Emerging Africa

With the Amahoro gathering coming up next week, I would like to detail a few thoughts in advance. These pertain to 3 risks we face when attempting to enter the "Reform" space in a post-colonial context.

1 - Missing the Rendezvous
As Africa experiences things the West is (to some extent) moving beyond (economic progress, individual freedoms, increased literacy, digital technology, consumerist opportunity) and starts to occupy the space vacated, the West rediscovers connectedness, cosmology, and relationship, which is read by many Africans as the old ways which have held them back. The meeting point can be missed because we do not find the right trajectory, the right combination or emphasis of potentially sharable values.

2 - A new, improved patrony
"The great, and I presume also good, white chief sends us word that he wants to buy our lands but is willing to allow us to reserve enough to live on comfortably. This indeed appears generous, for the red man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, for we are no longer in need of a great country." [Chief Seattle]

That the new conversation does not result in true equality and exchange, but an enlightened version of colonial assumptions. Where Africans, enamored by generous and enlightened westerners, compromise their values in order to be accepted by or benefit from them. Where the westerners get the feelgood factor from the exchanges but do not maintain or build lasting relationships.

Brian McLaren reminds us of an American movement who sought to publically apologise to the Native peoples, but ended up causing more harm than good because the Natives had expected friendship to result but this was not forthcoming; what that movement really wanted was the spectacle of repentance.

3 - Misunderstanding glocal balance
"To be African does not mean being in prison in Africa." [Manu Dibango]

While some (including most Africans) experience life in and bound to the local and the particular: village, tribe or ecosystem for example, others who have opportunity to travel think more globally. When individuals start to differ from their home cultures, they can become ostracised. The broader vision is rejected at the local level. Those who live or think globally can miss the points of access into particular communities. Locals can undervalue their heritage, their deep knowledge of their own cultures traditions, their land and their ancestry.

For reformation, both sides need to revision:
- Africa needs to question its rush into prosperity, consider the power of its own traditions, and develop a critique of the modern assumptions handed them via colonialism.
- Post modern Westerners intent on transformation need to grasp these same values as well, communicating them to their own culture, and at the same time developing the empathy and space, whereby Africans can feel truly hosted and accepted on their own terms.