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What is Africa?

The Issue of Poverty and The Origin of Poverty

The Issue of Poverty and The Origin of Poverty

This class is a story about the history of Africa and how it shaped African Politics.

Let’s tell that story.

First, the question: What is Africa?

Very simply: A continent (not a country)

But a continent whose history is mostly defined by colonialism and foreign intrusions that, actually, caused the underdevelopment of the continent.

If is, first and foremost, the continent of black people (the Africans) into which other racial groups settled. Various ancient groups changed the face of Egypt beginning with the Assyrian invasion of the 9th century BCE and ending with the intrusions of the Arabs in the 7th Century and the colonization by Europeans beginning in the 15th century.

Looking at Africa from the 21st century backwards provides a misleading picture. The assumption tends to be that what we hear and see of Africa today (wars, famine, disease, poverty dictatorships, etc.) is how Africa has always been and, thus, derives from an inherently flawed African character.

Principles of African Societies

Bicultural African Societies (Non-Muslim)

Tricultural African Societies (Muslim)

Macro-Structure of Postcolonial African Societies (Mengara, p. 289)

Note: Because Islam penetrated Africa well before European colonization, tricultural African societies have three competing civilizations.

To understand Africa today, actually, requires lots of deciphering and peeling away of various layers of foreign influence (Africa today is a mix of indigenous vs. Islamic vs. European cultures) (See Mengara 2001, pp. 288-291).

The Issue of Poverty and The Origin of Poverty

The Issue of Poverty and The Origin of Poverty

Acemoglu & Robinson (pp. 45-69) Let us see one instance of this deciphering and peeling away in Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s book, Why Nations Fail (2012).

Acemoglu and Robinson tackle the notion of poverty in Africa and how Westerners (Europeans and Americans) have often approached this issue.

They argue that, 50 years ago the difference in economic development between African countries and several others in Asia was not that great, yet today, you find that sub-Saharan African countries represent the bulk of what constitutes the poorest 30 countries in the world today. 50 years ago, for example, Singapore and South Korea would not be among the 30 richest countries in the world today (Acemoglu and Robinson, pp. 45-48).

The question, however, is: Why? (this is one of the questions we will be trying to answer in this class)

Acemoglu & Robinson do begin to analyze the source of this situation. They essentially identify three dominant and pervasive theories/hypotheses that they argue do not and cannot work when trying to both identify and solve the cause of poverty in Africa:

1. the Geography Hypothesis, 2. the Culture Hypothesis, and 3. the Ignorance Hypothesis.

That these three theories are still seen as surviving today to explain issues of poverty in Africa shows how pervasive and long-lasting old stereotypes of Africa have been and have continued to influence modern economic and political theory.

The Issue of Poverty and The Origin of Poverty

1) The Geography Hypothesis (pp. 48-56)

This theory essentially holds that geographical location (and environmental (effects of the sun on body and mind) factors have shaped the cultural as well as intellectual/mental capacity of humans, causing those in hot, tropical climates with poor soils for agriculture to become disease-ridden, primitive, lazy, despotic and, therefore, poor, while those living in temperate and/or cold climates with rich soils for agriculture grew healthy, industrious, civilized, democratic and, consequently, rich (pp. 48-49). This theory even argues that the availability of a large number of plant and animal species that can be domesticated is a determining factor in the economic and technological trajectories of nations (pp. 51-52).

Acemoglu & Robinson say: “Bullshit!!”

• Geography and the theories derived from it cannot account for differences between northern countries and southern countries;

• People in North and South Korea are essentially the same, yet the South is among the 30 richest countries in the world and the North among the 30 poorest (p. 49);

• East and West Germany had totally different economic and political outcomes, despite being both in Europe (p. 49);

• Tropical areas such as Central and Southern America (Peru and Mexico) produced the great material Inca and Aztec civilizations, while the native populations living in North America (United States and Canada) did not (pp. 50; 52-53);

• If it is true that the simple fact of domesticating animals and practicing Western types of agriculture is what explains Western wealth, how come, then, that settler colonies in South America such as Mexicans and Peruvians, countries built over the lands formerly occupied by the Aztecs (Mexico) and the Incas (Peru) are dramatically poorer than those of the settler colonies of North America (USA & Canada)? (p. 52).

