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.     

African research and development surveys: Highlights from the South African success story

ABSTRACT

Science and technology have a major role to play in current and future developments on the African continent as a whole. With the vast array of developmental challenges, current thinking needs to be expanded, so that technologies provide increased and enhanced solutions, such that African scientists produce an African response to the very many shared challenges affecting Africa – both as individual nations and as regards African people collectively. Key to developing an integrated science and technology network, within and across nations, is firstly to understand the extent of research and development (R&D) currently undertaken within individual territories and on the continent as a whole. In light of this, the article examines the value and importance of national surveys of research and experimental development undertaken in Africa. Within the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), many member states now have dedicated departments overseeing state science and technology (S&T) development initiatives. South Africa has the most developed science and technology system on the continent. In recent years, other SADC countries like Mozambique, Botswana and Namibia have initiated projects to measure R&D activities within their territories. Despite this, further North, R&D measurement on the continent is uncommon, both as a result and as a cause of underdevelopment.

The article explores the limited data from selected African R&D surveys in an attempt to understand measurement issues that exist and to detail the value and importance of mapping S&T systems and their applications to developmental issues in Africa. In countries like Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, where S&T systems exist, effective means of measurement need to be established, so that the power of these systems can be harnessed, shared and exploited to benefit the African people. To this end, the African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (ASTII) initiative was set up at a meeting in Addis Ababa with the aim of delivering a survey of these countries’ R&D output and potential. This is eagerly awaited by the African S&T community.

At the forefront of African R&D measurement is the South African national R&D survey, administered by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). Being an established survey, the South African team is often called upon by other African nations to support the setting up of surveys. The HSRC also trains visiting African scientists in the delivery of accurate and reliable R&D survey data. This article will, for the first time, present detailed results of the most recent South African national R&D survey (2008/2009), together with a trend analysis of historic South African R&D surveys.     

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.     

The African renaissance and the Caribbean

In May 2010 South African President Jacob Zuma will have been in office for one year. During this time, the Zuma administration has been far less ambitious in its foreign policy than previous administrations. However, South Africa is not in a position where it is able to withdraw from foreign engagement, as regional issues — such as Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Swaziland — continue to demand attention. The Zuma administration's approach in the future, in terms of both substance and style, will need to be informed by lessons from past engagement, including South African peacekeeping efforts in countries such as the DRC and Burundi, and South African mediation efforts in countries such as Angola, Côte d'Ivoire and the Comoros. Certainly, South Africa's record of success in taking on international responsibilities over the past 10 years has been mixed, but there is scope for past experience to shape future engagement positively. Indications of this can be seen, for example, in Zuma's efforts to redress former President Thabo Mbeki's clumsy mediation efforts in Angola by deciding to make his first state visit as South Africa's president to Luanda. Zuma's approach to Zimbabwe could build on the foundation set by Mbeki's long engagement with that country.     

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.     

The Importance of the South African Mining Industry

The address that follows was given by the South African HighCommissioner at a joint meeting of the Royal African Societyand the Royal Commonwealth Society on April 2, 1959, Sir PercivaleLiesching, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., former U. K. High Commissionerin South, Africa, took the chair.     

Our African Territories

This article represents the second half of a speech made ata combined meeting with the Royal Empire Society, on the 27thFebruary. Mr. Creech Jones was deputising, at short notice,for his chief, Mr. George Hall, with Lord Harlech in the chair.The first part of the address was devoted to a general statementof British Colonial principles.     

An African Review

This article represents the bulk of a lecture on 27th May. Thespeaker, a former Governor of Tanganyika and Governor-Generalof the Sudan, paid a visit last winter to South, Central, andEast Africa.     

West African Voices

A new literary programme has been started in the West AfricanService of the B.B.C., and this article is a reprint of oneof the talks. The Ibo speaker was formerly in the Customs, andqualified as a barrister last November: he is also the authorof numerous poems in English, and of a novel, The Prince ofUtete. The other two are schoolmasters working as Assistantsat the School of Oriental and African Studies. For technicalreasons, the orthography is not quite complete.     

East African Development

This article represents the bulk of the speech by the Kenyapolitician now member of the E. African Central Assembly, toa joint meeting with the Royal Empire Society, under the Chairmanshipof Roger Norton, C.M.G., O.B.E., the East African Commissionerin London.     

African Mental Ability

No question is more vital to the future of Africa than the mentalcapacity of its original inhabitants, whose two main groupingsare the Negro and the Bantu-speaking peoples. Nor is any questionless exactly known. It was therefore with surprise that manypeople learned earlier this year that Colonel Deneys Reitz hadmade the following statement in a war review at the Guildhallin London: "I am not an anthropologist and therefore not qualifiedto say whether our native tribes will ever be capable of evolvingup to European standards. Indeed the balance of scientific evidenceappears to lean to the contrary opinion." The Union High Commissionerin London speaks with the authority of a former South AfricanMinister of Native Affairs. Nevertheless this statement hasnot gone without challenge. The following article was writtenat our request by the Principal of the Adams Native Collegein Natal, who also represents the Natives of Natal and Zululandin the South African Senate. But the subject is of such importanceand such complexity that we have added an extended summary ofa book by Dr. S. Bieshcuvel, a psychologist now working withthe R.A.F., on "African Intelligence".Dr. Bieshcuvel‘swork, which has been delayed by the war, is a reply to someof the "scientific evidence" cited by Colonel Reitz. Althoughin his article Dr. Brookes mentions other work (by Dr. van Rensburg)more recent than Dr. Fick’s, the summary may give someidea of the complexity of the work of investigation requiredbefore it acquires a true scientific validity.