Pan Africa rising : the cultural political economy of Nigeria's afri-capitalism and South Africa's ubuntu business PDF
Preview Pan Africa rising : the cultural political economy of Nigeria's afri-capitalism and South Africa's ubuntu business
CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN POLITICAL ECONOMY “PAN” AFRICA RISING The Cultural Political Economy of Nigeria’s Afri-Capitalism and South Africa’s Ubuntu Business RITA KIKI EDOZIE Contemporary African Political Economy Series Editor Eunice N. Sahle University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill NC, USA AimoftheSeries Contemporary African Political Economy (CAPE) publishes social science research that examines the intersection of political, social, and economic processesincontemporaryAfrica.Theseriesisdistinguishedespeciallybyits focusonthespatial,gendered,andculturaldimensionsoftheseprocesses,as well as its emphasis on promoting empirically situated research. As consultancy-driven work has emerged in the last two decades as the dom- inantmodelofknowledgeproductionaboutAfricanpoliticsandeconomy, CAPE offers an alternate intellectual space for scholarship that challenges theoretical and empirical orthodoxies and locates political and economic processeswithintheirstructural,historical,global,andlocalcontexts.Asan interdisciplinary series, CAPE broadens the field of traditional political economy by welcoming contributions from the fields of Anthropology, Development Studies, Geography, Health, Law, Political Science, Sociol- ogy and Women’s and Gender Studies. The Series Editor and Advisory Board particularly invite submissions focusing on the following thematic areas:urbanprocesses;democracyandcitizenship;agrarianstructures,food security, and global commodity chains; health, education, and develop- ment; environment and climate change; social movements; immigration and African diaspora formations; natural resources, extractive industries, and global economy; media and socio-political processes; development andglobalization;andconflict,displacement,andrefugees. AdvisoryBoard BerthaO.Koda,UniversityofDaresSalaam,Tanzania BrijMaharaj,UniversityofKwaZulu-Natal,SouthAfrica ThandikaMkandawire,LondonSchoolofEconomicsandPoliticalScience, UK James Murombedzi, Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa,Senegal JohnPickles,theUniversityofNorthCarolinaatChapelHill,USA WisdomJ.Tettey,UniversityofBritishColumbia,Canada Moreinformationaboutthisseriesat http://www.springer.com/series/14915 Rita Kiki Edozie “ ” Pan Africa Rising ’ The Cultural Political Economy of Nigeria s ’ Afri-Capitalism and South Africa s Ubuntu Business RitaKikiEdozie McCormackGraduateSchoolofPolicyandGlobalStudies UniversityofMassachusetts Boston,USA ContemporaryAfricanPoliticalEconomy ISBN978-1-137-59537-9 ISBN978-1-137-59538-6 (eBook) DOI10.1057/978-1-137-59538-6 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2017946200 ©TheEditor(s)(ifapplicable)andTheAuthor(s)2017 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsaresolelyandexclusivelylicensedbythePublisher, whetherthewholeorpartofthematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation, reprinting,reuseofillustrations,recitation,broadcasting,reproductiononmicrofilmsorinany otherphysicalway,andtransmissionorinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation, computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. 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F OREWORD ItwasG.W.F.HegelwhoonceclaimedthatAfricahasnohistory.Therise oftheIbadanSchoolofhistoryhelpedtosuccessfullycontestthisclaim.The advanced civilization and history of Egypt also proved impossible for denialistsofAfricanhistorytoignore.Forcedbythetruth,denialistsfinally concededonlytoturnaroundandclaimthat,while“White”Africanswere capable, Black Africans were incapable of innovation, leadership, self-rule, andadvancedcivilization.So,inthecaseofEgypt,itwas“White”Egyptians or “White” Africans in Apartheid South Africa who were the capable Africans. Senegalese scholar, Cheikh Anta Diop counted this revisionist doctrine in his path-breaking book, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality (1974), where he demonstrated that the Pharaohs in Egyptwere,infact,Black. Africanscontinuetobeinferiorizedtoday.Inparticular,theirwayoflife, ideas,andvalues,inshort,theircultureistheprimarysourceofmainstream explanationoftheirsocialconditionsjustifiedbymainstreameconomistsas reflectingthepoor“humancapital”ofAfricans.FirstusedtodescribeBlack slavesasmereanimalsandthingswhosesoleusewastohelpWhitecapital- ists,humancapitalexplanationspositAfricancultureasresponsibleforthe problemsofcontinentalAfricaandtheexclusionandexploitationofBlacks around the world. From this perspective, Blacks, the “deserving poor,” needmoreEurocentriceducationandcastawaytheirculture,whichholds themback. But it is not just the mainstream of society that is associated with this bastardization of African culture. The left, on its part, advances the most v vi FOREWORD patronizingformof“Africanculture”:villagelife.Inthisrepresentationof AfricaasthelostgemeinschaftintheWest,thecommonsinAfricaisnaively seen—and