THE RENAISSANCE FACTOR IN SOUTH AFRICA AND THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF AFRICAN REGIONAL GOVERNANCE (1999-2008)

ABSTRACT

This article examines a likely South African hegemony in Africa between 1999 and 2008. Hegemony is admittedly difficult to define in African regionalism studies, as it is counter intuitive to Pan-Africanism discourse. However, this article aims to show that hegemony can be a credible argument in explaining the South African driven changes that occurred in African regionalism between 1999 and 2008. The article locates key characteristics which underpin arguments of South African hegemony during the study timeline. It argues that Thabo Mbeki's governance philosophy of African renaissance was the central piece of South African Africa foreign policy that distinguishes this period from any other before or after it. By establishing hegemonic credibility in South Africa's interaction with Africa in this period, the article demonstrates how South Africa was able to contribute to transformational governance changes in Africa. This also holds lessons for South African regional ascendancy in the future.     

Beyond the literary veil – Women writing Africa: The northern region (2009)

Abstract

Whenever African literature is discussed there is an articulated incorrect assumption that this relates to all the regions of Africa, except North Africa. A related further assumption is that only men in North Africa write. Female writers from the North barely receive critical attention, although they have been writing creative works. The aim of this article is to dispel the notion of literary drought when describing North Africa. Using the text, Women writing Africa: The northern region, the article demonstrates the different sensibilities that female authors in North Africa have created and manifest, when writing against patriarchy as well as against ideological philistinism within their communities. It is argued that female authors from North Africa – African-Arab women – are versatile in their imaginations as they engage with social reality from the perspective of creative art as well as political discourse. The article concludes that this assertion removes the literary veil so that North African female authors can begin to be appreciated artistically, more than has been the situation up to now.     

Ubuntu. The missing link in the rights discourse in post-apartheid transformation in South Africa

ABSTRACT

A human rights discourse has been central to both the anti-apartheid struggle of South Africa and the country's post-apartheid transformation. But in the drive to extend constitutionally mandated social and economic rights to all South Africans, the approach has had shortcomings. The current neo-liberal economic policy framework constrains policy choices and, in some instances, restricts fair adjudication of rights by the courts. The revival of notions of African Renaissance and indigenous ethnophilosophies, notably ubuntu, which shares the primacy of human dignity of a rights discourse, offers new perspectives. This article looks at the limitations of the human rights discourse and at how ubuntu, as a principled basis for judicial decision making, can contribute to the evolution of the rights discourse in South Africa and lead towards greater realisation of constitutional rights for all.     

Democracy,African intellectuals and African Renaissance

Abstract

This article argues that democracy is a prerequisite for the African Renaissance. The role of African intellectuals is crucial in making the dream of the African Renaissance come true. This article revisits the discourse on the African Renaissance, its history and content before dealing with the issue of democracy. Democracy is closely related to human rights and development and is a sine qua non for the African Renaissance. The current discourse on the African Renaissance is not new. The first international conference on the African Renaissance was held in Dakar, Senegal, from 26 February to 2 March 1996 where African intellectuals gathered to celebrate the works of Professor Cheikh Anta Diop, ten years after his death. The theme of the conference was ‘African Renaissance in the Third Millennium’. The first African Renaissance Conference in South Africa took place from 28 to 29 September 1998. Thabo Mbeki ‐ then, Deputy Pesident of South Africa ‐ read the keynote address on ‘Giving the Renaissance content: Objectives and definitions’. This article complements efforts at redefining the roles of African intellectuals in fostering democracy through a conscious application of the framework of African Renaissance.     

A critical understanding of good governance and leadership concepts written in the context of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the challenges to contextual discourse on Africa's development paradigms1

ABSTRACT

Good governance is a value-laden concept that is characteristically nebulous; it can mean different things to different people, depending on the context in which it is used. The same applies to leadership. Concepts, as Pauw (1999a, 465) puts it, are ‘tools of thinking’ and contexts are ‘the environments or frameworks in which they [concepts] operate’. Lucidity in the meanings of concepts is fundamentally important for shaping debate and enriching discourses. To maintain their power, concepts must be used in their proper contexts. This necessitates an understanding of the art of contextual discourse. Good governance is used in NEPAD as a principle and emphasised as a sine qua non for sustainable development in Africa. On the other hand, NEPAD premises Africa's re-birth or Renaissance on good governance and leadership, with a vision and commitment to repositioning the continent in global power balances. In this article good governance and leadership are considered as concepts. NEPAD is a textual context within which the two key concepts are used and should, consequently, be engaged. The article attempts a critical review of African scholarship engagement with good governance and leadership within the NEPAD context to determine the extent to which contextual discourse is practised. It further grapples with the immediate historical background to scholarship on Africa's development between the 1960s and early 1990s. The exercise reveals that much of the accumulated body of African scholarship and scholarship on Africa's development reviewed does not suffciently contextualise discourse on good governance and leadership within NEPAD, and its key assessment and monitoring device, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), and offers an alternative framework.     

