No doubt that African unity has to start with African culture, mind, and soul. Colonialism had stolen the African mind and the African soul. We have not yet fully reclaimed our lost culture, our identity, and our soul. African unity will materialize when we start to think less as individual countries but as Africans. When we think of ourselves as Nigerians, Malians, Moroccans, or South Africans, we tend to forget that we are all Africans and that we share a common identity. We can only reclaim our African identity when we give priority to Africa instead of our separate or fragmented identities. Otherwise, we are going to remain entrapped in our nationalism, tribalism, ethnicity, and parochialism.
We should be first and foremost Africans and then assume other identities. Europeans call themselves Europeans, not Germans, French or British. They have already forged a common European consciousness, not because they are wiser than us but because history has created for them opportunities that we did not enjoy. Asians identify themselves as Asians and not as Japanese, Chinese, or Koreans. It is the same with Americans.
They call themselves Americans and not Californians, Alabamans, Mississippians, or Alaskans. Why did they choose this alternative? Simply because they have profited by coming together and by sharing a common identity. Shouldn’t we Africans not call themselves Africans first and keep our second or third identities for another occasion? Africans have profited nothing by being disunited, dispersed, and fragmented, or by assuming secondary identities.
Africa is even now one of the most politically, culturally, and economically fragmented and marginalized continents, more marginalized than Latin America or Asia. Latin Americans have fought and won against the Portuguese and the Spanish conquistadores and built their own identity on the basis of a mixture of native Indian, African, Spanish, and Portuguese ethnic, racial, or class characteristics. With some difficulties, Asians are going along similar lines.
When the row between North and South Korea finds a peaceful settlement and the dispute between Taiwan and mainland China becomes a thing of the past and unity becomes a reality one day by peaceful means, Asia will no doubt become one big and powerful geographic and economic entity that will be able to challenge world dominance by one or two superpowers, and world peace will at last become a tangible phenomenon. These geographic areas are already advancing in that direction. Where is Africa in all this?
It would not be unpatriotic or un-African to say that Africa will have to put in more work and will need more time to reach where the Latinos and Asians are now. There are certainly a few disadvantages Africa will have to overcome on its way to inevitable continental unity. The Latinos and Asians were luckier than Africa to speak one or two languages and be culturally more homogenous than Africa. How many ethnic groups, languages, traditions, and cultures are there in Africa? Maybe thousands. This is, of course, an unfortunate historical disadvantage. And that is why Africa needs to work harder than the other continents to create the preconditions for integration that cannot come with decisions by the African Union or the United Nations.
As our main focus is African cultural integration or the creation of a common African identity that will certainly expedite integration in other areas, it would not be superfluous to discuss here some of the challenges awaiting us along this trajectory. The reinstating of Africa’s cultural, artistic, and historical patrimonies is one of the hardest things to achieve along the way until final unity will be attained sometime in this century.
The million-dollar question now is, “What is to be done at present until the vision of a fully freed Africa becomes a reality?” For analytical purposes, we can divide the tasks into three different parts. The first may be how to bring back cultural and historical relics stolen from Africa and taken to European metropolises during the colonial era. The second point may be how to collect these kinds of relics from within Africa and bring them together first within each individual African country and then centralize, protect, or preserve them as common African cultural patrimonies under one umbrella, preferably brought together in the capital of a country such as Addis Ababa, Cairo, Algiers, Dakar, or anywhere else. The third issue would be to build one big “African Museum of Arts and Sciences” like the ones that exist in Western countries and use it as a research and exhibition center where tourists and global scientists would come and stay to do research work and offer the amazing collection to visitors.
Such a huge institution, once built with African money, will certainly be operated with the huge income that it will generate by itself from donors, visitors, and all kinds of investors. What matters is to take the first step towards this ideal and then work hard to turn it into a global icon for black culture all over the world. This may sound ambitious at this stage, but it can definitely be done.
The task of repatriation of African cultural heritages started a long time ago and is still progressing, although slowly. This is because repatriation is being conducted on the basis of individual or group initiatives and has seldom been conducted by African Unity, the single body with the relevant power and authority to conduct the work under its supervision.
In the past, and in the context of Ethiopian cultural and historical heritages, repatriation efforts were largely initiated by individuals in families like the Pankhurst family, and more particularly by Richard and Rita Pankhurst, the dynamic intellectual duo who spent much of their lives championing Ethiopian causes. This includes, of course, their courageous advocacy in favor of the return of the Axum obelisk and other items sitting in the British Museum. Although their efforts have yielded tangible results, both of them passed away before competing what they had set out to achieve in this regard.
Various scholars and activists have made tremendous efforts to bring back Ethiopia’s artifacts and items of great historical significance. There were also committees set up for this purpose, and they had done a great job in the context of the Axum obelisk. It is not clear whether these committees are alive or not, but what is indisputable is that their activities are not visible these days. It is, however, possible to reactivate the committees or form new ones at the national level, and such work should be undertaken not only in Ethiopia but also all over Africa. It is quite obvious that Africans have lost a great deal under European colonialism.
Africans have more or less lost various historical and cultural relics that are now found in various European capitals, some of which are still regarded as war trophies or war booties. We need to reclaim what was ours and let the old colonial wound heal, as well as the ongoing legal and illegal business with looted African treasures that is promoted with full knowledge and sometimes the direct or indirect cooperation from European authorities that are denying that such activities are taking place in their own turfs.
Regarding cultural and historical relics that are still undiscovered within Africa, it would be up to African governments and African experts to search, find their lost treasures, and bring them to international attention. The Egyptians have done a great deal of commendable work in this area. They are still continuing their search for their past, which is nourishing and enriching their present. Ethiopia too has conducted similar efforts in the past, although present day efforts are a bit sluggish. African anthropologists should give priority to African hidden treasures and use their skills and knowledge to help the continent rediscover and bring its past civilizations to light so that they can be used for its spiritual and material development.
Intentional organizations should also help them financially and by providing training to young African cultural workers. There are so many African philosophers, ethnologists, anthropologists, and so on, living in the West and lecturing at prestigious universities. These elite intellectuals should come down to Africa, study their traditions and cultures, and contribute to the collection of Africa’s patrimonies or heritages under one roof.
What is the point of writing books on western philosophy and Western anthropology while African culture remains hidden in obscurity instead of being recognized by the world and serving as a weapon for Africa’s spiritual and material liberation and total unity? This can be done when Africans start to think, plan, work, and dream as Africans as one people on one continent instead of sticking to the old, anachronistic, and defeated paradigms of tribalism, ethnicity, and parochialism in general.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
The Ethiopian Herald March 31/2024