often appropriated—as natural reserve, much like how the colonizer saw the relationship between nature and society. Without “decolonizing nature,” so-called Western “progressives” objectify Africa and Africans. Cheikh Anta Diop was appropriately harsh in describing such currents as “the headlong flights of certain infantile leftists” (1974, p. xiv) because it does the continent injustice by misrepresenting it. More fundamentally, this representation by the left diverts attention from major causal mechanisms, in particular imperialism. In his well-known 1986 speech at the International Conference for the Protection of Trees and Forests in Paris, Thomas Sankara, revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso, once noted that “This struggle to defend the trees and forests is above all astruggleagainstimperialism.Becauseimperialismisthearsonistsettingfire toourforestsandsavannahs.” Yet, the misrepresentation of Africa continues, more recently as “Africa rising.”StyledasapositivespinonAfrica,incontrasttotheviewof“Africa as a hopeless continent,” this view is defended and extended mainly by banks,neoliberalthinktanks,andinvestorsofmostlyforeignorigin.“Africa ontherise”servesforeigninterestsbycelebratinggrowthachievedthrough the exploitation of Black people, adoring growth that destroys African waters, forests, and biodiversity, and endorses growth processes that tear society apart through the eviction of the poor, and the exclusion of the masses from the economic process. Short-term in nature, this type of growth entails no structural change (Obeng-Odoom 2015; Nega and Schneider 2016). If at all, it is a case of “reprimarisation”1 or the rolling backofthelittleindustrialbaseforgreaterexpansionofthemineralssector. The very calculation of the so-called rise, is highly contentions, often centered on inaccurate data and manipulated history that suggests that Africa has never experienced growth when, in fact, Africa has always risen, perhaps even more in the days of greater care by the African state—as we know from Morten Jerven’s book, Africa: Why Economists Get it Wrong (2015). There have been many alternatives to this narrative, but they are prob- lematic too. Consider the post-development view. On the surface it looks radical, but in practice it merely equates African culture to village living. Otherssuch as homo culturalisare similarly problematic. Athird isregion- alism, but that is similarly Eurocentric. Europeanist views are no longer persuasive, certainly not when eminent Europeans and European scholars FOREWORD vii suchasIvanBerendconclusivelyshowthehorrifyingstructuralproblemsin thisregioninthebook,EuropeinCrisis:BoltfromtheBlue?(2013). Together with the seemingly better life in Asia generated by the “East Asianmodel”andunconditionalaid,Africanshaverecurrentlybeenadvised togoEast.Whether“lookingEast”amountstolookingforward,however, iscontentious.AsRobertCollins(2006)remindsusofthepainful“African Slave Trade to Asia and the Indian Ocean Islands” and, in recent times, many Asianists and Africanists have shown in publications such as the African Review of Economics and Finance (vol. 5, no. 1; vol. 8, no. 1), Asian“generosity”maynotbeasbenignasitappears.Chineseinvestment in Africa, for example, is often extolled for being benign and non-interventionist, but we know from the work of Lloyd G. Adu Amoah (2014)inJournalofAsianandAfricanStudiesthatitis,infact,a“Chinese imperium,”seekingtoprojectChineseworldpowerinAfrica,strikinginthe heartsofAfricanstheneocolonialColdWarideathatAfricaisthetrophyof the strong. Then, there is, the systemic exploitation of Black labor by Chinese capitalist firms and the exclusion of Blacks from Chinese invest- mentbecauseof—note—thecultureofBlackpeople,whichdoesnotmake themworkhardenough(Odoom2014). Asargued elsewhere (Obeng-Odoom 2017),it isavery African ideato enterintoalliancewithAsia—indeedwiththeentireglobalSouth—andthis can be very powerful, especially when patterned after the principles of the Bandung Conference. As with Europe, however, existing Afro-Asian con- tradictionsdetractfromthatspiritandhencehavegivenanewmeaningto the African dream of Africanizing their continent and the world. This mission is different from what Leopold Senghor was accused of doing by the Congolese: “We asked for the Africanization of the top jobs and all SenghordoesisAfricanizetheEuropeans”(1961,p.10).Anewversionof this “Senghorist” leadership style can be found in the extractive industries sector in Africa these days in terms of “local content.” Programs based on supporting Africans’ rise to the top, but only merely to implement Euro- centriccapitalistvisions.Africanistleadershiptypes,perseremainburied.In Private Enterprise-Led Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: The HumanSideofGrowth(2015),JohnKuada,identifiesanemergingleader- shipmodelinAfrica,butdoesnotfullyelaboratewhatthisleadershipmodel cando(see,forexample,chapter14ofKuanda’sbook). What Kuanda leaves out, Rita Kiki Edozie offers in the book in your hands. The book trumps and transcends the doctrine of growth. It looks instead at structural change and change in social relations. Drawing