made the two cities the cultural centers of their respective countries is, in the case of Senegal, the fact that it is a major centre of African art of filmmaking with the prominent Dakar Film Festival.
The second reason that made Dakar famous is the fact that it held the Dakar Art Festival that displayed the best and greatest in African arts and culture. Senegal is home to prominent filmmakers and writers such as Sembene Ousman and others.
Prague can also boast of international famed writers and the authors of classics like Franz Kafka (The Trial) and more recently Milan Kundera (The Joke).
In order to turn a city or a country into a continental or global cultural hub one has to see not at its size or the beauty or modernity of its buildings. True, architecturally speaking, Prague is said to contain some of the most beautiful medieval and early Renaissance buildings that have made the city a dream destination for tourists.
It is not however a modern city with state-of–the art buildings in the sense that other European cities are. Paris is still the great cultural and intellectual venue in Europe.
Dakar too is not a city of high rises and post-modern architecture. However, what made these two cities the centers of culture are their poets, writers, filmmakers as well as the cultural and political events whose fame captured international attention.
Addis Ababa is not as old as the two cities above although it is becoming a modern and bustling capital with high rises mixing with large slum areas. It is becoming a highly congested city and a melting pot for many cultures and traditions.
Addis Ababa is becoming a ‘land of opportunities’ or ‘a promised land’ in its own right where peace and tranquility prevail even when peripheral towns felt the impacts of recent unrests.
Addis is of course the political, economic and cultural capital of Ethiopia and Africa as well. What also makes Addis Ababa so attractive to foreigners is its mild and pleasant climate with steady and predictable temperatures that make it more attractive than other bigger African capitals that are often polluted, dusty, and noisy.
Addis Ababa is not only the seat of government but also the place where some of the most important cultural and architectural pieces are located. For that matter, Addis is also a major tourist attraction although most of the amazing historical and architectural wonders are located in the northern and southern parts of the country. What Addis Ababa lacks most however are heritage museums, cultural centers and sufficient numbers of movie houses and theatres.
Estimates put the population of Addis between 3-5 million inhabitants. And most of the residents of Addis are relatively more educated, more culture-oriented and fast adapting to the metropolitan lifestyles of the age of the internet and social media.
The city is also boasting of the highest number of smartphone users, who are connected to the World Wide Web. In spite of all the available technological opportunities, Addis Ababans must be among the least culturally conscious residents of African cities or capitals.
The capital has no cultural facilities worth talking about that it can offer its visitors. There are a few art galleries whose standards are not comparable to those in many African capitals. It has theatres that can be counted only on the fingers of one hand. So are its museums that are visited by foreign tourists.
The age of the internet and smartphones is a great technological leap forward and can be vital assets in the development of culture in a city like Addis Ababa. What we sometimes observe is however different from the expectations.
The social media culture has turned our young people into receptors of all kind of global cultural filth. The bloggers that pour in dozens of writings every day of the week have turned youngsters away from things cultural and have almost rendered them ‘political animals’ ready to digest all kinds of poisonous feeds.
Social media have also turned them into soldiers fighting imaginary wars in the cyber battlefields where the gods of disinformation and misinformation recruits their followers and foot soldiers and train them in the cruel art of lies that lead to senseless losses of human lives.
Other social media outlets are brainwashing the people and more particularly the youths into becoming warriors for lost causes and create so much mental and physical discomfort to so many innocent and unsuspecting citizens. In brief, the coming of the cyber to the world has largely proved a curse instead becoming a blessing like in the case of more literate societies.
In the mean time, culture as we used to know it, is dying a slow death as the internet is providing online anything the culture-sensitive citizen aspires to experience or know. This may be good for more advanced societies but in our case, technology has come at a time when the literacy rate and cultural level of the ordinary citizens left much to be desired.
A very low level of cultural consciousness could not allow them to separate the grain from the chaff in the consumption of social media outputs. Going to the movies, to art galleries and to cultural centers has largely become a waste of time since these facilities and what they are showing inside are largely available online.
The trouble is that even the best educated citizens do not have a tradition of going to visit cultural centers unless there are extraordinary events taking place there. There is for instance what is known as the Oromo Cultural Center right in the centre of the city near the Addis Ababa stadium.
Across the street to Meskel Square, there is the Addis Ababa Exhibition Centre towering over the wide square below. People flock to that place come every public holiday not only to visit what is on display there but also to do some shopping. Compared to the number visitors at the Oromo Cultural Centre, the exhibition center is a once in a while destination.
This is a clear case of the public giving priority to material consumption than to cultural needs and this is only natural in a society where culture assumes a false status of a “luxury item” which it is not.
Going to the cultural centers or to theatres is not only something entertaining. It is also an educating and enriching experiment that men need to survive as conscious and thinking human beings.
As we said above, Addis Ababa obviously deserves more cultural centers, theatre houses and museums. As a melting pot of many traditions and cultural practices, Addis should also meet the needs of members of the various ethnic communities. As it is the political and diplomatic capital of Africa, Addis should also become the cultural capital of the continent.
A great deal of work is expected to be done in this area and although this sounds ambitious, it is achievable through the African Union cultural affairs committee in tandem with the Ethiopian government, civil society organizations and global cultural institutions interested in promoting culture and working to help African capitals becomes meeting points of cultures.
As far as national focus on cultural promotion is concerned, the time of the military administration or the Derg provided better opportunities for the public and more particularly the youths to engage in cultural activities such as music and dancing as well as in promoting community theatres.
Many of the rich and famous vocalists who are now well-established started their careers at the neighboring committees where cultural groups were very active. There was a very promising pool of talents and many of them graduated to become professional artists.
At some point when the neighborhood committees known as the kebeles were notorious for the acts of repression they carried out against young political activists from opposition groups, they had also time left for promoting culture.
The kebeles are remembered not only for their ferocity in dealing with what they called “counter-revolutionaries”, they also displayed great fervor and commitment in promoting what they called “revolutionary culture” among young people.
They were trying to use culture to promote the revolution as the now-defunct EPRDF tried to promote its brand of cultural policy called “developmental culture” that is to say culture in the service of economic development, although it is not very clear what this really meant.
Both versions of cultural policies however missed their stated objectives and ended up as monumental failures or grotesque caricatures of culture even though they left their marks on society at various levels.
How to make Addis Ababa a culturally dynamic African capital is of course a big topic and a challenging vision. If we go by the experiences of foreign countries, we realize that public culture is often promoted by the state or by rich people who give money for the purpose of building cultural centers, museums and theatres and movie halls.
Actually some investors are taking baby steps in order to do these things focusing mainly on the commercial aspects of things rather than on the objective of meeting the cultural needs of the public or promoting the cause of African cultural development.
Addis Ababa is endowed with numerous cultural and historical relics in the form of old and amazing architectures that went into the construction of many houses by the aristocracy in the old days.
These sites should be preserved, restored and brought to the attention of the public instead o suffering senseless demolitions as they do now. It is easier to destroy old buildings together with past cultures. It is however impossible to restore what is lost and extremely difficult to create the new.
This is commendable although it is just a small beginning. Federal and regional governments should therefore give more attention to the cultural aspect of public life without which the construction of high rises alone would only end up producing a culturally starving society living in glass houses.
There is therefore an urgent need to articulate clear and realistic policies in order to coordinate public and private initiatives that would meet the above objectives. This may sound unrealistic at this stage but can be done by integrating culture into the overall development policy and practice.
The Ethiopian Herald February 19/2021