‘Things are not working now’: poverty,food insecurity and perceptions of corruption in urban Malawi

ABSTRACT

Malawi is one of the world's least urbanised countries, but its cities are growing rapidly and poverty in urban Malawi is becoming a prominent political issue. Food insecurity is a widespread manifestation of urban poverty in Africa, especially in informal settlements. This article is based on in-depth interviews with food insecure residents of Lilongwe’s informal settlements who, when asked why they were food insecure, overwhelmingly pointed to the Cashgate corruption scandal as a cause. There have been many political corruption scandals in Malawi, but the Cashgate scandal, which was revealed in September 2013 and reverberated throughout the political culture, has been among the most prominent and consequential of these scandals. The article seeks to contribute to literature on the political dimensions of urban food security in Africa while also presenting a way of understanding corruption from the point of view of vulnerable people whose lives have been directly and indirectly affected.     

Diagnosing neopatrimonialism: an interview with Thandika Mkandawire

ABSTRACT

Thandika Mkandawire is a Malawian economist and public intellectual. He is currently Chair and Professor of African Development at the London School of Economics. He was formerly Director of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, and Director of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). In 2015, he published an influential critique of neopatrimonialism, ‘Neopatrimonialism and the Political Economy of Economic Performance in Africa: Critical Reflections’.

His empirical analysis demonstrates that neopatrimonialism can neither explain heterogeneity in political arrangements nor predict variability in economic outcomes. He argues that its dominance in scholarly and popular discourses of the continent derives from its appeal to crude ethnographic stereotypes. Yet such stereotypes are at odds with the idea that African citizens can be trusted to vote intelligently. As a result, the neopatrimonial school tends to seek political arrangements that can circumnavigate democratic politics, particularly in the form of bureaucratic authoritarianism or external agents of restraint. Against this, Mkandawire insists on an approach that recognises the importance of democratic politics, and the critical role that ideas, interests and structures play in shaping African societies. In this interview with the Journal of Contemporary African Studies (JCAS), Mkandawire reflects on the historical genesis of neopatrimonialism, the political economy factors that likely explain the ways in which it has taken hold in African scholarship and public discourse, and how to move forward.     

Good governance and democratic leadership for an African Renaissance: A reflection on AU member states’ compliance with the AUCPCC

Abstract

After decades of corrupt post-colonial governance, African leaders collectively acknowledged that good governance was a prerequisite for African renewal and required an unprecedented fight against corruption prevailing on the continent. The Constitutive Act of the African Union (CA-AU) features good governance among its objectives and principles. Good governance was stressed further in subsequent AU instruments adopted within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and its African Peer-Review Mechanism (APRM). AU leaders’ commitment to fighting corruption culminated in the adoption of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC).

As Africans prepare to commemorate the first decade since the adoption of the AUCPCC, this article reflects on AU member states’ compliance with this instrument, the challenges, and the prospects for a successful fight against corruption. It argues that despite some progress made, this scourge remains unabated and has even aggravated. Most African states have failed to comply fully with the AUCPCC. However, the fight against corruption should be strengthened with the participation of all the stakeholders at national, regional and international levels. Partnerships have to be built and consolidated without neglecting the crucial contribution of the people under a democratic leadership committed to good governance in order to achieve an African Renaissance in the 21^st century.     

