Can Africa successfully advance towards its future by relying on Western paradigms of modernity and thrive in this age of global chaos and uncertain future? This may be taken, in a nutshell, as the most important existential question for Africans everywhere who are trying to create a common vision of their present and chart out a clear path to their future not only in arts and culture but also in all areas of life.
One of the leading themes that surfaced during the recently-concluded 37th AU summit of heads of states and governments was the need to reassert Pan-Africanism and African unity. The other, rather disturbing, themes were regional conflicts and domestic instability in many African countries, the need for expediting regional integration as a precondition for the ultimate unity of the continent and the failure to embrace Pan-Africanism instead of parochial regionalism or tribal nationalisms, among other things.
In general, Africa has no problem in designing its future course of action but it leaders rarely display the necessary commitments to realize these lofty visions. As it has become a well-established tradition, African leaders are so focused on their internal or domestic political issues so much so that they have no time or energy left to implement what they pledge to realize during their annual AU summits.
This year too, AU Secretary General Musa Faki Mohamed sounded disillusioned when he made his opening speech in which he presented a litany of failures. Most promises made at the previous summits still remain unfulfilled. Africa’s common vision has not yet found expression. Most African countries are absorbed in their own problems and overlook Pan-African issues. The list can go on and on.
As a case in point, climate change or climate crisis as it is more often referred to, is believed to be the most pressing issue in Africa. Many countries are facing droughts, potential famines, desertification and food shortages in the form of food inflations or cost of living crises. As experts often point out, “Africa is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, wither rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and extreme weather events affecting various regions , impacting ecosystems and livelihoods, increasing water scarcity, and contributing to desertification.” However, Africa has no integrated regional or national strategies to address these issues although many resolutions were adopted at annual summits and regional deliberations.
This is however only one example failure among many. Even African countries that have the resources and the expertise to address these pressing issues often lack the political will or enough commitment to live up to the challenges. African leaderships often talk about big issues like African unity, regional integration, the creation of a borderless Africa where national borders would be open to all Africans who would move in all directions without travel documents. Yet, these visions fail to be realized or are quickly overlooked once the summits are over and it is almost always business as usual.
The same goes to the fate of arts and culture in Africa’s unity and renaissance. There is however no word or catchphrase more forgotten than the term ‘African renaissance’. The term came into existence back in the 1990s following the demise of Apartheid in South Africa and assumed more prominence in the following decades although most of the promises are still unfulfilled.
Africa has not yet witnessed the renaissance of its arts and cultures. It has not yet managed to reclaim its past cultures that were stolen from the continent by colonialism. Most of all Africa has not yet taken the first decisive steps in creating a common African identity or an Africa spiritual consciousness that would serve as a precondition for a return to the past in order to reclaim its lost identity.
As a popular saying has it, one has to move back first in order to jump out better. In other words, one has to go back in time in order to better embrace the future. Why go back in time? This is because Africa has clearly failed to use the Western paradigm of modernity to play catch up with the advanced continents simply because we are continuing to think like Westerners and acts like Africans. These are two contradictory attitudes. Most successful countries have achieved a certain degree of cultural and material development simply by discovering their identities and acting accordingly.
For instance, the Chinese achieved what is rightly considered a miracle of social and economic progress by going back in time and critically analyzing their past in order to claim their future from the remains of their history. So did the Japanese who made a critical reappraisal of their history since what they call the Meiji Restoration and worked hard to salvage some of its lessons in order to emerge stronger and more developed from the ravages of the last war. We can keep on citing other examples. It is however disheartening to realize that only Africa has so far failed to undertake such a critical examination of its past in order to use the outcomes as the bases for its present and futures.
Arts and cultures are often regarded as secondary considerations or issues in nations or the rebuilding of an entire continent like Africa. More urgent issues are claiming our attentions. For the average African, climate change is more important than say a piece of aesthetic products in arts. Africans have to eat first in order to engage in artistic appreciation or a critical examination of their cultures.
The average African is still engaged in the daily activities to secure the means of survival for their families or communities. Yet, the educated elites who should think or reflect on these issues on the part of the average African have failed to do so simply because they are allegedly engaged more on personal pursuits rather than on national or continental issues.
The few available cultural workers have a lot of work on their hands. With the necessary commitment to the cause of Africa’s cultural renewal, it would be easier to address the challenges of creating an African cultural identity because, “The culture of Africa is varied and manifold, with various tribes depicting their unique characteristic and traits from the continent of Africa. It is a product of the diverse populations that inhabit the conintent of Africa and the African Diaspora.”
There are not only diverse African cultures but they are also many in numbers. There are over 3000 different ethnic groups speaking more than 2000 different languages in all of Africa. It is obviously impossible to deal with each of them in order to achieve Africa’s cultural renaissance. Instead of that we can analyze each African culture and distill from it what is common to Africa and thus put what its important together and try to create a common African identity which is greater and more important than the individual ethnic or national identities. This is perhaps the most important approach for creating a common identity in Europe or America if not all over the world.
Africa cannot be an exception to the rule. Yet, it has to play its own game with its own rules and achieve something that is unique to the continent and its people. Europe and America were successful in this endeavors because they had historical advantages to come on top of the game of nation building and identity manifestations. Africa is retarded but it still has the opportunity to restart the work or continue on the road already charted by the great African leaders who put the main ideological pillar of African identity and unity in the form of Pan- Africanism. What we lack at present is the determination to rise up to the occasion and make the dream come true.
Most observers of contemporary Africa often agree on some of the vital challenges Africa is facing at present. Most Africans are struggling with the challenges of climate change, regional and domestic national conflicts and the after effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that is still making life difficult if not hellish for many disadvantaged Africans. One item on the agenda should be added to the three issues mentioned above. That is building a common African identity and consciousness that would serve as the pillar for Africa’s onward march towards the promised land of abundance and mental rehabilitation and freedom from Western paradigms of modernity.
As to Africa’s vastness and richness of cultures and languages, one can for instance create linguistic clusters that can be used as common languages in the different regions as part of the building blocks of an All African common language and identity in the long run. As you cannot bring together the various religions and belief systems available in Africa, you may not be able to put together all languages in order to create one common African language. This is practically unrealizable. But when it comes to language it is possible to create clusters of regional entities where major languages are spoken by most people that could serve as common language.
If we want to bring together the people of the horn of Africa together culturally and linguistically we can start for instance by identifying the languages spoken by most people at the regional level and then try to make it the major language of communication in the region. This may be Arabic, Swahili, Afan Oromo or Amharic. Or we can perhaps start by selecting languages that could serve as the working languages of the AU.
This is what is being suggested with Amharic to become one of the working languages of the AU together with the other languages. We can for instance discard one or two foreign languages and replace them with African languages like Swahili, Amharic or any other language. However this can only be realized if Africans think not as a conglomeration of regions or national entities but as one continent with a common vision and a common dream of achieving modernity away from Western paradigms of inequality and domination.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 29 FEBRUARY 2024