• Even if the gap in income and well-being between Africans and Europeans was not that great at the time when the Portuguese first sailed around the coasts of Africa in the 15th century, how come the gap, since then, has drastically widened? Why did the contacts and transfers of knowledge and technology between Africans and Europeans did not allow Africans to “catch up”? (p. 53-54)

• What, then, happened?

• Acemoglu and Robison say: “Colonialism and imperialism!!” (Read p. 55-56)

The Issue of Poverty and The Origin of Poverty

2) The Culture Hypothesis (pp. 56-63)

This hypothesis essentially links one’s culture (and even religion) to one’s level of prosperity. Thus, according to this theory, the beliefs, values and ethics of a people can be determining factors that help to explain why some nations/races are poor while others are not. Africans are thus seen as lacking work ethics (lazy), lacking religion (they indulge in witchcraft, magic and superstition) and are averse to technological innovation (primitive) (p. 57).

Acemoglu & Robinson say: “Bullshit!!”

• While social norms do indeed inform a people’s attitude towards change and innovation, these factors (religion, national ethics, indigenous values) are not able, in themselves, to explain why inequality has persisted around the world despite the West, for example, having imposed its cultural norms and religion on the rest of the colonized world (p. 57);

• Although Protestant ethics were hailed as the cultural element that fueled the economic successes of England and The Netherlands in the modern era, the fact the French were Catholics did not prevent them from also becoming prosperous later on and compete for world dominance with England (p. 60).

• None of the economic successes of Asia (Japan, China) have nothing to do with Christianity, yet they are booming economically with China now arguably becoming the world’s most dominant economic power (and they are just getting started! (p. 62-63);

• There is much more to the economic situation of Islamic countries than religion that can explain why some are poor or others rich, so the fact of many of these being poor has no direct correlation to Islam (p. 61-62) The Chinese and Japanese are not Christian, yet they are thriving.

• Does the English language offer special attributes that make those who speak it more prosperous than those who don’t? So why are countries like Nigeria, India or Sierra Leone behind? (p. 62)

• How about European vs non-European culture? Well, why then are the much larger groups of descendants of Europeans who run Argentina and Uruguay poorer compared to those of the United States and Canada? And how come Asian countries (that have virtually no noticeable members of European descent) are doing so much better than those of South America, which have plenty of European descendants? (p. 62)

• How come that, in the 15th Century, Mbanza, capital city of in the Kongo Kingdom, with its 60,000 citizens, was equal in size to Lisbon and larger than London with its population of 50,000 around 1500, yet the Kongo Kingdom quickly dwindled after the Portuguese arrived there in 1483 and its King Nzinga a Nkuwu converted to Catholicism to become King João I? And how come the gun had seemed to flourish there more than other technologies and knowledges that the Portuguese are said to have brought with them? (Read, pp. 58-59)

The Issue of Poverty and The Origin of Poverty

2) The Culture Hypothesis (pp. 56-63)

What, then, happened?

Acemoglu and Robison say: “Colonialism and imperialism!!” • And, later, post-independence African governments” (Read p.

pp. 59-60).

• For the Kongo kingdom, colonialism brought a curse: slavery (which explains the success of guns used to capture the slaves that the Portuguese wanted); the pressures and incentives for slavery, in fact, did not come from within, but from the external demand that arose from the presence of Europeans (Read p. 60). • For Muslim countries, colonialism and imperialism also played a

role (Read p. 61); • Difference in institutions and institutional histories often

account for various economic situations (p. 63), and sometimes institutionalized racism can even slow down economic potential in countries with indigenous, native populations that have been excluded from economic opportunities due to racism, so that their poverty level often pulls down the level of economic prosperity of the whole nation (This may be the case in South America, for instance, but also in South Africa where about 75% of the land is still, 24 years after the end of Apartheid, in the hands of whites, who make up only 8% of the country’s population); • Other factors are, actually, more important, such as the level of

trust and/or cooperation among people; for instance, culture cannot explain the fact that North and South Korea essentially house the same people in terms of language, ethnicity and culture, yet the South is rich and the North is poor (p. 58);