A response to Steven Feierman’s ‘writing history: flow and blockage in the circulation of knowledge’

ABSTRACT

This paper responds to Steven Feierman’s ‘Writing history: flow and blockage in the circulation of knowledge.’ Feierman has noted that most of the publications produced in Tanzania, and in Africa more generally, do not circulate to America. As a result, American scholars do not have access to such publications. The consequence of this phenomenon is that American scholars have difficulty producing African historical knowledge that is rich in context. While agreeing with Feierman’s thought-provoking intervention, this paper makes three main propositions. First, while acknowledging the problem of knowledge circulation between Africa and America, the paper renders visible an equally serious and disturbing reality: that the circulation of knowledge between African institutions is far more limited than it is between Africa and America or Europe. Many Africans consume knowledge that is largely produced in America and Europe. Secondly, while agreeing with Feierman that many scholars in America have difficulty producing historical knowledge about Africa that is rich in context, the paper argues that it is still possible for historians to produce contextually-rich knowledge. To do so, it is proposed, such historians need to craft locally-based methodological strategies that are sensitive to Africans’ perspectives on their changing cultural and physical world. Finally, while recognising that the limited circulation of knowledge is an important reason for some American scholars to produce historical knowledge about Africa which is rich in context, the paper offers four additional explanations on this problem, namely the failure of some scholars to conduct sustained primary field research in Africa; lack of personal sacrifice, a proper attitude and commitment to do long-term research in Africa; the tendency of some scholars from America to make no effort to find works produced in African institutions of higher learning when they visit Africa; and the growing over-reliance on digitised sources of information for producing histories, sources which can hardly capture such things as emotions, feelings, thoughts, silences, or cosmologies that are inevitable in the production of contextually-rich historical knowledge.     

Land Reform: Unfulfilled Obligation in Southern Africa and Beyond

ABSTRACT

Land reform remains a relevant but contentious issue in southern Africa. It nearly caused the collapse the Southern African Development Community (SADC) after its tribunal ruled against the Zimbabwe land reform programme (which resulted in the removal of white settlers from land they had occupied for decades and, in some cases, for over a century). The major challenge for southern Africa and most of the African continent is to untangle itself from the provocative and salient legacy of social, economic and psychological apartheid on its territory for almost a century without disrupting development endeavours (Chigara 2012). This article exposes the theoretical foundations influencing the powers at play that compromise most of the efforts that have been directed at trying to facilitate transitions from colonialism and its legacies to societies egalitarian. Land rights have suddenly become very important and it appears that these rights only apply to those whose ownership of land has been legitimised by colonialism. The article recommends the application of already existing legal frameworks at domestic, regional, continental and global levels to meaningfully engage land reform challenges that confront SADC and the continent of Africa as whole as a consequence of the general non-compliance to the rule of law and justice itself.     

State fragility in Africa: Methods chasing problems or problems chasing methods in political discourse?

Abstract

The article critiques the inadequacy of the conceptions and definitions of state fragility, failure and weakness in Africa. The dominant accounts of state failure, weakness and fragility tend to look at the superficial appearance and not at the multi-causal economic, political and discursive foundations of an African state. The article argues that a deeper and alternative discourse about state failure, fragility and weakness in Africa needs to address the basic question of what the character and nature of the African state are. The article broaches this question by analysing the conceptions of state failure, fragility and weakness, and then provides a comprehensive account of the character and nature of post-colonial states in Africa. The intention here is to show that the form and content of post-colonial states in Africa have been a contested and inadequately theorised phenomenon for many years.     

Mbeki and the peace process in Africa: A contribution to Africa's renaissance

Abstract

Critics of South African President Thabo Mbeki's constant, consistent and continuous involvement in the continental wars and conflicts insist that the president's prime focus should be South Africa, and solving its basic problems of poverty and unemployment. However, it is important to highlight the duel relationship between South Africa and the continent during the long struggle against apartheid. Mozambique, Angola, and in part Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland are what they are now because of the reign of terror unleashed on them as a result of their direct support to the South African liberation movements. The poverty and starvation apparent in Angola and Mozambique were perpetrated by the white minority regime's constant bombing of, and acts of violence against these two countries, and direct support of the anti‐government forces. As for the South African liberation movements, they continued to exist and function mainly because of the support offered to them by their independent African brothers. It must be realised that without this support, which for some countries was very costly (i.e., economically, socially and psychologically), liberation would not have come when it did. It has fallen on the shoulders of the newly liberated South Africa to try and intervene in the wars that cause instability on the continent and to try to bring about peace.     

