I am making this presentation as an African woman, a daughter of a King – Ejakait Engineer George William Owaraga, who was among the elite Africans who took over from the colonialists and as a civil engineer, contributed greatly to building Uganda’s infra-structure, including Entebbe Airport before and after the Israel Raid of 1976. I am a descendant of Ejakait Yosiah Engatunyu (Simba) – the Lion King – who grew up in the court of the great warrior and statesman of Buganda – King Semei Kangulu. King Engatunyu for 30 years reigned in the eastern provinces of Uganda, until the arrival in Uganda of the English colonialists.
Myths, what are they?
Simply defined, myths are stories. Stories are not innocent. Myths can be factual, fictitious or both. From a social sciences perspective, myths are considered useful for the purpose of indirectly conveying meaning in order to instruct, to entertain and to ensure continuity. Myths and our experiences – our realities – are seemingly mutually re-enforcing. We tell stories about our experiences and stories influence our worldview.
‘Africa is rising.’ Why now?
“A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing – there must be something behind it,” says an African proverb of the Igbo people. Toads are nocturnal and it is not in their nature to jump around in the daylight. If they do, there must be a cause. In addition, just because we do not see a toad running around, does not mean it does not exist. It is in the nature of the toad that we do not necessarily see it run, for when it is usually running we are often asleep. History shows that communities – nation states, continents, empires, et cetera, rise and fall – it is the nature of things. The rising of a continent is a normal occurrence, it is expected. In the context of this presentation, it is also worth noting that folklore of the global-west – the United Kingdom in particular, associates toads with ill omen, evil, and ugliness – presumably, implying that toads are creatures that ordinarily should not be talked about blatantly in the daylight. How alike the proverbial toad is ‘Africa Rising’? What and who has disturbed it to run in the daylight? Why is this narrative that seemingly states the obvious being promoted as though it were profoundly new? Why now? Have we not heard this narrative before?
Africa, what is it?
Africa is people – real people – not the subjects of fiction workshops at which for example, predominantly western bankers and economists, spin their fine theories such as the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s that so debilitated Africa. This is a characterisation of Africa, by the renowned great son of Africa, Chinua Achebe, in his essay that he titled “Africa is People” that is published in his book of essays, titled: “The Education of a British-Protected Child.”
In 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King celebrated Ghana’s independence in a speech titled “The Birth of A New Nation” in which he described Africa as one of the most exploited continents in the history of the world. It has been the Dark Continent – that has suffered pain and affliction mustered up by other nations. It has experienced slavery and all of the lowest standards that we can think about. There is no doubt there was an ethnocide that wiped a significant number of the first nations of Africa – in full or in part.
Forty years after Dr. King’s speech, James Shikwati, a distinguished Kenyan Libertarian Economist in his chapter titled “The prospects for economic freedom in Africa” that is published in the book “Reclaiming Africa” provides a possible explanation on Africa’s exploitation. Shikwati highlights that the colonial partitioning of Africa that started in 1830 was based on arguments that Africans had no history prior to direct contact with Europe and that they didn’t have any development of their own, and so it was basically a continent of ‘grown up children.’
Shikwati asserts that the African people are still grappling with institutions inherited from colonialists; that little progress has been made to get high-level production and consumption in Africa; that Africa had lost self-sufficiency in food production that it enjoyed before development assistance was invented; and that aid has had a powerful effect on state institutions in Africa, simultaneously sustaining them and stripping them of decision making-power. Shikwati adds that most African leaders who have failed to connect with the people of Africa that they purport to lead are products of ‘developed’ countries’ university education.
Once, on a trip to the airport to the hotel where I had a meeting, I noticed something that triggered my reflective mind. We met a convoy of sorts going in the opposite direction – so I asked who that might be. Joel, our driver, was quick to tell me that it could not be a minister.
When I asked why he thought so, he said it is because the convoy was not flying a flag, so it was more likely the governor. I got to learn that even though governors in Kenya fought for it, they were not allowed to fly the flag. I wondered about the importance of Kenyan ministers flying the flag and not Kenyan governors. More importantly, I wondered, does the ordinary Kenyan citizen care? What is the opportunity cost that is borne by the ordinary citizen so that the governors and ministers have such elaborate convoys? In a country that is able to afford tens of convoys of that stature, why, at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, was I served coffee in a paper cup that was made in the United Kingdom and then imported into Kenya? Pick any East African country and similarities with Kenya will be in full view.
