BY MULUGETA GUDETA
British writer Joseph Conrad wrote a very symbolic novel portraying Africa as “The Heart of Darkness” at the turn of the 20th century. His portrayal of life aboard an expeditionary ship on the Congo river, was in fact, a portrayal, albeit a subtler or “artistic” form the darkness that shrouded our continent as a result of Western colonial domination that reflected the then prevailing general consensus about Africa at that time.
Conrad’s book became a classic in Europe, the same way as the works of Rudyard Kipling were about India and Burma. This view of Africa has changed shape through the post-colonial decades although it is still the dominant or subconscious idea of Africa in the European, and surprisingly now, in the American official mind.
Africans must be the oldest philosophers on this planet; because they are the oldest human species known to anthropology. But in the minds of European writers, they are often portrayed as backward, barbaric and devoid of spirits. Without forgetting that there were and are many European and American writers who look at Africa through positive lenses, the dominant idea of Africa has remained unchanged even though new conventions make it difficult to publicly express this idea. The good thing is that African intellectuals have never accepted this biased and racist view but have fought tooth and nail for its exposure as something despicable.
From the anti-colonial treatise on the psychiatric effects of colonialism on indigenous peoples, as exposed in Franz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth”, to the post-colonial and modern day neocolonialism, the West has been trying directly or indirectly to subvert and subdue Africans through various hard and soft methods or weapons. The 21st century is going to be a century soft-power that will shape the future of humanity and the outcome of the struggles between the forces of darkness and light. Is Africa prepared for this kind of existential struggle or is it going to sit with arms crossed and watch as the political and economic titans of the world wrest for control of the world? Does it have its own made-in Africa weapons of mass survival in the face of the West’s soft weapons of mass destruction?
The old 19th century Western scramble was about occupying continent for control of natural resources. The 20th century created subtler forms of control consisting of education, cultural subversion. The 21st century is going to be the control of Africa by the west through still subtler forms of domination introduced by at is known as soft-power which consists of a range of non-violent and more effective means of influence and control. Although soft-power is said to be non-violent, it contains within itself the seeds of brutal means of control provided by the technological advances the West has made over the last many decades.
The United States is making a second comeback to re-impose its imperial and hegemonic designs on African countries. The Chinese are waking up to claim the front seat in the ongoing global competition for economic supremacy. Russia is rising to rediscover some aspects of its lost Soviet greatness either through military buildup or economic and technological military advances. Europe is nostalgic about its lost colonies and is playing a backup role to the US’s waning global leadership. Last but not least, Africa is trying to rise to the occasion to make its presence felt and claim its share of global resources to tackle its myriad of problems in almost all aspect of life.
The so-called great powers are still using Africa as a launching pad for their new subversions inspired by their impressive advances in soft power. Africa is being forced to watch helplessly as the elephants fight on its own turfs, trampling its values and cultural assets, ignoring its traditions and age-old faiths through the invisible might of their soft-power. The coming battle will therefore be not to imitate the West that has already proved itself to be extremely but to rediscover Africa’s lost soul.
This battle is not a new one. African thinkers and intellectuals were fighting to reclaim the lost soul of Africa by trying to articulate an African response to the old Eurocentric offensive. From Franz Fanon to Leopold Sedar Senghor, from Cabral to Achebe, Soyinka, Mahfouz, from Nkrumah to Nasser and the post-war African intellectuals,, writers and philosophers articulated Africa’s historical uniqueness and lost glories. They have been articulating new thinking like negritude, pan-Africanism, pan-Arabism, African village socialism, and African communal identities against encroachments by the West. Belgian missionary Placid Temples must be the only European who tried to articulate Africa’s philosophical traditions with Eurocentric biases.
Africans educated elites should lead the way in the political, cultural and philosophical battles for the spiritual redemption our continent that is increasingly threatened by the modern use of soft power by the West advance its vested interests or defeat its real or perceived competitor for global supremacy. Africa should look neither to the West nor to the East but towards its own inner resources that are the only weapons of its resurrection and survival. Even if it aspires for technological advances, it cannot achieve this vision without making the necessary cultural adjustments and without relying on its own spiritual resources. In the mean time, Africa must unite and bring together it fragmented existence. The West is thriving with the help of Africa’s spiritual division and weakness.
The West advances its agenda y dividing Africans, setting them against each other, creating conflicts where there is none and pouring oil on the flames of internal disputes. And now some of the wielders of soft power are trying openly to dictate Africans their terms of their bargain. They want Africans to seek their solutions instead of trying to explore African solutions to African problems. This is evident in the ongoing dispute around the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and other political challenges. Western diplomats are becoming bolder than ever in pursuit of their dream of dominating the world. They are telling Africans what to do and what not to do as well as what to choose and what not to choose.
In the United States the new democrats in power are hardly different from the old democrats or republicans. They are becoming increasingly arrogant and pushy. Africa cannot beat the new bosses at their own games. It has to develop its own game plan that involves its cultural awakening, communal solidarity and values systems based on African short and long term interests.
The American vision of Africa has not changed. Africa should change its vision of America as a power for good. Evil thinking and evil deeds are dominating the new American political psyche. The defeat of so-called American global leadership in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria has not mellowed the neo-fascistic right-wing clique in both the democratic and republican parties to take stock of the new global realities.
The US cannot reclaim global leadership by hook or by crook simply because the bipolar world has long crumbled and the ‘unipolar’ world it tried to create on the illusion of the so-called “final victory of American democracy” in the world and Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” rhetoric is equally proving to be another ideological weapon in the arsenal of the West that already proved to be a fiasco like the so-called “American exceptionalism” that cannot live without provoking one kind of conflict or another in the peripheries of the global system.
Africa has at least realized that it will be difficult or impossible to live in the old ways in the global village. It is seeking a reshuffling of the decks in a fair, just and rightful way. The so-called African renaissance is high sounding and attractive on paper although it has not yet started to grow wings and fly. Most Africans are still living in the bad old ways of poverty, hunger and backwardness. African political elites are rather confused as to the direction to take in order to realize the continent’s dream of genuine liberation for which the best sons and daughter of Africa have sacrificed their times and lives.
It is not yet clear which direction Africans should take in order to restore Africa’s past grandeur manifested in great feats of construction, like the Pyramids and the mysterious yet sophisticated tombs of the Pharaohs in Egypt and the impressive structures of Axum and Lalibella in Ethiopia. Yet, the main battle Africa is going to wage in order to defend itself against the new offensives by the forces wielding soft-power will not be developing its own soft power but reclaiming its equally powerful spiritual weapons that survived the tests of centuries-old colonial and neocolonial subversion and forgotten or overlooked by the modern African elites who preferred to tread along the path charted out by the Western powers.
Even if Africans cannot arm themselves with sophisticated modern technology or soft power, it can rehabilitate its spiritual and cultural resources to defend itself from the West’s soft-power subversion. In the final analysis, African existential struggle is not about lost territory but lost identity.
It is only when Africans rediscover their lost cultures, values, identities and philosophies that they will start to rebuild their new civilization or restore the glorious civilizations of the past. Thus far, Africans have been trying to find Western solutions to African problems so to say. It has now become increasingly clear that Western solutions have led to greater marginalization, alienation and domination. The time has come now for Africans to make their renaissance based on the struggle for cultural and spiritual rebirth because imitating the West has led them to political and economic impasse.
The Ethiopian Herald August 13/2021