The Issue of Poverty and The Origin of Poverty

3) The Ignorance Hypothesis (pp. 63-69)

This theory holds that countries are poor because their rulers and ruling classes and elites are ignorant and therefore do not know how to make their poor countries rich (p. 63); the theory argues that the principles of free market economy that make nations rich are likely to fail and lead to poverty where countries do not adhere to such principles; countries that accumulate market failures due to their non-adherence to free market principles are, thus, likely to grow poorer. Does this mean, therefore, that African countries are poor because its leaders have ignorant and mistaken views on how to run their countries and European rulers, thus, have enlightened views that make their countries richer? (p. 64)

Acemoglu & Robinson say: “Bullshit!!”

• It’s actually often about conscious and “intelligent” choices made by rulers and their regimes, who consciously and sometimes purposefully implement the wrong policies in order to ensure the political survival of their regimes in postcolonial countries whose make-up often forces them to make such choices; these choices, of course, lead to economic failure, but “successfully” save their regimes; such was the case of the choices made by Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana following Ghana’s independence from Britain in 1957 (Read p. 65-66); so the politics of political survival (that often lead to corruption and despotism) within the context of artificially created nation- states in Africa may be to blame, at least partially (p. 66-67).

• These are the same politics of survival that justified the need for leaders of the Chinese Communist Party to engage in reforms that let to their economic revolution (67-68); so, in the case of Ghana, political survival led to a choice of bad policies that however would ensure political survival, whereas in China, political survival forced the leaders to make sound policy decisions; two different paths to the same objective of political survival, but also two different political histories; Chinese poverty was caused by Chinese leaders and Chinese leaders instituted policies that led to their economic boom; in Ghana, poverty was a legacy of colonialism, but the postcolonial context that was created after independence led them to choices that ensured political survival, even when they knew their economic policies would not work; they basically did this on purpose for various reasons (p. 68). Traditional Western economic concepts have tended to ignore the role politics plays in shaping economic policy; Acemoglu & Robinson argue that one can solve economic policy issues only after one has solved political problems (p. 68-69)

• This theory also omits an important factor: the origin of poverty around the world (colonized countries vs. non-colonized countries);

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike allows us to address issues arising from how Africa and Africans were portrayed and (re)imagined in colonial times, especially through the various images and stereotypes that were encapsulated in the literature of Empire and Euro-American cinema.

Let us first review certain terminologies:

Stereotype (As applied to people): Widely held views (often negative or pejorative/derogatory) about specific individuals or specific ways of behaving that are then used to represent/depict entire groups. (may or may not accurately reflect reality); (Read Ukadike, p. 39)

Colonialism: A political-economic phenomenon whereby various European nations explored, conquered, settled, and exploited large areas of the world (Encyclopedia Britannica)

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans) • Exploration: Survey the land for signs of civilization

and/or wealth. The land is generally assumed empty by the colonizer and the natives “invisible” (see Images of Africa, p.5)

• Expropriation: Complete takeover of land/territory by colonizer.

• Appropriation: change of the landscape (renaming, reshaping, etc.), suppression of local values and replacement with the culture and customs of colonizer (government, culture, religion, institutions, laws, etc.)

• Exploitation: Free and coercive use of natural and human resources (slavery, forced labor, etc.)

• Justification: make local values illegal, attribute to them legal, cultural, and human faults that would justify all the above (helps to explain why the colonizers must remain and occupy (he proclaims himself needed as the natives are assumed unable to fend for themselves. This entails the concomitant use of a political, legal, economic and military/police system aimed at maintaining the colonized under firm control “for their own good” (civilizing mission commanded by the God-given right to bring salvation to the “wretched” of the world, whether they want it or not) (See Images of Africa, pp. 74-75; pp. 238)

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans)

Exploration: Survey the land for signs of civilization and/or wealth. The land is generally assumed empty by the colonizer and the natives “invisible” (see Images of Africa, p.5)

In other words, the colonizer arbitrarily construed any coveted African land as “empty” and its inhabitants as invisible.