Towards a military doctrine for humanistic intervention in African conflicts

Abstract

The article is presented against the background of the need for African military forces to deal with the complexities that come with leading and participating in multinational military operations in Africa. The research problem that guided this research is: What should the doctrine of military forces in Africa be to enable them to work together as part of the multinational forces while serving African interests? The aim is to investigate the possibility of a military doctrine that would serve African interests in the context of the reality of a multinational approach to military intervention. This aim has been achieved by offering theoretical assumptions on military doctrine, multinational military intervention and humanistic values in Africa to form a theoretical framework for deploying the argument. An in-depth discussion of African military practice prior to colonialism, the multinational and humanistic nature of military operations since the end of the previous century, as well critical reflections on the quest for a military doctrine that reflect the humanistic values of Africa resulted in some important findings. The main finding is that the people of Africa have accumulated a wealth of military knowledge over many centuries that is sufficient to develop an endogenous (home grown) military doctrine that can serve the African people. An endogenous military doctrine would be based on the principles of people-centredness; flexibility; collectiveness; affordability and institutionalisation to place African humanistic values and continental policies at the forefront in strategic decision-making and implementation. Taking into consideration the above-mentioned principles some practical measures are recommended.     

Myths of Commonwealth Betrayal: UK–Africa Trade Before and After Brexit

Abstract

This article critically interrogates claims that a British exit from the European Union (EU) (Brexit) will create opportunities for the UK to escape the EU’s apparent protectionism and cumbersome internal politics in order to pursue a more liberal and globalist trade agenda based on the Commonwealth. Taking a historical view of UK and EU trade relations with the Commonwealth in Africa, the author highlights the way in which the incorporation of the majority of Commonwealth states into the EU’s preferential trading relationships has reconfigured ties between the UK and its former colonies over time. Further, the author suggests that the EU’s recent attempts to realise a vision for an ambitious set of free trade agreements in Africa—the Economic Partnership Agreements—was disrupted not by EU protectionism or internal politics but rather by African resistance to the EU’s liberal agenda for reciprocal tariff liberalisation and regulatory harmonisation. The UK therefore faces a complex challenge if it is to disentangle its trade relations with Africa from those of the EU and to forge its own set of ambitious free trade agreements with African Commonwealth partners.     

Africa unknown: Addressing the effects of an alienating education amongst learners in South Africa

Abstract

The article argues for the Africanisation of the South African education system, most critically at high school and tertiary levels. Using both experiential and theoretical reasoning, it seeks to present a compelling argument for the value of teaching our children, using methodologies, examples and stories they can relate to. It argues that this relatability is what will best develop the cognition of learners and better equip them to turn knowledge into action. The South African education system has often been seen as lacking a critical thinking and problem-solving element, and the article argues that this limitation is embedded in the abstractness of our curricula. The article presents a short case study highlighting just how little about Africa some of our best learners know. It ends by offering practical suggestions about how the education system could incorporate critical African knowledge in its learning models.     

Gender equality,Pan-Africanism and the diaspora

ABSTRACT

In 2003, the same year that the African Union (AU) officially recognised a role for the African diaspora in the future of continental Africa, it also adopted the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, a document which seeks to enhance women's human rights across the Union. These official actions by this body, representing the vision of a more unified Africa, marks a new stage in a history of interactions, conversations and collaborations between Africa and its diaspora, as well as a renewed commitment to gender equity on the continent. This paper examines the feminist tradition within Pan-Africanism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the developments in relation to gender equality with the emergence of the new women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The United Nations’ Declaration of the Decade for Women heralded a new phase in the movement for gender equality in the world. These developments, however, are taking place within a context of neo-liberal globalisation, which has had many negative impacts on the peoples of the African diaspora. While it has contributed to the creation of some new millionaires of colour, it has also ruined the agricultural base of many economies, destroyed manufacturing (including indigenous crafts and production systems) and reduced the economic options open to most of our countries – unless they are oil and mineral-producing states. This article concludes with recommendations for greater South – South collaboration on issues of gender equality, including the production and dissemination of audio-visual materials to challenge the power of the globalised US media and its gendered images.     

The ‘science’ of superiority: Africa and scholarly colonial assumptions

ABSTRACT

The use of ‘neopatrimonialism’ as a category in mainstream scholarship on African polities and economies is ubiquitous. A critique by Thandika Mkandawire has shown that the ‘neopatrimonial school’ is devoid of conceptual coherence and analytical power – it is an expression of a prejudice, not a useful tool for research and analysis. The article endorses Mkandawire's view but points out that this is by no means the only example of its kind. On the contrary, the use of categories which assume the superiority of societies in the global North over those in Africa is widespread. The article illustrates this by discussing and criticising two others, the ‘democratic consolidation’ paradigm and the ‘failed state’ framework. It argues that all three shape assumptions by scholars in Africa as well as outside it which obstruct concrete analysis. A critique of these paradigms is thus essential to the development of scholarship on and about Africa.     

