By Bongani Mankewu
The world is experiencing a power shift unlike any seen in history.
African people since the 15th century have been at the bottom of the world order and explored as a laboratory for all evils against humanity.
African exploiters used a variety of instruments to capture the African miracle of ancient spirituality.
Using various models, these exploitative instruments have extracted the sacred cultural heritage and resources of the African people from African soil.
This has allowed them to gain control over politics, economics, and financial systems dictating how the world is to be governed.
Sadly, African leadership regimes in Africa and the diaspora remain hazy about upcoming developments that appear to harm communities in Africa.
Current conditions demand leaders who can reclaim African cultures with a civilisation capable of dominating economics, international finance, and scientific innovation. African leadership must be modelled on African culture which must lead the evolution of modernisation and civilisation in the world.
As we celebrate African Liberation Day, we must remember that Africa Day is still to come. African Day will be adequately celebrated the day Africans accept their identities with pride and humility. This will require them to take an active role in world affairs across all sectors as masters, rather than slaves seeking masters. This should be the time when we have genuine African leaders who have human affection, compassion, and respect for governance in humanity's affairs.
As Kwame Nkrumah once stated: The essence of Neo-colonialism is that the State subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality, its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside (Nkrumah, 1966).……
Unfortunately, the current leadership on the African continent is so adamantly conflicted between being exploiters and leaders of African societies. While Africans are deeply enslaved on slave plantations, these African leaders run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.
Ideally, the debate about Africa Day needs to engage on matters such as the Self-Sufficiency and Revival Charter for Africans as an African philosophy of sustained development and self-retrieval. As Nkrumah emphasised, there are many countries in Africa that have accepted liberal democracy as an introjection - just to impress or be accepted by the West for its development model that comes with aid and funding.
The concept of knowledge democracy recognises multiple knowledge systems, including organic, spiritual, and land-based knowledge systems, as well as frameworks that arise from social movements. Therefore, taking care of ourselves and our unique development requires us to drink from our own wells.
After the colonial era, slavery by coercion evolved into slavery by consent, according to Ali Alamin Mazrui. In a Constitutional democracy such as South Africa, it will be impossible to penetrate any policy instrument to address inequalities. South African democracy needs pragmatists more than ideological zealots, otherwise, neither voters nor parties will benefit.
The dehumanisation of dominated groups nourishes the material and spiritual comfort of the leisured ruling class as injustice continues to evolve and outperform democracy. As attributes of development, innovation, scientific advancement, and financial modelling require African communities to accept that society must be understood backward while being planned forward. It is the universalisation of the Western model of society that enables the West to support liberal democracy internationally; thus, African societies are brought into the fold of neo-colonial values.
African democracy reflects Africa’s socio-cultural realities. Liberal democracy has a historical specificity that pretends to be universal. It is a child of industrial civilisation, a product of a socially atomised society where production and exchange are already commodified, a society that is essentially a market (Ake, 2019). It is the product of a society in which interests are so particularised that the very notion of common interest becomes problematic, hence the imperative of democracy (Ake, 2019).
It is important to understand democracy from the perspective of societal morality. To empower society and promote self-reliance, development should be prioritised. Therefore, liberal democracy in African culture and society requires intense scrutiny. The goal must be to reach a point where bankers and boardroom dictators cannot solely run African economies without society’s involvement. For progress to truly be accomplished, efforts must move beyond the notion that voting for politicians is an indication of democracy.
People should know that the whole government system is in a death spiral due to democracy deficits, fear-mongering by the government, and lying politicians. The traditional African concept of a person must guide our understanding of democracy as both an individual and a social being.
Several of these concerns need to be raised consistently in an African context that enhances the advancement of nascent transformation instruments such as the Africa Continental Free Trade Area, Agenda 2063 to achieve the Seven Aspirations, and many other efforts to transform the African continent for the benefit of African society as a whole.
Africans should be wary of their unpredictable and easily compromised leaders. Thomas Jefferson, the revered apostle of human rights, noted that “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance”. This implies that democracy is primarily about power, not grassroots empowerment.
African Liberation Day must be the call to awaken the people of the African continent as the founders envisaged an Africa evolving from Liberation (Independence) through development and on to African Unity. Africans’ unique cultural character can be leveraged to transform economic capital into a sustainable source of social prosperity through economic and moral regeneration. It must be understood that cultural practices promote basic values - communality, morality, striving for nobility, and all of these attributes contribute to self-sufficiency under impeccable societal leadership.
African leadership should promote Africa’s culture through moral leadership and ethical governance. Thus, an entrepreneurial heritage driven by social utilitarianism is required to advance freedom and self-sufficiency to achieve both material and spiritual prosperity.
Bongani Mankewu is an associate of the Infrastructure Development & Engagement Unit at Nelson Mandela University. He writes in his personal capacity.
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