Cecil Rhodes, the man who gave Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) its name, in this regard is known to have said:

I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race . . . Africa is still lying ready for us—it is our duty to take it!” (Flint 1974:248–50).

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans)

Expropriation: Complete takeover of land/territory by colonizer.

The notion of expropriation entails:

• the complete or quasi-complete political and administrative takeover of the coveted land or territory by the colonizer. Such a takeover can take the form of military excursions, conquest, and overt and/or covert pressures meant to brutally or gradually transfer political authority over indigenous lands to the colonizer’s administrative apparatus.

• It could also take such insidious forms as those that allowed explorers such as Henry Morton Stanley to claim huge chunks of land in Africa (Belgian Congo for instance) for European monarchs, based on bogus treaties signed with African chiefs who could not even read and write (Pakenham 1991:11–23).

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans)

Expropriation: Complete takeover of land/territory by colonizer.

Notes gathered by René de Pont-Jest from Christian de Bonchamps’s Katanga (Congo) expedition journal show, for example, that, as early as 1893, Marquis de Bonchamps was already sounding the alarm about such bogus treaties:

In reality the letters of submission signed with these little African tyrants, which comprise four long pages and of which they often understand not a single word, but that they approve by signing a cross in exchange for peace and some gifts, represent serious matters only for the European powers in the event of disputes over contested territories. At no time do they concern the black sovereign who signs them. (De Pont-Jest 1893:260; our translation)

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans) Expropriation: Complete takeover of land/territory by colonizer.

France’s own colonialist efforts show that:

Very quickly, the politics of conquest were reinforced with a policy of treaties whose goal was to attribute to France “lands that belonged to no one” or that were inhabited “by barbarous tribes.” These episodes—wars and treaties, often signed by force of coercion—multiplied and became the building blocks of the emerging colonial empire: war against Samory Touré (Guinea, 1886–1898), military campaigns against king Béhanzin (Dahomey, 1892–1894) or Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba (Senegal, 1895), conquest of Madagascar ending with Queen Ranavalona III’s exile (1883–1895), French protectorate* over Tunisia (1881–1883), “pacification” of Annam and Tonkin (1882–1896), creation of AOF [Afrique Occidentale Française] (1895) … Morocco, a protectorate that was conquered between 1906 and 1912, came to complete the North African edifice on the eve of the Great War. (Bancel, Blanchard & Vergès 2007:16–17; our translation)

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58)

Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans)

Expropriation: Complete takeover of land/territory by colonizer.

The General Act that came out of the Berlin Conference of (1884–)1885, and that pretty much sanctified the (self-proclaimed) God- given right of the Europeans to occupy Africa as they saw fit and share it (Pakenham 1991:254; Bancel, Blanchard & Vergès 2007:14–15) is, perhaps, in this context, the most powerful expression of a stage of expropriation.

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans) Appropriation: change of the landscape (renaming, reshaping, etc.), suppression of local values and replacement with the culture and customs of colonizer (government, culture, religion, institutions, laws, etc.)

What colonialism did, thus, was to reframe and reorganize the order of knowledge in a way that suppressed, displaced, and/or destabilized indigenous knowledge constructs while enshrining European ones (Mengara 2001a:3–4).

The concepts of “naming” and “re-naming” that go hand in hand with the stage of appropriation are also significant (Mengara 2001a:3–4). Calling a lake “Lake Victoria” can only refer to, but also marks the beginning of, a European-inspired history of Africa, that is, the process by which, according to V. Y. Mudimbe, Europe “invented” Africa. However, calling the same lake by its African names of Nam Lolwe in Luo language, Nalubaale in Luganda, or Nyanza in Kinyarwanda (Kollmann 1899) allows one to give precedence to the indigenous matrixes that organized the order of knowledge in the region prior to European intrusion.

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans) Appropriation: change of the landscape (renaming, reshaping, etc.), suppression of local values and replacement with the culture and customs of colonizer (government, culture, religion, institutions, laws, etc.)

