6 July 1999
The idea of an African renaissance is indeed bold and necessary. It is a rallying call to overcome what has been characterised as the “African condition”, and is potentially a powerful tool to mobilise the African continent to earnestly tackle its enormous social, political and economic problems. From the standpoint of South Africa one positive outcome of the debates on an African renaissance is that they have mobilised a significant section of the African, intelligentsia to engage South Africa’s own transition to democracy and the problems facing Africa.
Unfortunately the growing public articulation of an African renaissance has at best been restricted to a moral, philosophical and cultural crusade without a concrete social and political content, and at worst, has the potential of becoming the new ideology to bolster the interests of an aspirant black bourgeoisie. Judging by the public intellectual discourse, it is becoming an endlessly elastic term, like the concept of “ubuntu”, for instance, which is now being appropriated to mean everything to everybody and in the process ending up meaning nothing to everybody.
The concept of “ubuntu” is now even being used by many ‘fly-by-night’ consultants to advise business, white capitalists in particular, on how to incorporate ‘ubuntu’ in the latter’s accumulation strategies. In other words ‘Let the exploitation of abantu be intensified in their own name and culture’!
It is not at all surprising that there is class contestation over the meaning of an African Renaissance. Nor is it necessarily a bad thing that the idea is increasingly being embraced by a variety of class forces. But it is precisely because of this that a serious debate needs to be undertaken on the gender, class and national content of an African renaissance.
The hard reality is that there can be no genuine renewal of the African continent unless we properly understand the true origins and foundations of the problems facing the African continent. The principal determining factor of the malaise in the African continent is imperialism – the subjugation of the peoples of the continent and the Third World to the agenda of the capitalist classes of the industrialised North. For example, 87% of all transnationals have their eadquarters in the US, EU and Japan. More than 60% of foreign direct investment is within this bloc, and only 4% went to Africa in 1996. A startling reality is that in the same year Ethiopia had a debt of $10 billion, whilst Europe spent $11 billion on ice cream!
This by no means suggests that there are no internal contradictions within the African continent itself, but these are buttressed by this global agenda. This therefore means that any genuine attempt at the renewal of the African continent has to, in the first instance, challenge imperialism and its current neo-liberal ideology. Much more importantly this means explicitly articulating an alternative agenda rather than muting it.
The struggle for an African renaissance is of course not a new agenda. It was articulated and struggled for during the first wave of independence struggles in the 1950’s and 60’s. It was an agenda based on the understanding that there can be no genuine national liberation without economic emancipation and a challenge to imperialism.
Indeed there were many social gains made in a number of countries in the areas of health provision, literacy and other areas. Many of these gains were rolled back by imperialism even more harshly within the context of the Cold War. The opportunity now is that an African renaissance is being reaffirmed in a post Cold War environment. However this optimism of a new period should, at the same time, not underestimate the serious threat of a unipolar world dominated by an aggressive United States whose imperialist agenda has not changed.
It is also unfortunate that the term ‘globalisation’ has simultaneously clarified and obscured the true character of the current international conjuncture. The concept has helped to describe the current phase of the domination of the world by capitalist multi-nationals. But it has also been used to obfuscate the imperialist character of the current world order by presenting globalisation in neutral terms, as if all Africa has to do is to unproblematically incorporate itself into this global village as one of its municipalities in order to be saved.
Therefore, the struggle for the renewal of the African continent should centrally embody a struggle to challenge the current neo-liberal regime and its prescriptions of privatisation, deregulation, and cutting back on budget deficits (irrespective of the social deficit!) as the basis for economic growth and development. These ‘economic fundamentals’ are the ones directly responsible for worsening the very same inequalities that an African renaissance seeks to overcome. These prescriptions have entrenched the neo-colonial state, presided over by elites which are perpetually dependent on imperialist backing, against the mass of the people of their own countries. In many instances privatisation and deregulation have given birth to parasitic capitalism where local elites feed like parasites on the privatisation of state assets in the name of ‘Africanisation’ or ‘indigenisation’ of capital, whilst leaving imperial capital intact.
The structural adjustment programmes prescribed by this new economic fundamentalism have generally been a failure in most of the developing world, in particular our continent. For example, according to the UNDP, in the past 15-20 years most developing countries have suffered disastrous failures in growth, in addition to prolonged cuts in social spending. An African renaissance needs to challenge this IMF and World Bank driven economic regime. To argue to the contrary or to be conveniently silent about this would be tantamount to telling a lie to the masses of the people of our continent!
Today there is also a lurking danger of characterising the African renaissance as a return to some glorious past of ‘genuine African culture’, as some proponents argue. This interpretation serves to obscure the extent to which ‘traditional’ African culture in general embodies the oppression of women and the reproduction of unequal gender relations. This means that there can be no genuine renewal of the African continent unless it explicitly challenges unequal gender relations in African societies and mobilise women in particular towards their own liberation.
Of major importance is that an African renaissance necessarily poses the question of which motive forces should lead such a struggle. It is principally a democratic movement led by the working class, the landless rural masses and the urban poor that should be mobilised to be at the head of these struggles, as these are the forces most committed to thorough-going change in their conditions. This means, amongst other things, struggling for a state-led developmental effort and the mobilisation of support for grassroots campaigns like Jubilee 2000 and those aimed at exposing the US agenda. For example, its multinational pharmaceuticals on the health sphere. It is on these and other fronts that international solidarity should be built as an anchor for an African renaissance. This is where the debate about the struggle for an African renaissance should start.
Issued by the SACP Department of Information & Publicity
General Secretary Dr. Blade Nzimande
E-Mail: sacp1@wn.apc.org
South African Communist Party Head Office
COSATU House
No. 1 Leyds Street - 7th Floor
Braamfontein 2001
Republic of South Africa
(Tel: 27 11 339-3621/2)
(Fax: 27 11 339-4244)