The struggle against free-market capitalism is usually seen as a progressive movement. It is often influenced by Marxist thought and an anti-capitalist ideology.
This struggle is predominately economic; to gain economic independence and to assert African power by refusing to be passive.
There is no doubt that international capital seeks new markets in Africa and to exploit its resources and people. It is without doubt that the exploiting nations use the exportation of their culture in an attempt to carry their ideas and values. The USA’s promotion of contemporary art and jazz within the old Soviet Union explicitly had these aims.
However, part of this anti-globalisation struggle includes another group whose aims are very different. They see the struggle as being primarily about culture. They use the same arguments and language as the radicals, but they are not revolutionaries. Their language of liberation, of African independence and opposition to aid, seeks not to liberate but to constrain. They seek to ossify culture and to maintain the status quo. They are social conservatives.
My distinction between the economic and cultural is crude because aspects of culture and economics matter in varying degrees to both groupings but hopefully it is helpful in broadly distinguishing between the two trends.
Like the American Right which labelled every criticism of American foreign policy as Anti-American, the social conservatives label values that do not conform to their conservative ideals as un-African.
We can see this trend most clearly around the current debate on homosexuality in Ghana. Denying that this behaviour has been a consistent part of their culture, the conservatives attempt to represent it as something alien. And because it is alien it must be resisted to preserve a notion of African-ness.
Another common example is their attacks on women’s fashion – short skirts and hair styles. They vilify that which offends their moral sensibilities determining it as foreign and outside of a their perceived monolithic African culture. Traditional dress may have the same short skirts and even nudity but this is conveniently forgotten in following their agenda.
They depict ‘The West’ as a degenerate society which is falling apart as a way of reinforcing cultural rigidity in their own society.
There is something uncomfortably xenophobic about the labelling of ‘bad’ things as Western, often a euphemism for White. It stereotypes entire nations as uniform and degenerate whilst attempting to preserve an illusion of African purity by ignoring different problems inherent within African culture.
Some African leaders have risen on the tide of revolution, then quickly used these fear techniques to entrench their leadership and give justification to it.
Ironically, when it comes to traditional religion, social conservatives may condemn it showing the inconsistency of their position.
A problem with the debate is that it presumes that outside influences come in with the same meaning and use-value, whereas it seems to me that they become “Africanised” and assimilated into the wider culture. It also assumes that the importation of ideas and artefacts is, per se, an expression of cultural domination. The debate itself may give the illusion that societies have control over this whereas I’m not sure whether this can be the case any longer. The fetishisation of America culture is not really about America: it’s about a concept in which wealth is apparently available to all.
With the urbanisation of traditional cultures, the mechanisms for preserving tradition and preventing cultural transgressions are being destroyed. The values the conservatives despise are often a result not the cause of this breakdown.
As cross-fertilisation has already taken place it is hard to see how we can turn back. There may well be a discussion to be had around which aspects of outside influences may be helpful and which values should be preserved. But who is involved in this discussion, how does it takes place and how much control is it possible to have over implementing its decisions?
But equally, the arguments of the social conservatives might also recognise this. It may not be about turning back the clock but of rallying people around their power base, creating uniformity through hostility to the rest of the (evil) world and about creating consensus through fear and allegiance to ideas around African-ness – a closing of the ranks and a way of defining themselves against the rest of the world.
After writing this I came across this video of Wole Soyinka which I felt touched on some of the issues I was attempting to articulate:
Well said and on point.
Interesting how you repeatedly stress the dichotonmy of what you perceive to be others’ view of the evil white versus puritanical black. But a few centuries ago, the dynamic would have been reversed and ‘the dark continent’ would have been the one with the universally accepted propensity of spewing out all things diabolical. Whiles white signified all things good and wrapped in purity. Sadly, in those times there were no noble activists to lament the woes of how uncomfortable the xenophobia made them.
Amazing how things have a way of balancing out, I think.
So is this act of wrongly-accussed-victim a way of drumming up support for a failed attempt to transplant all other cultures with one no less flawed and human? It may work on some, but mercifully (i.e. God being so good) there are others who will see right through the facade.
There is no wrong in the rest of the world finally waking up to the need to reinforce the hold on their ways of being from the onslaught of Western assimilation. Especially when lately the kinks in the smoke screen can clearly be seen, thanks to the very globalization being championed and lauded.
The West has no answers, contrary to what they would have everyone else to believe. About time Africa stopped saying “Aaah” and swallowing the BS and got busy creating our own way.
“The West has no answers”? Do you honestly believe this?
I wonder too whether attitudes to what is being ‘forced’ upon Africa by the West also ignore global accessibility. Once globalisation meant foreign nations bringing their goods (products/language/culture etc) and inflicting it on another country. The internet now allows people to go out and actively seek it.
I would also question the ‘west has no answers’ attitude. It’s merely the flipside of “Africa has no answers”. Brilliant, creative, appropriate answers are to be found on both sides of the divide. Finding respectful ways to source and implement those ideas is what matters.
‘Respectul ways”, ey? I would agree with that, I certain many Africans might also have agreed many years ago, but it seems that back then, the need was not recognized.
We have been bitten and have felt(still feeling) the pain.
It is true that most of the influence lately is more of a pull than a push situation following the advent of globalization. Then again, we are no longer asleep and dreaming about white angels.
I reiterate, the West has NO answers.
None.