It is worth noting here that the “civilizing mission” that was so important for Europe’s imperialist ideologies had, by the early seventeenth century, become synonymous with the spread of Christianity. Cohen reports, for instance, that “Conquest for the purpose of converting Africans had been suggested as early as 1402 by Jean de Béthencourt, a Norman who had conquered the Canary Islands . . . The theorist Montchrétien declared that conquest would be welcomed by ‘the many barbarian peoples who stretch out their arms to us, who are ready to subject themselves to us, so that by holy teachings and good examples we can set them on the road to salvation’” (Cohen 2003:175).

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans)

Exploitation: Free and coercive use of natural and human resources (slavery, forced labor, etc.)

The stage of exploitation, in a nutshell, implies the free and coercive use of natural and human resources in a way that benefits the colonizing people, metropole, or nation in quasi-exclusive fashion.

McEvedy, for instance, reports that a Lisbon merchant named Feñao Gomes was already, as early as 1469, making a fortune on the Guinea coast which allowed him to pay an annual 500 crusados into the royal treasury (1995:68). He adds that, by 1481, King John II of Portugal had a fort at Elmina on the Guinea coast whose aim was to take full advantage of the gold being mined in the area. This port, he asserts, was “Europe’s first foothold in black Africa” (McEvedy 1995:70).

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans)

Exploitation: Free and coercive use of natural and human resources (slavery, forced labor, etc.)

While chattel slavery became, as early as the 15th century, the earlier expression of an exploitative trend whereby tens of millions of African slaves were forcibly embarked on slave ships to go and manpower the plantations of the New World, the shift to colonialism during what Pakenham dubbed the “Scramble for Africa” (1991) in the nineteenth century signaled new forms of human and economic exploitation that relied on locally coerced labor.

In the context of French colonialism, for instance, William Cohen shows how, between 1530 and 1880, state, church, and abolitionists conspired to offer the outright colonial takeover of Africa as an alternative to a commerce of humans that, toward the beginning of the nineteenth century, had become of dwindling as well as dubious profitability (2003:155).

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans)

Exploitation: Free and coercive use of natural and human resources (slavery, forced labor, etc.)

As far as the so-called “Scramble for Africa” is concerned, Pakenham warns against believing that “[it] was Berlin that precipitated the Scramble.” In fact, he argues, “It was really the other way round. The Scramble had precipitated Berlin. The race to grab a slice of the African cake had started long before the first day of the conference” (Pakenham 1991:254).

But Pakenham also suggests that the Berlin Conference “marked a turning point in the history of Africa and Europe . . . For the first time great men like Bismarck had linked their names at an international conference to Livingstone’s lofty ideals: to introduce the ‘3 Cs’—commerce, Christianity, civilization—into the dark places of Africa” (1991:254).

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans)

Exploitation: Free and coercive use of natural and human resources (slavery, forced labor, etc.)

And, of course, with the “three Cs”—which really ought to be renamed the “four Cs” (adding one for “conquest”)—came the need to implement what the French called the mise en valeur of the continent (Cohen 1971:113; Conklin 1997:38–54), that is, a policy meant to organize the economic exploitation of the continent using an indigenous labor that, henceforth, would be forced to work in a quasi-state of enslavement.

Where the slave exported to the Americas had been the personal and private property of the slave owner, the African laborer now forcibly coerced to work on the African continent for the enrichment of the Empire became the public and collective property of the state, the King (as in the Belgian Congo) or, in the case of France, the Republic.

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans)

Justification:

• make local values illegal, attribute to them legal, cultural, and human faults that would justify all the above (helps to explain why the colonizers must remain and occupy (he proclaims himself needed as the natives are assumed unable to fend for themselves.

• This entails the concomitant use of a political, legal, economic and military/police system aimed at maintaining the colonized under firm control “for their own good” (civilizing mission commanded by the God-given right to bring salvation to the “wretched” of the world, whether they want it or not) (See Images of Africa, pp. 74- 75; pp. 238)

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58)

Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans)

Justification:

By the eighteenth century, justification of colonial expansion had become a moral obligation and “the spread of Christianity was perceived as part of a larger process of Europeanization” (Cohen 2003:176). Colonialism, thus, became a moral imperative that prompted such expansionists as Proudhon to argue that “Europe’s predestined role was teaching the non-European peoples the need for work; with regard to the Africans, whom he accused of being averse to labor, he announced, ‘it is our right to compel them to do so’” (Cohen 2003:271).