No wonder, the distinguished Ghanaian Economist, George B.N. Ayittey once likened the state of Africa to the SS Titanic – the unsinkable ship that sank with thousands of victims perishing just because the several informed warnings to the ship that an iceberg lay ahead went unheeded to. Like the Titanic, ideally, Africa is an unsinkable ship, but with several obstacles (icebergs) within it and without it, concluded Ayittey. He went ahead to proclaim that Africa need not sink in the ocean of perpetual poverty, disease, ignorance and exploitation; after all Africa can learn that frantic efforts to save the Titanic were made when it was too late, therefore, Africa does not need reforms made on her death bed. It is time to reclaim Africa’s heritage and this must be done by the African people. This was ten years ago? Where is Africa now? Moreover at a time when many African nation states are celebrating 50 years of ‘independence’? Have we reclaimed Africa? Have we reclaimed Africa’s heritage?
Let us take a detour back to the Africa of the 1950s and visit with the Igbo of Nigeria in West Africa, through the eyes of Chinua Achebe and through his critically acclaimed novel “Things Fall Apart.” The central character of “Things Fall Apart,” Okonkwo, was a wealthy farmer, who was revered not for his age, but for his achievements. He was a great warrior who had no patience with unsuccessful men, like Unoka his father – a debtor who owed every neighbour some money and a coward who could not bear the sight of blood. In the context of Africa today, how many nation states of Africa are more similar to Unoka than Okonkwo? As recent as last year, 85 percent (33 of 39) countries that were characterised by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as ‘Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC)’ were African countries, over 50 percent of Africa’s nation states.
This, most certainly, does not portray a picture of a continent that has reclaimed its heritage – a continent that scorns indebtedness and reveres achievements. The tragedy, furthermore, is that in the end, just like his father, Okonkwo is not buried as the hero that he was. He is buried as a coward, for his refusal to accept the colonial order lying down – he resisted it to the point of committing suicide – he actualised the adage: ‘I rather die’ or ‘over my dead body.’ This brings to mind the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ and the way in which the global-west is flexing muscle, in words and in action. The global-west treats the African Union’s meek attempts to be part of the ‘world’ in addressing the challenges on its continent with the contempt worthy of the likes of Unoka and, like Okonkwo, Africa’s heroes continue to commit suicide and the ethnocide continues.
The story of Okonkwo is laden with symbolism – committing suicide is both a taboo and is heroic. Suicide can be physical – resulting in death; or it can be mental – allowing the colonisation of one’s mind – one is alive but one is living another’s culture. Facilitating, if you will, Ngúgí Wa Thiongo’s “cultural bomb – allowing the annihilation of your people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves.”
Let us take another detour, this time to Africa of the 1960s, through the eyes of Okot p’Bitek and through his internationally recognised “Song of Lawino.” Let us visit with the Acholi of Uganda in East Africa. The central character is Lawino and she gives us a glimpse of a colonised mind in the form of her co-wife, a modern girl called Clementine. Lawino sings: “Brother, when you see Clementine! The beautiful one aspires to look like a white woman; her lips are red hot like glowing charcoal. She resembles the wild cat that has dipped its mouth in blood… Some medicine has eaten up Tina’s face. The skin on her face is gone and it’s all raw and red. And she believes that this is beautiful because it resembles the face of a white woman!”
Bleaching is a multi-billion dollar industry in Africa – companies of the global-west which make the bleaching creams are making a killing, pan intended. Apparently a bleaching dose costs at least UGX 400,000 (nearly 160 US dollars) to UGX 600,000 (approximately 238 US dollars), depending on the shade of ‘whiteness’ one wants to attain. This happening in a country where millions live below the poverty line, the mind boggles. According to medical experts, those who bleach are prone to cancer, liver problems and irreversible skin patches. Nevertheless, the skin bleaching business booms, despite there being an East African Act which prohibits importation of bleaching chemicals into the region.
While Lawino chose not to commit suicide as Okonkwo did, she too nevertheless resisted the ‘new modern order.’ She lectured her husband: “Ocol, my friend look at my skin. It is smooth and black. I am proud of the hair with which I was born. And as no white woman wants to do her hair like mine, because she is proud of the hair with which she was born, I have no wish to look like a white woman.’’
