Re-membering my ways of knowing and learning while ‘learning otherwise’

ABSTRACT

To some people, African languages are insufficiently valued or good for nothing. Such people do not find any economic value in African languages. However, the African renaissance can inject a new lease of life into African languages. The African linguistic renaissance implies uplifting the status and use of African languages. It also means taking African languages into domains where their economic value will rise. This requires a drastic change in how African languages are perceived and treated. This article argues that, as part of the African renaissance, African languages should become income generators or job-creating entities. There is great potential for African languages to attain such economically rewarding status. African languages have slept for so long that they can now be compared to devalued currencies. The article suggests some ways through which a vibrant African languages industry can be developed and sustained.     

Literature,trauma and the African moral imagination

Trauma theory claims to represent a ‘new mode of reading and of listening’, but its Eurocentric roots lead to the question of whether or not this approach is relevant in postcolonial contexts. This essay makes the case that engaging trauma theory through African literatures is in fact a productive exercise, mostly because of what it does for the former. African social thought, expressed through its writers and critics, allows us to refine and address crucial problems in trauma theory, including questions about the representation of trauma and strategies for trauma healing. African writers' deployment of images such as the railroad, which is closely linked with discourses of trauma and of modernism, illustrates how their works can reframe trauma studies from an African perspective. An appreciation of the continent's traumatogenic contexts, of writers' cultural resources and strategies for speaking to those contexts, and of the intrinsically transformational impulse of the African moral imagination, suggests that African literatures are grounded in the types of imaginative ‘re-membering practice[s]’ that promote recovery and healing from the destructive effects of trauma.     

Studying African interventions ‘from below’: Exploring practices,knowledges and perceptions

ABSTRACT

This article argues for a shift in researching African interventions: from a top-down study of African regional norms and institutions towards a view ‘from below’ on the actual practices of intervention and how they play out on the ground. Such a view is important in order to understand the contested politics of African interventions as well as disconnects between grand regional architectures and their imprints on the ground. In doing so, this article also seeks to link research on African interventions to the academic debate on peacebuilding and peacemaking interventions more generally. While this literature has increasingly taken the ‘local’ into account, such a localisation in terms of researching African interventions has yet to take place. This article suggests three dimensions in which a view ‘from below’ could be translated into the research agenda on African interventions.     

African Music

The writer, of St. Mark's College, Mapanza, Northern Rhodesia,is the author of an essay on African music published by theRhodes-Livingstone Institute at Livingstone. He is a keen supporterof the African Music Society recently founded at Johannesburgby Mr. Hugh Tracey. Although he deals specifically with musicin Northern Rhodesia, he suggests there is evidence to showthat his statements apply in principle also to South and toWest Africa.     

Whither peacebuilding? A reflection on post-conflict African experiences

Peacebuilding is a key concept in efforts to reconstruct African states emerging from conflicts. At heart, it captures the whole array of activities associated with state-and nation-building in addition to building the foundations for local ownership of these processes. Popularised by the UN Secretary-General Boutros-Boutros Ghali in the early 1990s, peacebuilding has evolved alongside peacemaking and peacekeeping in the reconstruction repertoire. This article suggests that while there is considerable scepticism about the utility of peacebuilding in contemporary conflict resolution efforts, African experiences have, since the 1990s, provided solid lessons to both local and international actors on how to rebuild states, societies, polities, and economies.     

Knowledge generation,political action and African development: A polycentric approach

ABSTRACT

Knowledge generated to meet societal needs is the bedrock of development. Africa's development crisis is marked by the persistent gap between the application of intellectual rigours and political action. Despite abundant development potential (human and natural resources, and scientific knowledge), coupled with reform declarations and commitments by African leaders over the past four decades, development remains illusory. This article examines the relationship between key development players (African public officials and African scholars), and how generated knowledge is applied to respond to the needs of African citizens. Using the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework (otherwise known as new institutionalism) this article examines weaknesses in the interaction of knowledge, political action and development, while at a local level African citizens, through shared strategies and problem-solving interdependency, are effectively transforming indigenous knowledge inherited from their parents to confront daily challenges. The article suggests ways of bridging the gap between development players by proposing an African Development Institutional Mechanism (ADIM) aimed at enabling key development players to operate in synergy.     

Membership accession in the African Union: The relationship between enforcement and compliance,and the case for differential membership

It is argued in this paper that the level of non-compliance is high in the Organisation of African Unity/African Union in part because the organisation failed to institute and enforce strict membership accession conditionalities. Across the life of the organisation, this has resulted in non-compliance, mainly the non-payment of dues and non-implementation of policies. This position adds a historical dimension to arguments that identify weak economic capacity and the lack of political will as the main sources of non-compliance. It also supports the thesis that the enforcement of strict accession rules prepares states to perform their obligations and sets them up to receive benefits from the group. In 2002, Africa's continental body changed its mandate from liberation to integration. Since integration requires the strict enforcement of accession rules, the paper suggests that the organisation proceed by choosing differential membership to align the behaviour of its members to their obligations.     