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans) Justification:

The consequence of these ideologies, of course, is: • “the deliberate and conscious domination of a

people, and the elimination of possibilities for self- definition in relation to other people” (Ukadike 1994:38).

• Africa, thus, “was suffused with the language and racist ideology of the colonizer, and it is not surprising then that racism ‘has historically been both an ally and product of the colonization process’” (38).

• The role of the missionaries in assigning to the Africans a primordial defect—which included using biblical mythologies to explain the “desolate” condition of the Africans as resulting from a primordial curse—was, in this regard, important (Cohen 2003:12–15).

• It was only a matter of time, then, before even the practice of slavery began to be justified as good for the Africans.

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58) Principles of Colonialism (that made it a successful endeavor for Europeans) Justification:

• The argument that Africans could be converted by being enslaved was one of the most common apologies made for the slavery that Frenchmen had begun to establish in the West Indies in the mid-seventeenth century. • Louis XIII was frequently quoted as having

permitted the enslavement of blacks because he had been told that it was the only way of saving their souls. (2003:19) • Father Labat was, alongside Father Loyer (Cohen

2003:17), a missionary whose ambivalent ideas about Africa were notoriously duplicitous. Thus, “Despite his warnings against wars of conquest, Labat, like Charpentier, whom he undoubtedly copied, thought that, once a fort was established in Bondu, the French would be justified in seizing the territory if the fort were attacked. The plan had the moral advantage of providing the excuse for a just, defensive war in subjugating the region” (Cohen 2003:172).

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58)

What of the African Spirit, then?

According to Kenyan scholar Ali Mazrui :

Of the three principal religious legacies of Africa (indigenous, Islamic, and Christian), the most tolerant on record must be the indigenous tradition. One might even argue that Africa did not have religious wars before Christianity and Islam arrived, for indigenous religions [therefore cultures] were neither universalistic (seeking to conquer the whole of the human race) nor competitive (in bitter rivalry against other [universalistic] creeds). Because they are not proselytizing religions, indigenous African creeds have not fought with each other. (1991:77)

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58)

In Ukadike, several ideas about colonialism and its tendency to view the colonized/conquered peoples in stereotypical fashion are explored.

Africa and Modernization: Ngugi wa Thiong’o argues that no culture is static. All cultures necessarily modernize. When cultures and societies modernize from within, things tend to work better than when they forcefully “modernize” from without because of foreign impulses or impositions (p. 21)

Africa, Civilization and Writing: The absence of writing does not mean absence of culture or absence of civilization (p. 21). Most cultures in the world have heavily relied on the spoken word (oral tradition) to communicate knowledge and socialize their members to their customs. Note: Writing and reading did not become universal in Europe until the 20th Century. Before the 19th century, only a small elite could read and write, many of whom were Church people (priests) and knowledge was transmitted orally through such devices as Church sermons, popular theater and other folkloric lore, etc. African oral tradition was therefore always an effective tool for transmitting and conserving knowledge, even through song and proverbs (p. 24- 25);

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58)

Colonization and African Culture:

Colonialism dealt a terrible blow to African cultural and knowledge systems through the processes that sought to suppress African religions, languages, government systems and cultural practices linked to ritualistic commemorations of the past and of history, etc. Europeans did not believe Africans had a culture. For them, Africa was so primitive that it needed to be civilized and, thus, converted to Christianism, even if forcefully (p. 27)

The films we will be watching in this class will indeed go a long way showing us how certain black film makers sought to change these negative images of Africa and begin to set the record straight.

Ukadike - Black African Cinema (pp. 21-58)

African Cultural Alienation & Euro-American Cinema:

The role of cinema in perpetuating negative images of Africa cannot be overstated. Cinema also contributed, as much as the various laws outlawing African cultural practices in colonial times, to the alienation of Africans from their own culture; it caused Africans to begin to hate themselves, their race, their skin color, and despise their own cultures as primitive (pp. 35-36; Read Ukadike, p. 35/36); this caused lasting psychological damage (p 36).

