BY MULUGETA GUDETA
Many capital cities around the world boast of being the nerve centers or simply the centers of diplomacy, economy and finances, fashion, or movies …etc capitals of the world. The French capital Paris is considered the fashion capital of the world because it is home to some of the biggest designers’ names and fashion houses in the world in addition to being “the city of lights”. New York is considered the financial hub of the world with Wall Street as its nerve center. Brussels in Belgium is the diplomatic center of Europe.
Addis Ababa is one of the emerging cities in Africa with its skyline fast changing and its modernization continuing apace while at the same time facing the challenges of fast growth. Addis Ababa is famed for being a city that has grown out of a eucalyptus trees to become a “forest of high rises” and state of the art structures and a new financial center based around the national Bank of Ethiopia building around the National Theatre area.
However, what distinguish Addis Ababa from other African cities are not as such the building structures, the thoroughfares and the wide avenue or the newly-built parks and museums. Addis is nowadays famed for being the diplomatic center of the Africa from where the continent’s destiny or future is discussed and charted and where the best and brightest minds available in Africa come together regularly to deliberate on the most sophisticated diplomatic issues and adopt resolutions that keep the continent vibrant and ensure its renaissance.
Addis has become the de facto diplomatic capital of Africa because of its history of fighting against colonialism and for its struggle to unite the continent and founding the organization of African Unity (OAU) and later on the African Union (AU). It is distinguished for the crops of brilliant diplomats who managed to debate with their Western counterparts to beat back the sophisticated ploys of old and new colonialists and neocolonialists. Addis has captured the imaginations of Africans for being the first African independent state that allowed Western nations establish their embassies and helped them facilitate their interaction with the rest of the continent for the lofty objectives of world peace, economic development and mutual assistance in all fields of endeavors. On top of all that Addis Ababa is now hosting the most critical conferences that determine the future of Africa and the international diplomacy.
No doubt that culture is one aspect of Africa’s engagement with the external world. Africa is one of the richest if not the richest continent in the world in terms of its cultural bounties, diversity and sophistication, all reflecting the glorious past of our ancestors who excelled in many artistic enterprises such as music, dances, folk art, spiritual manifestation in tangible and intangible culture, to make a long story short. A single African country may have a wealth of artistic and cultural resources that can surpass what is available in many so called developed countries.
No Western country has claimed the headlines in historical and cultural wealth as Africa because the latter is still digging into its fertile soils to find its long-hidden cultural relics while most Western countries have no new cultural findings they can show the world. Africa is still digging out its past while many Western countries have little to show by way of new relics or any other cultural manifestation. That is why they are flocking to the continent in order to see for themselves what new discoveries have been made in a given year and why Africa’s past is so vast that they are impressed by what the future may uncover.
According to many studies conducted in the field of culture in general and African culture in particular, culture is something that can serve as catalyst for economic development and that cultural interactions are the best ways to promote the material wealth of a nation. As a rule people who are rich in cultural resources are also rich in spiritual resources that can be converted into material resources. That is why the concept of “cultural hegemony” assumes an important place in Western political thinking where it is considered the driver of other forms of hegemony.
Hegemony is synonymous with domination, supremacy or dominion. Cultural hegemony in the world is the domination of Western culture over all the other cultures including African ones. This is sometimes called soft power in contradistinction to hard power. The 19th century was the century of hard power when colonial forces used to impose their wills on Africa with brute force while soft power, the power of technology and knowledge is the weapon of choice by the same forces to control or impose their authorities on so-called Third World countries in subtler forms and without the use of direct force.
Cultural influences through cinema, music and entertainments in general are manifestations of soft power. Africans have achieved political independence but have not achieved economic and cultural independence because they are still prisoners of Western soft power until they will achieve total liberation.
That is why the issue of cultural hegemony assumes a growing importance. In order for Africa to achieve cultural freedom. It might have to become culturally more assertive and promote cultural interactions between African countries and people who support Africa’s comprehensive emancipation. Sometimes African culture, its arts and crafts in particular, have been stolen and sold in big Western countries as items of great values.
Many European museums are filled with African cultural items stolen during the colonial era. Ethiopia has been struggling for a long time to secure the return of its lost relics and it has been successful at a time while the fight will be going on until all its cultural wealth will be returned to the country. Ethiopia has also played a vanguard role in fighting against European colonial confiscations or thefts of cultural relics. This too can entitle Ethiopia to lead the fight in the future too.
Africa’s struggle to reclaim its lost cultural and artistic heritages is still under way, many decades after the European colonial powers left the continent. Tens of thousands of artistic and cultural relics were stolen during colonial era. According to a recent Al Jazeera TV report, in 2017 the French government had pledged to retune the relics taken from its former colonies within five years.
According to the same report after three years since the pledge was made the French have not returned any of the artistic relics. It was disclosed that more than three thousand pieces of African historic and artistic works are still kept in French museums but the government has admitted that it has one a little more than 200 pieces to return. The relics to be returned were chosen by the government while it is still keeping most of the relics for one reason or another.
Meanwhile a great number of African artifacts in Europe have already found their way into the clandestine art market whose networks ran from Africa to Europe and Asia. There ground to suspect that many of the African artifacts have already reached the market and disappeared as they were bought and sold at exorbitant prices and kept in the houses of rich art collectors. Africa is still bleeding from the theft of artistic works that are enjoying great demands in the clandestine art market that is controlled by illegal art dealers while European government know about it and prefer to look away. According to other retorts, even the legal art market in African artifacts is largely controlled by faceless and nameless Western art dealers who are making millions out of Africa’s heritages.
African governments or the African Union are not yet pursuing the matter of Africa’s heritage thefts with the necessary firmness by establishing direct contact with European governments allegedly keeping those relics after pledging to return them as the French government has done.
A few African governments are working hard to get their historic heritages returned after decades of efforts that put enough pressure on the official art collectors and museums. The British government has proved cooperative in repatriating Ethiopia’s relics stolen from mount Mekdela during the invasion of general Napier’s forces who left with the stolen treasures after emperor Teodros died. The Italian government has also proved cooperative in returning the Axum obelisk that stood in a Rome square for many decades as it was stolen by the former fascists under Mussolini. Other European governments should have followed Italy’s good example and returned relics to their legitimate owners.
Most the clandestine art market in Europe was subsequently fueled by African art and cultural works that were stolen from the continent and are still circulating within the illegal marketing networks controlled by powerful Mafia-like dealers. Form the above discussion we can safely assume that the time has come for making the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa the artistic and cultural hub of the continent. As we said above, Addis is the diplomatic capital of Africa and this is bound to facilitate efforts to transform to also make it the cultural centre by using its accumulated experiences.
This would rather facilitate the ongoing struggle to reclaim Africa’s lost heritages and cultural relics that are still being circulated within the underground networks of the global illegal art markets that benefit only the dealers and their patrons. Addis Ababa is strategically located to become the mainstay of the fight against the illegal possession and marketing of Africa’s cultural relics. It now the time to turn it into the bastion of African art, culture and soft power.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 22 APRIL 2023
