‘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.     

Africa's indigenous languages as the cornerstone of the African Renaissance

Abstract

This article explores and emphasises the crucial link between the African Renaissance and Africa's indigenous languages. It sheds light on the impact of colonial languages on Africa's colonial state. Indigenous African languages, Ndhlovu (2008, 42) says ‘are essential for the decolonisation of African minds and for the African Renaissance’. However, the finding was that the promotion of colonial languages at the expense of indigenous African languages is characteristic of the colonial state of Africa. The argument is, therefore, in favour of the consideration of indigenous African languages in the promotion of African Renaissance.     

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.     

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.     

Meeting Cheikh Anta Diop on the Road to African Resurgence

The African people's relentless struggle to tell their own stories and take charge of their own historical languages is a prerequisite for achieving an African Renaissance. This argument, informed by Afrocentricity—a theoretical framework which advances the view that any examination of African issues must be informed by African history and culture—takes its cue from the great Senegalese Pan-Africanist and African Renaissance advocate, Cheikh Anta Diop. The year 2018 marks 70 years since Diop, at a tender age of 25, wrote his essay When will we be able to speak of an African Renaissance? On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of this article, it is appropriate that the African Renaissance project advocates take a moment and deeply reflect on how they can take African scholarship to higher levels and intensify and consolidate the struggle to liberate Africa from being preoccupied with the Eurocentric trajectory of privileging Europe and Europeans in all aspects of life—the intellectual, political, cultural, social and material. This article argues that embracing Africology—the Afrocentric approach to scholarship—is the first step towards the liberation of a scholarship project. Diop dedicated his life to using sciences—both the natural and social sciences for the liberation of Africa and humankind—to liberate Africans from inferiority complex, and Europeans from superiority complex. Although Diop recognised both the importance of science and ideology in the service of humanity, he drew a line between them.     

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.     

Developing Powers and the Challenge of Peacekeeping: The Example of Malawi

Abstract

Malawi’s contribution to UN peacekeeping is growing. The development of the Malawi Defence Force was stunted under Hastings Banda, but Malawi’s foreign and security policies were reoriented under multiparty democracy and the Defence Force and police personnel were engaged in peacekeeping missions. Peacekeeping has had a profound effect on Malawi. It has led to the procurement of military hardware, contributed substantial sums to the national economy, and raised the income and living standards of participants. It has encouraged the adoption of UN best practice and contributed to gender integration. However, there are issues around transparency and accountability, and more partnerships with developed countries are desirable. There is also a role for the Commonwealth.     

Opposition politics in Malawi: hopeful signs amid the warnings

Across Africa, governments are either peacefully and legitimately ousted, or forced to share power, through the ballot box. In Malawi, the emergence of many political parties since the advent of a multiparty dispensation in 1993 signalled the flourishing of pluralism and opposition politics. However, in the May 2009 elections, the Malawi Congress Party and the United Democratic Front, which constituted the opposition, were largely rejected by the electorate in favour of President Bingu Mutharika's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), credited for his sound economic policies emulated internationally. The reduced presence in parliament of parties outside of the Democratic Progressive Party coalition is troubling. This development has stimulated debate on the opposition's role and ability to defend democratic governance, and the challenges facing it. On the other hand, the DPP's landslide victory has to some degree demonstrated that it is possible to ‘de-regionalise’ and ‘de-ethinicise’ the configuration and alignment of political interests and forces, confirming for other African countries that the analysis of African politics need not be oversimplified into ethnic and cultural terms as is often the case. This paper contends that democratic governance is promoted by a credible opposition that effectively acts as an alternative government. Therefore, there is need for addressing the major factors that militate against its operations to enable it play its rightful role in Malawi's emerging democracy.     

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.     

The development path of rooibos tea – a review of patterns and lessons learnt for the commercialisation of other indigenous teas in South Africa

ABSTRACT

The commercial value of indigenous South African animal and plant resources can add significantly to the nation's socioeconomic development and contribute towards the achievement of the goals of the African Renaissance. However, very few of the country's many indigenous plants have been successfully commercialised. This article reviews the development phases of one success story: rooibos tea. Its development trajectory offers a useful lesson in the commercialisation of other South African indigenous animal and plant resources. Constraints that hindered the effective commercialisation of the beverage are highlighted, notably the initial over-reliance on a local market and the lack of coordinated broad marketing and quality assurance. These constraints were compounded by international trade restrictions imposed on South Africa prior to the 1994 transition to democracy. While the world moved forward, the rooibos tea sector lagged behind in the development of niche markets. It was only in the late 1990s when a seemingly perfect match between the health-giving properties of rooibos and consumer needs was achieved, thus creating a vibrant niche market for the tea. Since then, production and sales of rooibos tea have increased markedly. Adherence to national and international codes of good manufacturing practice, together with the recognition of the importance of fair trade principles regarding the participation of small-scale cooperatives, are becoming increasingly important parameters for product acceptance.     

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.     

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.     

Lessons from Ugandan indigenous knowledge systems regarding the management of HIV and AIDS

Abstract

Health is one of the major challenges facing Africa today. Solutions need to come from within and outside Africa, drawing from Africa's indigenous knowledge systems. This article describes the life cycles of malaria, tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and presents some strategies for the control and prevention of these diseases that are lessons and experiences from African countries.     