The negative impact of films such as Tarzan, the Ape Man and many others (pp. 36-37) where the African black was always described as brutal, cannibalistic, savage, vicious and superstitious (p. 37) cannot be overstated and films such as Jaimie Uys’s The Gods Must Be Crazy (1984) have continued to shape, even today, various images and perceptions of Africa (pp.56-58). In fact, The Gods Must Be Crazy is said to have become the longest running first-run feature film in New York’s history (p. 57)

Davidson – The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and The Curse of the Nation-State (pp. 21-51)

Some important consequences of Colonialism:

Africa without History: The very first assumption about Africa in colonial times was that Africa did not have history (p. 21). This led to two major conclusions: • African history began with European

colonization beginning in the 15th century;

• Europeans would be the ones to write African history.

Slavery in Africa: This practice usually seen through the immorality of those who “sold” slaves as opposed (p. 21) to those who bought them. Logically, if there is no buyer, there will be no seller; no one really asks the most fundamental questions: • Did Africans take their canoes and paddle up to

Europe to invite Europeans to come and buy slaves from them?

• And were African economies really organized around the need for slaves prior to the Arabs (7th century) and the Europeans (15th century)?

Davidson – The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and The Curse of the Nation-State (pp. 21-51)

Yet: It is the Triangular Trade initiated by Europeans as early as the 16th Century (and that necessitated millions of Africans to become enslaved (The Atlantic or Transatlantic Slave Trade) for the purpose of fueling their economies in both the New World and Europe) that was responsible for this inhumane trafficking of humans:

• England abolished slave trade in 1807 and slavery only in 1833 (and continued to use Forced Labor in Africa); • France abolished slavery only in 1848 (but

instituted Forced Labor in Africa) • USA banned importation of African slaves in

1807, but abolished slavery only in 1865 (13th Amendment), while, however, maintaining the system of legally sanctioned racial segregation and discrimination that prevailed until the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968) caused its abolition in 1964-1968.

Davidson – The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and The Curse of the Nation-State (pp. 21-51)

Colonialism & Issues of Identity: Nation, Nationhood and the Nation-State:

The case of “Re-captives” and Alienated Elites

But the reinsertion of “re-captives” and Blacks from America and the Caribbeans into African societies did cause several issues: • They were often rejected by other Africans,

especially those who never returned to their native lands; • This caused issues of identity and belonging: what

nation(s) did they belong to and what nation(s) did those they found in the Liberia and Sierra Leone areas represented; • The types of government and authority to

enhance: British type or traditional African types? And who would be charged with running such governments in a context polluted by colonial presence? • Europeanized elites vs. Illiterate masses: The

creation of new social classes and social models that did not often exist in traditional African societies.

Davidson – The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and The Curse of the Nation-State (pp. 21-51)

Colonialism & Issues of Identity: Nation, Nationhood and the Nation-State:

The case of “Re-captives” and Alienated Elites • The re-captives and returned blacks in Liberia and

Sierra Leone were also seen as accomplices of the British and American colonial powers. • The issue of Fabricated Ethnicities: So, we have

here, as we shall see with the case of Rwanda, a first case of fabricated ethnicities and the sawing of the types of divisions which, over time, were going to bring instability to many postcolonial African countries after independence. • Because the re-captives and black settlers saw

themselves as the only ones entitled to run the new countries that they had settled into if they became independent, we now also had the seeds of instability sowed into the very political fabric of these African societies. • Seeds of Division and Political Instability: Even

though the re-captives and black settlers thought they were selling American and British ideals of democracy over what they themselves saw as the savage despotism of their African countrymen and women, the very fact that they felt superior and entitled was already a problem and was bound to later translate into questions of legitimacy and power struggle (pp. 28-29);

Davidson – The Black Man’s Burden: Colonialism & Issues of Identity:

Nation, Nationhood and the Nation-State: The case of “Re-captives” and Alienated Elites

So, the interactions between the freshly minted African educated elites (re-captives, black settlers and autochthonous) brought forth early questions about African self-governance. The question was, however: Within what types of governmental structure? (pp. 32-33).

