A bright Africa?

‘Here is some prosperity porn: Africa provides a higher rate of return on investment than any other developing region of the world—including celebrated “BRIC” nations of Brazil, India and China,’ so says Dayo Olopade in her new and expansive survey work, The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa. Is this a sincere compliment to Africa and Africans about which there should be a sense of pride? On further examination, the pressing question is how (not to mention that Brazil, India and China are modern nation-states and Africa is an entire continent composed of, depending on how you count, between 54 and 57 individual nation-states) is such a return possible? Staying with what has been proposed by the author as a unitary ‘Africa,’ how are these high rates of return possible when there are lax and nonexistent environmental laws in ‘Africa,’ not to mention no actual enforcement of those laws? Are labor rights in ‘Africa’ enforced? Are the rights of women in this investment paradise a priority? Most importantly, who gets these high rates of return? Is it by and large the African population, or will it be as it was under colonialism, neo-colonialism and now ‘austerity plans’—will the major multinational corporations gain these super profits? This isn’t specified and this is the major problem with this work. A quite sober voice on the African continent gave the world a forecast of such circumstances when Amilcar Cabral said, ‘all that glitters is not gold’. This review looks beyond the bright glimmer of this new book to recognize again as Cabral has taught us, ‘tell no lies, claim no easy victories’.

In the new book by Nigerian-American writer Dayo Olopade, the chapter ‘Stuff We Don’t Want’ contains the phrase broni wa wo, (sic) which, having visited and lived in Ghana, I knew to be spelled incorrectly. The Ghanaian Embassy in Washington, DC says the correct spelling of the word is obroniwawu. Literally, the term means ‘dead white men’s clothes’ and as the author correctly notes, not only in Ghana but in other African countries, these cheap Western castoffs are wreaking havoc on the economy. This work notes that ‘when bales of free clothing flood local markets, they put tailors and clothiers and textile laborers out of work’. Yet, as referenced, knowing this was a misspelling, and knowing that this expression was from Twi (pronounced ′twē) and that the group that speaks Twi is the Akan, one is lead to consider that there are so many varieties of the spelling. There is the Akuapem Twi spelling oburoniwawu; then there is the Ashanti spelling ‘buroniwawu,’ and a variety of other spellings within the Akan Language grouping, not to mention other language groups. The point here is this: even within given language groups, within a country that has many, many indigenous languages, there is seemingly an endless variety. Thus, when the author attempts to take on the whole of ‘Modern Africa’ it becomes a problematic undertaking indeed. The simple question of spelling was but an illustration of the vast, broad and topical safari besetting a critical analysis of studying nation-states. The complexities of African life and society don’t easily lend themselves to sweeping conclusions.

The vastness of the African continent in making ‘Modern African’ a gestalt approach fails to grasp many of the profound historical circumstances of the African continent that affect present day, contemporary Africa. In the classic, John S. Mbiti, author of African Religions and Philosophy, introduces an idea of ‘the dead, living and the unborn,’ forming a cosmology that impacts Africa to this day. Somehow, the author of The Bright Continent severs it and in doing so creates a kind of amnesia, in which this continent is only focused on the current reality. The classic work by Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, puts in historical context why there are ‘failed states’ in Africa and without such historical understanding, the phenomenon of a ‘failed state’ simply can’t be fully understood. There isn’t any critical approach to the impact of Neoliberal policies, African debt burden, AFRICOM and the role of Western intelligence agencies, particularly those in the United States, and their impact on Modern Africa.

However, this book does offer many varied stores of African Spirit, of using what the author calls kanju, which means ‘the specific creativity born from African difficulty’ and is a word from the Yoruba language of Nigeria. Entrepreneurs and even a quasi-nation-state who are using the spirit of kanju are shown thriving against all odds. There is ‘Somaliland,’ a comparatively functional government compared to the ‘failed state’ of Somalia. There is Anas Aremeyaw Anas, an investigative journalist in Ghana. There is Shujaaz, a comic book for teaching, which is highly popular and based in Kenya. These glimpses of hope and promise are the embodiment of the kanju spirit and show the wonders of never giving up.

A biting criticism found in The Bright Continent is that of the limitations, contradictions and problems associated with ‘aid’. For instance, the writer states as an example: “Western nations that deliver foreign assistance to Africa sometimes add an exploding caveat: the appropriation must be spent to purchase goods and services from the donor’.

However, this reviewer is based in New Orleans, Louisiana, The United States of America, and was hit by Hurricane Katrina. This ‘natural disaster’ that Canadian author Naomi Klein documents in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, (available at no charge on-line) shows how a ‘natural crisis’ is used as the pretext for allowing the dismantling of public institutions, rapid privatizations and the displacement of local populations for the good of major American corporations. In the context of reading The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules & Making Changes in Modern Africa, there are glimpses of this pattern of ‘structural adjustments’ not under the guise of a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina, but using the ‘failed state’ argument. The ‘failed state’ argument gives the same green light that ‘Hurricane Katrina’ gave. However, the end game is the same. Whether reached via ‘structural adjustment’ on the African continent or Neoliberalism in the United States towards communities of color (the African-American community, the Latino/a Community or the Native American community), the dynamic is the same: the enrichment of those who are already super-rich.