Africa and its Diaspora: The principal reciprocal benefits to be derived from the amended Constitutive Act of the African Union

Abstract

Under article 3(q) (Objectives) of the Protocol on Amendments to the Constitutive Act of the African Union, we read the following: ‘invite and encourage the full participation of the African Diaspora as an important part of our continent, in building the African Union (AU)’. According to the AU, ‘The African Diaspora are peoples of African descent and heritage outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and who remain committed to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union’. Not only is this posture entirely consistent with the African development agenda and Renaissance, but it is also congruent with the recent and first-ever AU African Diaspora Summit which was convened on Friday, 25 May 2012, at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg. This is so because the Summit provided us with an excellent opportunity to continue to reflect on, and engage with, issues relevant to the development of the continent and, by extension, its multilingual and globally dispersed Diaspora. In this public lecture, it is argued that the current Amendment to the Constitutive Act of the AU in which the African Diaspora is now considered the sixth Region of the AU – an Amendment which has not yet been ratified by the requisite number of African states and one which might still be in need of some degree of disambiguation – provides the framework within which some fundamental and reciprocal benefits can be derived from an ongoing interaction between Africa and its Diaspora – especially its Older or Historic Diaspora. In essence, it is my contention that the principal reciprocal benefits that can accrue from this interaction between Africa and its Diaspora might best be captured in the language of pan-Africanisation and re-Africanisation respectively.     

AFRICAN RENAISSANCE AND NEGOTIATION OF YORUBA IDENTITY IN THE DIASPORA: A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIAN STUDENTS IN CAPE TOWN

ABSTRACT

Drawing on poststructuralist discourse analysis and Hall's (1990) notion of diaspora cultural identities, this article explores the discontinuation and maintenance of Yoruba identity options by students at three Western Cape Province universities. Interviews and observations data are used to consider how different forms of representations and cultural practices associated with Yoruba in Nigeria lead to equally fragmented and hybrid lifestyles and identity options in the Diaspora due to the changed socio-cultural conditions. The argument shows the ruptures and fragmentation of Yoruba cultural elements as students try to fit into the South African socio-cultural contexts while trying to live ‘home’ life away from home. It also shows cultural appropriation by local South Africans who claim Nigerian [Yoruba] affiliation through wearing Yoruba attire and partaking in Nigerian [Yoruba] cuisine. The authors argue that identities are produced across national and ethnic boundaries not only through language choices, but also through dress, food and other semiotic resources, and that to promote the ideals of an African renaissance, there is need to recognise that Africa is a consequence of not just similarities, but more so of various critical points of profound difference and discontinuity. The article concludes that African renaissance entails embracing shared African cultural heritage and differences as the norm; and transnational competition, interdependency and interconnectedness are critical ingredients for the technological and socio- economic development of Africa.     

The disciplinary,interdisciplinary and global dimensions of African studies

Abstract

In discussing African studies or any other field, it is important to note that the economies and cultures of knowledge production are an integral part of complex and sometimes contradictory, but always changing, institutional, intellectual and ideological processes and practices that occur, simultaneously, at national and transnational, or local and global levels. From their inception, universities have always been, or aspired to be, universalistic and universalising institutions. This is not the place to examine the changes and challenges facing universities in Africa and elsewhere, a subject dealt with at length in African universities in the twenty‐first century (Zeleza and Olokoshi 2004). It is simply to point out that African studies ‐ the production of African(ist) knowledges ‐ has concrete and conceptual, and material and moral contexts, which create the variations that are so evident across the world and across disciplines.This article is divided into four parts. First, it explores the changing disciplinary and interdisciplinary architecture of knowledge in general. Second, it examines the disciplinary encounters of African studies in the major social science and humanities disciplines, from anthropology, sociology, literature, linguistics and philosophy, to history, political science, economics geography and psychology. It focuses on the interdisciplinary challenges of the field in which the engagements of African studies with interdisciplinary programmes such as women's and gender studies, public health studies, art studies, and communication studies, and with interdisciplinary paradigms including cultural studies and postcolonial studies are probed. Finally, this article looks at the focus on the study of Africa in international studies, that is, the state of African studies as seen through the paradigms of globalisation and in different global regions, principally Europe (Britain, France, Germany, Scandinavia and Russia), the Americas (the United States of America (US), the Caribbean and Brazil), and Asia‐Pacific (India, Australia, China and Japan). Space does not allow for a more systematic analysis of African studies within Africa itself, a subject implied in the observations in the article, but which deserves an extended treatment in its own right.