POLITICAL CORRUPTION IN SOUTH AFRICA

Public opinion suggests that political corruption is entrenchedin South Africa. Comparative experience does not indicate thatthe historical South African political environment was especiallylikely to nurture a venal bureaucracy; as a fairly industrializedand extremely coercive state the apartheid order may have beenless susceptible to many of the forms of political corruptionanalysts have associated with other post-colonial developingcountries. Democratization has made government less secret,inhibiting corruption in certain domains but through extendinggovernment's activities opening up possibilities for abuse inothers. Today's authorities argue that the present extent ofcorruption is largely inherited and indeed certain governmentdepartments, notably those concerned with security and the homelands,as well as the autonomous homeland administrations themselves,had a history of routine official misbehaviour. After describingthe distribution and nature of corruption in South African publicadministration this article concludes that a substantial proportionof modern corruption occurs in regional administrations andcertainly embodies a legacy from the homeland civil services.A major source of financial misappropriation in the old centralgovernment, secret defence procurement, no longer exists butcorruption is stimulated by new official practices and freshdemands imposed upon the bureaucracy including discriminatorytendering, political solidarity, and the expansion of citizenentitlements. Though much contemporary corruption is inheritedfrom the past, the simultaneous democratization and restructuringof the South African state makes it very vulnerable to new formsof abuse in different locations.     

The end of the post-colonial state in Africa? Reflections on changing African political dynamics

Examination of the political trajectory of African states sincethe terminal colonial period suggests that, by the 1990s, the‘post-colonial’ label still widely employed waslosing its pertinence. The term acquired widespread currencynot long after independence in acknowledgment of the importationinto new states of the practices, routines and mentalities ofthe colonial state. These served as a platform for a more ambitiousform of political monopoly, whose legitimating discourse wasdevelopmentalism. The colonial state legacy decanted into apatrimonial autocracy which decayed into crisis by the 1980s,bringing external and internal pressures for economic and politicalstate reconfiguration. But the serious erosion of the statenessof many African polities by the 1990s limited the scope foreffective reform and opened the door for a complex web of novelcivil conflicts; there was also a renewed saliency of informalpolitics, as local societies adapted to diminished state presenceand service provision. Perhaps the post-colonial moment haspassed.     

Diaspora and drug trafficking in West Africa: A case study of Ghana

This article interrogates the emergence of drug traffickingin contemporary Ghana and West Africa within the context ofa global political economy, situated within a deeper historicalperspective. It examines the earlier trafficking of cannabisalong the coast of West Africa in the colonial period, and thelater transnational networks that have emerged to promote internationaldrug trafficking (cocaine and heroin). The article probes howthe African diaspora and international travel service theseemerging drug networks in Ghana, West Africa, Europe and theAmericas. It suggests that the concept of an ‘ideologicaldiaspora’ could shed light on a shared global popularculture, which constitutes a counter culture and rationalizescriminal activities.     

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.     

Thabo Mbeki’s African developmental agenda through Pan-Africanism and the African renaissance

In 1996, the then South African deputy president thabo Mbeki opened parliament with his since then acclaimed ‘I am an African’ speech. Subsequently, Mbeki publicly persuaded Africans to embrace and advance the concept of an African renaissance for Africa’s development. While Mbeki’s African renaissance project was welcomed on the one hand; on the other, it was anticipated that it would be an elitist project. In this article, it is argued that to the contrary, the African renaissance as pursued by Mbeki has sought to benefit ordinary Africans in a practical sense. This article uses a historical narrative approach so as to give a historical context against which Mbeki’s African renaissance emerged, highlighting the successes, failures, constraints, setbacks and challenges that he had to confront. the argument is that African intellectuals and academics who correctly point out the absence of a mass-based African renaissance movement must not stand apart and merely point fingers, but must be actively engaged in the realisation of the African renaissance ideals.     

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.     

African indigenous ecology control and sustainable community livelihood in southern African history

Abstract

Based on sources for African Indigenous Ecology Control and Sustainable Community Livelihood in Southern African history this article argues that political independence in the Southern African region has altered the historiography of the region and the African continent as a whole. Black Africans are now looking to the past for inspiration to constitute the foundations of sustainable livelihoods using their own indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) and resources. The indicatives of the African Renaissance also demand that we draw on the significance of the control by pre-colonial African communities of their ecosystems. Existing testimonies show prosperity among pre-colonial African communities in the region. The argument is that, in order to restore the historical achievements of Africans in the region, IKS should form a constitutive part of education.     