Consider it for minute or two. Ask yourself what the definition of insanity is and then look at this in terms of African’s dealings with Europe and America for as long as modern history records it. Then maybe you can answer your own questions as objectively as you can manage.
You’ve made some fine and important points which i do not disagree with. But i believe that this ‘phenomenon’ can be experienced in other places apart from Africa, nonetheless its an issue about power and pride which emanates from Culture, in most cases. thats why Nkrumah’s african personality mantra did a lot to change the mind set of the colonial subject after independence.
while people may not be necessarily revolutionary for pursuing the anti-globalisation agenda by waving the cultural flag, they do so becos they don’t want to lose the little power they wield.
But you can’t be too white than the white man, and indeed if there are negative Western cultures, why shdnt indigenous Cultural advocates decry them when there’s a subtle and deliberate attempt to out play Africans culturally? more so when there are economic implications. it makes economic sense for my sense to acquire a mini skirt [locally produced in african print] than an imported one.
there’s also a period within the Ghanaian history where smoking became fashionable, i think in the 50′s right on to the 60′s and 70′s ,becos British American Tobacco were locally producing cigarettes in Ghana with massive success. it had to take nationalisation to curb the trend.
we can have a retrospective discussion on the origins of certain cultures later. but i believe that the world is converging culturally, for eg facebooking has become so pervasive and is allowing for cross fertilization.
Thanks for adding to the discussion Nii.
To me it seems that labelling certain points of view as “un-African” etc. is actually intended to discourage fellow Africans from taking on those views if they don’t want to be considered victims of Western propaganda, while in fact the opinions concerned can be held by anyone for all sorts of reasons, not necessarily because they have adopted a Western outlook on life. For example, I have witnessed discussions where young women questioning practices they considered to be unfair against women were done away with using the argument that, “gender” being a Western concept, using it in the African context made no sense within an African (and Islamic, in that case) mode of thinking. The same game is played with the notion of “human rights” and others.To me, the issue at stake is not the way Africans relate to Europeans etc., but rather a cheap way of dismissing meaningful and well-founded arguments within African societies with some lazy tricks in order to preserve the prevailing power relations.
I agree with you. It is a way of being able to dismiss ideas without having to think about them. There are also ideologies and belief systems that protect themselves the same way unfortunately. I also used to be part of one and dismissed anything by someone I labelled “right wing”. I think all ideas have to be examined then accepted or rejected on their merit. But I’m still stuck – there are values that are African and are unique – how do we identity them and hold on to them? Is it possible anymore? Is it desirable?
@ there are values that are African and are unique – how do we identity them and hold on to them? Is it possible anymore? Is it desirable?
As a socio-cultural scientist and philosopher by profession I have travelled to a number of places in search of just those values, and I believe that yes, African values are still with us, that is, human values that find their expression in a unique way in Africa – and of course those unique ways are also diverse even within Africa. (Most geographical maps are deceptive in that they do not render the real size of Africa due to the way the 3-dimensional globe is projected on flat paper– a numerical comparison of different continents in square kilometers reveals the real dimension of this absolutely impressive continent.)
I wouldn’t call the values in themselves uniquely African, because everything that has to do with being humane, wise, being able to heal and to help people to develop their character and spirit and live together well is by definition a general human value. It is the expressions that are unique, not the values themselves. (One of my professors used to say that the shortcomings or flipsides of a culture are usually directly linked to its strongest points, and I guess it’s this mixture of strong and weak points that makes all of us unique, cultures as well as individuals.)
Taking a closer look at different traditions across the continents, my intuition has rather been confirmed that, on a deep level, there is indeed a very strong connection and relatedness in those core values, however different things appear on the surface. And after reading the really intriguing research by Cheikh Anta Diop I believe that many of these instances of relatedness are not by chance but can be traced back to common origins.
But I would like to mention yet another point that took me a long time to discover: Do people who are attacking Western thinking really know what many Westerners of today are actually thinking? At least I myself must confess that I used to have a rather unsophisticated, one-dimensional representation of Western thinking, taking as a reference what we learn at school, read in the main newspapers and study at university.
One thing that has really surprised me, though, is to find just how much a lot of people in Europe care about non-Western values today, and about their own pre-Christian, “pagan” values and traditions as well. There is a strong sense that we urgently need to change. The Westerners themselves are becoming less and less Western, they are interested in Shamanism, traditional initiation, herbal medicine, reincarnation, – you name it. It is not even a recent phenomenon, it has been there throughout the centuries, with more or less disguises depending on how strong the pressure and surveillance was. And it is not just those people which can be easily identified who are into these things, but also some of the very average-looking, seemingly bourgeois people of all generations, who are much less “Western-minded” (in the stereotypical sense) than anyone could guess at first sight. I have plenty of evidence for that. Maybe the desire to re-discover and embrace those values and traditions is even stronger in modern urban European environments than in the corresponding modern urban African environments, because the sense of loss may be even more acute and stinging there, since the established religions have become hollow, outdated and meaningless to many, while in Africa more people still tend to associate them with modernity, in spite of becoming more and more dissatisfied with them, too…that would be my guess, but who can tell?
Sorry for having been that long, but your question has inspired me to elaborate on this a bit, kind regards and best wishes!
Thank you so much for that comment – you have just shifted my outlook on the world! I can confirm your statement that, at least in the UK, non-Western values are being explored by many people. You’ve raised so many interesting points I’m very grateful.