Here are some examples that provide cause for concern:
1. In the acknowledgement section, The New American Foundation is listed as being one of the entities that made this book possible, along with The Rockefeller Foundation, The German Marshall Fund and Yale Law School. The website of The New American Foundation notes, that among other donors, the United States Department of State contributed one million United States Dollars to this foundation. To critical observers, the United States Government, beyond the idea of an African-American President, has had a checkered past and present not only in Africa, but in other developing nation-states during regime changes favorable to the American corporate elite. The author of The Bright Continent speaks out against aid in the context of Africa, but by actions seems to have no trouble accepting aid in the domestic context. The Rockefeller Foundation and The United States Department of State under the guise of The New American Foundation, among others, are partially responsible for funding for the book The Bright Continent. Isn’t this aid?

2. Nigerian born female writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Americanah: A Novel, while being interviewed on United States-based “Fresh Air” on National Public Radio, speaks on one dimension of the impact of missionaries in Africa, in Nigeria in particular. She says, ‘Missionaries brought education, so that it was just education. It was religion: they both came hand-in-hand….You didn’t just go [to school"> to learn math and English and science, you learned that Jesus was Lord and everything your parents were doing at home was evil and demonic and all that.’ Contrast this perspective with that of Dayo Olopade, a Nigerian-American, in The Bright Continent: ‘Countless Africans—my family included—have depended upon religious organizations Anglican missionaries saw it as their duty to teach. The commitment to education they bequeathed is almost certainly why I am writing this book.’ Indeed, what a contrast in perspectives on the impact of missionaries in much of Africa.

3. J.P. Morgan, founder of what is now J. P. Morgan Chase Bank, is noted in passing reference on two occasions in The Bright Continent. The infamous J. P. Morgan is actually held in high esteem in this work. What is not said is that J. P. Morgan is considered a “Robber Baron”. For a complete account, please see A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

4. There is mention of Teach for America founder Wendy Koop visiting The African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa. Teach for America has been directly responsible for the displacement of African-American teachers, certified teachers and teachers from local communities, who are being displaced with largely upper-middle-class white teachers, many of whom are clueless about the conditions of African-American and Latino/a pupils. See “An Open Letter to Teach for America Recruits” by Katie Osgood on the Rethinking Schools website (http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/28_03/28_03_osgood.shtml). Is what is happening in America the pattern for Africa?

5. In the chapter ‘Two Publics,’ there is this quotation: ‘…Belgian ethno-graphic scientists arbitrarily assigned Rwanda to the groups based on superficialities like height and skin color’. Yet this book seeking to grasp modern Africa failed to examine Belgium; as I learned from scholars visiting Masaka, Uganda, this was done to further the aims of colonialism and the ‘divide and conquer’ role. Critical observers know this, but this book focused on a youth market and this critical omission is key to understanding the later campaign of genocide. Like much of this book, failing to note the particular historical circumstances which lead to the problem there in Rwanda and in other parts of Africa creates a situation that reinforces the dominant and widespread ideas of African inferiority.

6. Not figuratively speaking, but in an actual footnote on page 200 of the hardbound version, there is a reference to the noted Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. His signature work, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, is omitted in this footnote. The teaching methods of this noted international educator Freire and even his book on the African continent, Pedagogy in Process: The Letters to Guinea Bissau, aren’t even an afterthought when speaking of Bridge International Academy. Bridge uses a method of having ‘teachers’ reading scripts to the students. Teachers are selected from local communities and given 350 hours of the ‘Bridge doctrine’. Sound familiar? Ed Gragert, the U.S. Director of the Global Campaign for Education, said of The Bridge International Academy in Kenya that ‘If someone suggested that kind of education in this country they would be laughed out of the education community.’ See ‘Do For-Profit Schools give Kenyans a Real Choice?’ by Jason Beaubien of National Public Radio, reported on November 12, 2014 (http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/11/12/243730652/do-for-profit-s…). With all of this, author Dayo Olopade of The Bright Continent gives The Bridge International Academy’s approach of turning teachers into ‘robots’ and students into passive receptors a passing grade. This profit-driven, dysfunctional system is tragically seen in the light as a ‘genuinely attractive investment’.

There are many other examples that I could cite to show one of the unintended consequences of focusing on ‘failed states’ and not looking into what will replace these ‘failed states’. Egypt is a current example of just what could replace a ‘failed state’: an ever greater and more repressive failed state.
Paradoxically, one of the aims of this book was to combat the negative and pervasive stereotypes of Africa presented in America, particularly in television, which is the most influential factor in America. In seeking to correct this tragedy of Africa’s representation, unwittingly the scholarship of a very popular song is used. That song is “Happiness” by Pharell Williams. One of the lyrics in this song read, “Come along because you feel that HAPPINESS is truth.

* Kwaku O. Kushindana is a Political Science Graduate, with an emphasis in International Relations from a HCBU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) Southern University and A & M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Can be contacted at: [email protected]

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