Un/clothing African womanhood: colonial statements and postcolonial discourses of the African female body

Using the examples of the partially unclothed African woman in Senegal's controversial African Renaissance Monument (2009) and the 2008 proposed Anti-Nudity bill in Nigeria, this article probes postcolonial African engagements with the female body. The essay proposes that such postcolonial African preoccupations with how the female body is presented and seen should be contextualised in the fray of postcolonial African endeavours to resignify Africa, in response to colonial discourses. The essays bind these preoccupations to an ideologico-discursive continuum that has produced and sustained the African female body as a rhetorical element of colonialism then postcolonialism.     

Seducing the people: Populism and the challenge to democracy in South Africa

Recent ructions in South Africa's ruling African National Congress have been described from time to time in the media as signalling a dangerous shift towards ‘populism’. The article examines this contention. It argues that South Africa is witnessing a significant challenge to the founding precepts of constitutional democracy. This challenge emanates from the (populist) equation of democracy with ‘the will of the people’. The article unpacks some of the implications of reducing democracy to majoritarianism. It provides also an analysis of why populist appeals of various kinds have been so appealing to South African voters 15 years into democracy. The article argues that the challenges that are currently being experienced in relation to democratisation in South Africa have to do with the inherent tension between the animating ideology of democracy, which suggests that power resides with the people, and the practical functioning of democracy, which relies on the devolution of power to the representatives chosen by a section of the people who rely on order and predictability in the polity in order to govern in a workable way. Populist appeals, it is argued, exploit this tension. But what makes it possible for this strategy to succeed is the failure on the part of political elites to engage in the process of building democracy by way of inculcating respect for democratic values.     

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.     

Mbeki's African Renaissance Vision as Reflected in isiXhosa Written Poetry: 2005–2011

IsiXhosa literary critics have not yet interrogated literature that was produced during and after the tenure of Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki as deputy president and president of the Republic of South Africa in order to study the impact of his African Renaissance doctrine. This article analyses poetry that was produced from 2005 to 2011. The content of the isiXhosa written poetry is profoundly influenced by the context of former President Mbeki's African Renaissance philosophy, its implementation structures and philosophy of self-confidence and self-reliance. The selected poems analysed and interpreted in this article suggest that Mbeki's legacy of the African Renaissance empowered poets to develop a narrative that advances the building of a regenerated South African nation and the African continent. Selected poetry of the period is contextualised, and the findings reveal that the poets have a dialectical relationship with historical developments of the time, and that they demonstrate acquiescence to the African Renaissance ideology, and support the operational structures created; namely African Union, Pan-African Parliament and the Vuk’uzenzele programme.     

The Common African Defence and Security Policy

The literature on Africa’s collective security arrangementsfocuses on the African Union’s Peace and Security Counciland the Central Organ of the Organization of African Unity (OAU)before it. This article shows that the Peace and Security Councilis only an implementation mechanism of a broader policy framework,the Common African Defence and Security Policy (CADSP), thatwas adopted recently in Sirte, Libya. The article argues thatthe adoption of such a broader collective security policy frameworkwas made possible by changes within the international system.These changes brought about a shift from realism to idealismin various regions of the world. In Africa, the idealistic undercurrentfound expression in renewed interest in African institutionsand African solutions to African problems. The article alsodemonstrates that the CADSP will confront many challenges rangingfrom general theoretical and normative questions that bedevilcollective security arrangements elsewhere to specific issuessuch as funding and other practical implementation matters.     

‘One step at a time’: An interview with Jean-Bertrand Aristide (former President of Haiti)

ABSTRACT

I am an African. I speak an African language.

Ngingum-Afrika. Ngikhuluma izilimi zase-Afrika. (isiZulu)

Ndingum-Afrika. Ndithetha ulwimi lwase-Afrika. (isiXhosa)

Mimi ni mAfrika. Nazungumza lugha ya waAfrika. (Swahili)

The sense of pride inherent in this statement belies the challenge that African languages face today. Multilingualism in African languages is not seen as a rich resource when confronted by the economic clout of English. A compromise is needed – one where the value of indigenous languages and that of English is recognised. A trained translator and interpreter is one such compromise, becoming the key link between African development and African achievement. For the non-English speaker, this link would enable understanding and, through it, knowledge and empowerment. With translation and interpretation, knowledge can come to every person at their level of understanding. This article argues that the training of the skilled translator and interpreter in an African language is the critical link in the development and achievement of the disadvantaged African person. Language now becomes a resource, affirming further that it is also language that provides pride in one's identity, hence … I am an African. I speak an African language.