on viii FOREWORD Ubuntu–Africanistvaluesofsharingandcooperation—andPanAfricanism (theneedforAfricanstotakechargeoftheireconomy),thisbookdoesnot onlycallfortheAfricanizationoftheeconomiesinAfricabutalsotheuseof Afrocentric ideas to run the regional economy. The book is controversial because it turns the mainstream on its head by arguing that, in fact, the highly discredited cultureof the Africans isthat missinglink the continent needs.Anti-individualism,cooperation—notcompetition—andhumanness represent key features of this approach. Edozie shows that adopting this approachwillhelptobreakthedependentnatureofAfricaneconomiesand create,instead,aself-sustainingeconomicstructure. This is, indeed, a third war to the Western capitalism/Socialism ping- pong.AsEdozieargues,“TheirkeyobjectiveforUbuntuEconomicsisto use it as a platform to serve people instead of people slavishly serving the economy.LikeAfri-Capitalism,accordingtoMfuniselwaJ.Bhengu,theaim for Ubuntu Economics is to “create an African self-understanding in eco- nomicterms”(pp.74–75).Here,thesuccessofthecollectiveisacondition for the success of the individual. And, the “individual” is but a communal being.Ifthisphilosophyechoesintheeconomicsystem;thesocialinstitu- tionstoomustechothephilosophy.Byregarding“culture”moreas“con- structionist”(p.27),associalprovisioning,analytically,theapproachhelps toresolvethestructure–agencytensioninpoliticaleconomy. In this sense too, Edozie’s book advances our knowledge by boldly naming which specific cultural practices make a difference, how, and where,whileanalyzingthetransformativeroleofcultureonsocialstructure and agency and vice versa. By actually grounding her analyses in SouthAfricaandNigeria,herbookismorespecificthanmost.Thisuseof casestudiesisjustified,Edozieargues,becausetheyarethebiggestecono- miesinAfricaandremainthehomeoftheprimaryideasbehindthebook. While obviously important, for me what makes her choice crisp and com- pellingisthattheyrepresentthecrucibleofthetensionsandcontradictions in Africa today. Vast in geography and economy, Nigeria also engaged in the growth accounting much of which accounted for the “Africa on the rise”moment.And,SouthAfricaremainsoneofthemostunequalnations in the world, intermsofclass, gender, and race. Combined, Edozie could not have chosen a better set of case studies for The Cultural Political EconomyofAfri-CapitalismandUbuntuBusiness. It is not just to Africa, though, that this book is an asset because it advancestheglobalpoliticaleconomyliteratureof“varietiesofcapitalism.” Characterized by collective advancement, care, and compassion, FOREWORD ix cooperation,andequality,Africa’sculturalpoliticaleconomyseekstocom- bineecologyandmaterialprogress.Whetherthisbroadphilosophyshould be called “capitalism” is controversial. Why not name it Africanism, for example? The answer appears to be that not all capitalism must look like theonedescribedbyMarx—Europeancapitalism—ortheaccountofWer- ner Sombart in The Jews and Modern Capitalism (1911/2001). Indeed, analytically, if such accounts are seen as valuable, then an African account mustalsobevaluable.InTheAfricanOriginofCivilization:MythorReality (1974), Cheikh Anta Diop makes the point even more forcefully in respondingtocriticsofhistime: Haveforeignintellectuals,whochallengeourintentionsandaccuseusofall kindsofhiddenmotivesorridiculousideas,proceededanydifferently?When they explain their own historical past or study their languages, that seems normal. Yet,when anAfrican does likewiseto helpreconstruct thenational personalityofhispeople,distortedbycolonialism,thatisconsideredbackward oralarming.Wecontendthatsuch astudyisthepointofdepartureforthe culturalrevolutionproperlyunderstood.(1974,pp.xiii–xiv) Edozie calls ours “Pan Africa Rising!” This rising, though, is not the ZionistandimperialEnlightenmentofEuropewhoseadvancementmeant thedestructionofallothers.Rather,“PanAfricarising”seekscollaboration and equality of race, gender, and class, as the forebears of the continent taught,lived,andpracticed,forexampleinseekingallianceonequalterms withAsiaandinshunningfalseantimoniesof“East”and“West.”PanAfrica risingisnotsimplycultureintheabstract;butcultureinaction:valuesand practicesthatshapeormustshapeallsocialrelations.Cultureherestandsas part of; not apart from social relations such as property and “culture” in Africanculturalpoliticaleconomyisacritiqueofmainstreamsocialscience. Thisthirdwayisuseful,butasEdozieshows,itcanalsobecontradictory. It is in part neoliberal not in terms of ideology but certainly in terms of practice.Thereinliesthetension.IsAfricanculturalpoliticaleconomymore caring of the needs of workers? Does it commodify land? In principle, Africans’thoughtcoversallthesefacetsbutitisalsointermixedwithforeign encounters,somecolonial;othersneocolonial,andtherestneoliberal.Any cultural approach must, therefore, be contradictory. But, political econo- mists,unlikemainstreameconomists,arenotafraidoftensionsandcontra- dictions. Edozie certainly shows courage in questioning, wit in juggling diverseperspectives,andcandorinpresentingthetruth,ararecombination
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