The reality of the Lawino’s of Africa is that more often than not, they are ridiculed as being backward and without vision. Perhaps, a visit with the Sho of the Khalari Desert in South Africa, through the eyes of Jacobus Johannes Uys and his famous movie “The Gods Must be Crazy” might support my assertion. Such depictions of Africans as amazed and awed by ‘global-western modernity’, in the context of the Gods Must Be Crazy, it was an empty Coca-Cola bottle, are real and have colonised the minds of both Africans and non-Africans. This is well captured in the book “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. For some Africans, it takes being humiliated in the global-west for them to realise that they can and should have a good life in Africa; and that the greener pasture is not as green. But for many Africans in the Diaspora, their minds are so colonised that they expect London in Lagos; New York in Kampala or Paris in Nairobi. They will find fault when a restaurant owned and run by a Ugandan does not make a good Latte.
What is the measure for rising?
‘Rising’ connotes positive change as opposed to change in the negative – decreasing. Applying the mythical assertion that numbers don’t lie, mathematically, we could measure Africa’s rise using the increase in the number of Africans who are blah, blah, blah, without necessarily putting the number in context. So, we might say Africa is rising because more Africans now own and use the Samsung Galaxy Smart Phone. If it is just one more African uses Samsung Galaxy, then the statement is true, but it does not tell us how many more Africans are not using Samsung Galaxy. Another mathematical measure is the percentage which solves the problem of indicating the other not rising, while demonstrating a reduction in the other and an increase in the rising. So we may say Africa is rising because the number of Africans using the Samsung Galaxy has increased to one per cent. In this measure we know that 99 per cent of Africans are not using the Samsung Galaxy, but nevertheless, it is a rise.
What mathematical statements do not immediately tell us is how the rise they indicate came about. Questions such as: How did the increase come about? Did more Africans buy the Samsung Galaxy Phones? Were the phones donated as part of ‘development aid’? Were the phones a payment to pirates as ransom? For what use are the one per cent putting the phones?
Basically, mathematical statements have the tendency not to deal with qualitative aspects. For example, a percentage rise can occur because of a reduction. If the overall number of Africans reduced then it is possible to achieve a one per cent increase, without an increase in the actual number of persons using the Samsung Galaxy phone. Moreover, the one per cent may have been the reason for the reduction in those who constitute the 99 present. For a sociologist, such as I am, comparisons become necessary in order to arrive at more qualitative measures. For example, if the number of Africans using the Samsung Galaxy has increased, what is the percentage increase in access to health care for the 99 per cent not using the Samsung Galaxy?
Let us measure what constitutes ‘Africa Rising’. Is it Africans in the category of Lawino and Okonkwo – certainly not, it is doubtful that they exist – an ethnocide was committed that wiped out the Africa in which they thrived. Is it the category of the ministers and governors – measured by the length and expense of their convoys, perhaps? Is it the category of the Achebes, Okot p’Bitek, Chimamanda Ngozi, Africans who utilise their interaction with the western culture in a manner that does not denigrate their African culture? Is it the category of the Ocols, Clementine and the Americanahs?
I am persuaded that Africa Rising is but a part of the whole economic integration-globalisation narrative, which I agree with Biko, is a “ruse to foist white norms and values upon blacks and thus to achieve black assimilation into white culture, norms and values.” Africa rising is a necessary smoke-screen to divert our attention from analysing why following Mwalimu Nyerere’s departure from political power, a leader who had governed closer to the tenants of the most fundamental aspects of African culture – the importance we attach to Man, Tanzania collapsed into the arms of the IMF and the World Bank; and in a period of only 13 years its per capita income reduced by half from US$ 280 at the time he left to US$ 140 in 1998. A closer analysis of the discourse of the so-called Arab Spring and the current tango between the leaders of African Nation States and the International Criminal Court (ICC) might reveal that Africa is still at the point in 1957, when Africa was again rising. Africans were permitted to govern themselves and were given instructions of how they should do so – complete with flags and national anthems, in some cases bequeathed by the wives of the departing colonial governors. What is the difference now, if you find that it is a zero difference or worse, then Africa is rising is but a story about the reality of the ‘unsinkable ship’ called Africa that is about to hit the iceberg.
By Norah Owaraga
Source: The African Executive