Conflicting leadership paradigms in Africa: A need for an African Renaissance perspective1

ABSTRACT

This article looks at key elements of leadership paradigms in Africa. A timeline is drawn and Africa's contemporary leadership in the past 50 years is situated within three periods, each of which is anchored by an event(s) that shifted the continent's political and/or intellectual and theoretical landscape. Juxtaposed against these periods is traditional leadership and its cross-cutting role in governance in Africa. Current manifestations of crisis in the leadership paradigm are looked at, which draws the author to critique what he terms the matrix that produces the contemporary generation of leaders, and advocates for the incorporation of Africa's historical and cultural legacy as a cornerstone in new leadership paradigms, and places it within the context of an African Renaissance.     

Harvard on China II: Logic,evidence, and ideology

Abstract

The December 1972 issue of this Bulletin contained two contributions to an ongoing debate on imperialism in Chinese history from Andrew Nathan and Joseph Esherick. This review article has the more restricted, if not more modest, aim of examining two of the most significant works cited by Nathan and Esherick, both of which have been published in the Harvard University Press's East Asian Series. The two books provide a reinforcing and complementary picture of the effects of foreign economic penetration on, respectively, the peasantry and the indigenous industrial and handicraft production of China over roughly the same time period. I will restrict myself to a critique of the internal consistency and the standards of logic and evidence in the two volumes.     

Poets,culture and orature: A reappraisal of the Malawi political public sphere, 1953–2006

Mapanje and Mphande make a persuasive case for the significant role of literature in challenging Dr Banda's one-party hegemony. The contested terrain, as Mphande notes, was orality, the dominant medium in Malawi where literacy levels are low. It has been assumed, though, that orature did little to challenge Banda's hegemony. I argue that far from being silent, the popular musicians and dramatists (as orature) were much braver than the writers. While written poetry and prose was often presented in coded and dense texts, the musicians’ and dramatists lyrics and texts were usually much more explicit. And while writers used folk tales and appropriations from traditional culture as templates to critique Dr Banda's autocratic regime, oral practitioners went further, critiquing Dr Banda's regime using the same templates but also pointing out the socio-economic suffering of the peasantry.

Since 1994, as writers’ critiques have become muted and spasmodic in the ‘multiparty’, musicians have consistently been loud and forceful voices on behalf of the poor. From 1953 to 2006, orature has been a continuous tool of resistance whereas literature has been an intermittent response, often related to patronage, to political and socio-economic events. Further, while literature tends to be concerned predominantly with human rights and democracy issues, orature is concerned with these as well as socio-economic rights; a distinction reflective of class, the rural/urban divide and education in Malawi. The findings are generalisable to other Bantu-language-speaking countries such as Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Mozambique. I posit that assessments of Malawi's current and future socio-economic and political cultures that exclude oral critiques miss significant and critical factors impacting on developmental changes in these spheres.     

The foreign policy of the Zuma government: pursuing the ‘national interest’?

It was after much anticipation that members of the new Jacob Zuma foreign policy executive announced that, for the duration of their term, South Africa's foreign policy would be based on the doctrine of advancing ‘the national interest’, conceptualised simply as the ‘most vital needs’ of the country. However, almost two years since taking control of the levers of policy and political power, the South African government has yet to spell out in detail what constituted the national interest or how such interest would be pursued. In spite of this lacuna, senior members of the new foreign policy inner-elite continue to proclaim the national interest, and proceed to spell out grander foreign policy goals that they would pursue under the banner of a ‘new’ developmental agenda. These include consolidating the African agenda; deepening South–South cooperation; expanding South–North relations; strengthening foreign political and economic ties generally; and participating in a global system of governance. To date, this proclamation that the national interest will be the beam that will guide foreign policy has remained little more than a statement of intent and much conjecture. The challenge is to move beyond rhetoric and intentions and to define the national interest and to articulate a coherent foreign policy going forward. This will require concrete proposals on the basis of thorough-going domestic–foreign policy linkages.     

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.     

African Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Human Rights: Implications for Higher Education,Based on the South African Experience

ABSTRACT

Africa has rich traditions and knowledge systems founded on the principles of caring for one another and the spirit of mutual support embedded in the African philosophy of Ubuntu. These collective values tend to be marginalised in international human rights standards built on western values. The standards were developed without broad-based consultation of the different value systems in Africa. Therefore, in order to inspire sustainable implementation among diverse cultures, dialogue to develop universal human rights and obligations based on the diversity of cultures and ways of knowing is needed. Using South Africa's experience at two universities, the extent to which these institutions have attempted to incorporate African indigenous knowledge systems (AIKS) and human rights into the higher education curriculum is investigated. The implications for higher education and the human rights and development paradigms built on western knowledge systems are investigated. North-West University has been the pioneer of integrating AIKS into higher education in South Africa and is the only higher education institution in South Africa with an accredited IKS Teaching Programme at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels – which has been notably successful, albeit with some challenges. AIKS has also been integrated into research and teaching at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and has registered significant successes since 2012. The need to embed AIKS in the curriculum of higher education institutions is affirmed.