Africa 2010 – Bridging the knowledge gap – Shared African values – Part 28 of 30
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...By MUTUMWA MAWERE
Published: April 14, 2010
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April is special month for Southern Africans.
South Africa, Africa’s economic powerhouse, achieved independence from Britain on 31 May 1910 informed by an idea that in Africa a little Europe could be created founded on the principle that Dutch and English settlers could appropriate this part of Africa; a unique geology, topography, and geography; to themselves as dominant drivers of the project to extend the tentacles of their way of life and worldview to foreign states through conquest.
It took 84 years of relentless efforts, courage, sacrifices, pain, deaths, forced migration, unequal development to make South Africa what it should have been from the very beginning, a democratic and free country founded on universally accepted values, beliefs and principles.
So, 27th April represents Freedom Day, being the official independence day of the country and commemorates the first democratic, non-racial elections held in 1994.
On 18 April 1980, Zimbabwe also became an independence state.
Everyone thought that henceforth, Zimbabweans and South Africans were in it together to build a new Africa challenged by a common future but not intimidated by its past.
The existence of these two dates in the history of Zimbabwe and South Africa like many of their sister African countries means that the project to create a little America, Canada, Australia etc had failed in Africa.
Africa is now 54 years old and yet the ghost of the past continues to haunt it.
Unlike America where the natives were overpowered numerically and ideologically, the African experience necessarily has to be informed by the majority of the people who have no other home than Africa.
These people share the same skin pigmentation. The project to create a new America in Africa failed precisely because its foundation was faulty and unsustainable.
Within the first 16 years of its existence as a truly sovereign state, South Africa continues to be tested in a manner that suggests that we need to pause and reflect on what it really means to be African.
There are many people who continue to believe that the African experience cannot and should not be shared.
The architects of apartheid knew very well that their civilization would be threatened by democracy and the introduction of a new social contract founded on generally and universally accepted values.
The death of Eugene Terre’Blanche (ET) bon 3 April 2010, 20 years after the release of Mandela, and its perceived link to Mr. Julius Malema’s utterances on the complex issues of race, economic and political power in post-colonial Africa has helped expose the challenges that confront not only South Africa but the rest of Africa in creating a non-racial and progressive society.
Each year as one African state after another celebrates Freedom Day, the first question to ask when anyone starts to think about how to tell one’s own African story is: “Does is it have African values in it?” What do we define as African values? How inclusive should the definition when people who subscribe to the views that were held by ET reject their inclusion in the new Africa?
It would be naïve to deny that Africa has been influenced by European civilization.
Its institutions and the human capacity that underpins such institutions have been and continue to be informed by the values, beliefs and principles that were intended for a colonial state and yet the majority of Africans remain outside the required social contract.
The African experience for it to have any meaning must not be exclusive but must capture the entirety of the history, literature and culture of all its peoples.
It should connect all these values to show what they mean to Africans. It would be wrong to assume that all that has happened in the past was necessary including the commoditization of African labor in a manner no different to slavery.
The ownership question becomes pronounced in no different manner to the American experience that created a black and Indian class alienated from the resources that God gave to America.
The need for affirmative action in America was partly in recognition of the fact that no market mechanism could undo what human beings with evil intent had put in place.
Whether Malema’s voice is silenced or not, it would be naïve to ignore the message.
Change must visit Africa and the people who have more to lose from unmanaged transformation have to step in and explain why it is in their interest to leave the status quo ante the way it is.
It is true that ideas like courage or hope are universally prized concepts. However, what one African considers courageous may not constitute an act of courage to another.
Equally, the hopes and dreams of the majority of Africans cannot be realized without the intervention of non-market forces to reverse the crystallized ownership patterns while accepting that there is no better mechanism to deliver a secure future to all Africans than the invisible hand of Comrade Market.
Even the settlers knew that the African promise had to be underpinned by resources that God deposited in Africa.
The minerals that transformed the lives of the Randlords were not imported or manufactured by human beings.
In the search for a shared African experience, one is compelled to go back into history not because history will change the present but its lessons can inform the choices that have to be made.
What then makes an African? What does an African look like? What values should inform an African experience?
America, for example, more than most countries defines itself and the members of its society by reference to a set of shared values while many Africans define their members on the basis of birthplace and blood relations.
Even when Malema is talking of nationalization, it would not be wrong to conclude that his definition of a South Africa is simply based on birthplace, language, and blood relations.
So South Africa should, according to this logic, belong only to be people that are authentic so to say.
Should Africanness be based on a social contract involving an understanding and acceptance of some sort of democratic values?
To be a Chinese, for instance, is a fact while to be an American is an ideal. Should the African experience be informed by facts or ideas?
Should embracing the ideal like what President Mugabe and Mandela did on the birth of their nations, every person that beliefs in Africa ought to be considered an equal citizen with the same access to justice and equality that birth should confer to all Africans born in it.
All Africans irrespective of their place of birth must stake their claim on the African promise without prejudice.
The African story is complicated by our ugly past that assisted the very people who now are the champions for a just and equal Africa and yet they benefited from the opposite dispensation.
There are many white Africans who believe that they remain European in Africa and stand oblivious to the genius of the idea called America that transformed immigrants into nationals committed to the promotion and protection of the new social contract.
Africa cannot advance its interests without the inclusion of all the people who have made it what it is.
We have no choice but to reaffirm our commitment to our shared values that can be a powerful and potent weapon to promote inclusion of all the individuals and communities that make up the African nation.
The land reform in Zimbabwe has already produced its own set of challenges and opportunities but it must be agreed that there must be a better way to address economic challenges.
It is often easy to blame state actors for any failure but it must be said that those who value good life in Africa must show cause why the status quo ante founded on injustice and inequity must prevail.
Those who have more to lose must be the drivers of change otherwise if change is driven by the majority who have nothing to lose then only God can help reverse the inevitable.
South Africa is pregnant with lessons for all. Let us learn from the experience of the country so that we can anticipate the good and the bad that can become reality if we choose to do something about our shared future and the obligations underpinning our common African heritage.
Zimbabwe being the last country on the alphabet offers its own lessons on the African story and there can be no wrong time to reflect on what Africa needs to exploit for the benefit of the living its resources to the mutual advantage of all that God intended when he rewarded black people with resources and challenged them with limited access to the means to convert such resources into liquid cash.
Even if all the white people of Africa were to leave, Africa’s rich resources will remain where God deposited them unless we invest in a new business model and a shared experience based on mutual respect.