• Rejection of Traditional African Models of Government: But one thing was sure, the alienated educated elites were sure to reject the traditional models of government in favor of copy-cat versions of the British and other European models. And this was bound to be offensive to the traditional African chiefs who felt that if anything, power should continue to rest with them and them only.

• Members of the new African elites, such as James Africanus Horton (not an African name), clergyman Attoh Ahuma (p. 39) and John Mensah Sarbah (p. 40) thus became agents of the destruction of their own culture for the sake of pulling Africa out of its Greatest Darkness (pp. 36-39; 43)

Davidson – The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and The Curse of the Nation-State (pp. 21-51)

Colonialism & Issues of Identity: Nation, Nationhood and the Nation-State:

The case of “Re-captives” and Alienated Elites

Of course, within the context of these debates, reactionary African chiefs were either exiled or imprisoned by the British (p. 35)

The European Model of the Nation-State: These debates, of course, also opened the way for the intrusion of the European model of the nation-state into Africa (pp. 34-35; 38-39)

For Davidson, thus, with the adoption of the model of nation-state that Europeans imposed and/or that African elites “chose”, one price was to be paid: Africa would have to cease be Africa. (p. 38)

Davidson – The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and The Curse of the Nation-State (pp. 21-51)

Colonialism & Issues of Identity: Nation, Nationhood and the Nation-State:

The case of “Re-captives” and Alienated Elites

The Japanese Example: But even when some of these early intellectuals, such as John Mensah Sarbah, prefaced the need to “civilize” their folks with nationalistic claims that made them try and use Japan as an example of how African nationalists could remain African and assert African autonomy while modernizing, the mistake that some of these African intellectuals committed, according to Davidson, was to assume that the case of African countries and Japan would be comparable.

Davidson – The Black Man’s Burden: Colonialism & Issues of Identity:

Nation, Nationhood and the Nation-State: The case of “Re-captives” and Alienated Elites

In other words, after Japan defeated Russia in 1904, this victory by a non-white race over a white race caused some of the early African nationalists such as John Mensah Sarbah and Attoh Ahuma (pp. 39-40) to think they could do the same. But the difference was that:

• Japan’s war against Russia was victorious whereas African attempts in Liberia or Sierra Leone had always been crushed (p. 40).

• Japan was never colonized by a Western power; most of Africa was.

• Japan was able to take what it wanted from the West and build their “modernity” over a strong cultural foundation, without having to give up its language or underlying culture. Modernization in Japan, unlike in Africa, did not mean alienation. In Africa, it did. (p. 40; 42)

• Europeans did not rule over Japan; in Africa, they ruled everything, even when the British were using the mirage of indirect rule that transformed African chiefs into mere agents of the British government and authority. (p. 41)

Davidson – The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and The Curse of the Nation-State (pp. 21-51)

Colonialism & Issues of Identity: Nation, Nationhood and the Nation-State:

The case of “Re-captives” and Alienated Elites

Another mistake by African elites was to try to:

• Prove that African could become civilized and do things just like Europeans.

• And by so doing, they were forced to use the white man’s tools and culture and values: playing on European grounds and according to European terms was thus a lost battle: they had to reject their African-ness to prove that they could be just like the white man. (p. 45)

• Same mistake is still committed today by Black Americans regarding:

• Egypt (material civilization) • Islam (Not an African Religion) • Islamic Names (Muslim Names are not African

Names)

Davidson – The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and The Curse of the Nation-State (pp. 21-51)

Colonialism & Issues of Identity: Nation, Nationhood and the Nation-State:

The case of “Re-captives” and Alienated Elites

The Ambiguities of African Nationalism:

• For those elites that tried a more forceful brand of African nationalism, the rise of communism in certain parts of Europe in the 1920s and their attraction to this ideology would alienate them from the colonial master who began to see them as “dangerous” (p. 48).

• This was because with communism came the revolutionary ideas that were going to prompt educated Africans to seek autonomy and independence either through warfare (as in Zimbabwe) or through other types of revolutionary mass protests or rejections of colonial authority (Sékou Touré in French Guinea).

• Davidson concludes with this question: Is there an African model of Government? He talks about Community Self-government (p. 51): what is that?