<
http://www.independent.co.ug/component/wordpress/2014/06/globalization-and-
the-death-of-african-intellectuals/> Globalization and the Death of African
Intellectuals
By Sserubiri Africa Uhuru
POSTED ON
<
http://www.independent.co.ug/component/wordpress/2014/06/globalization-and-
the-death-of-african-intellectuals/> JUNE 5, 2014 BY
<
http://www.independent.co.ug/component/wordpress/author/ortega/> IAN
Globalization is a trend that evolved from long past, but with short
history. It was evolved from the idea of Cosmopolitanism of the antiquity
during the Greco-Roman imperialism, when powerful emperors tried to fuse the
entire world under one supreme government. This permeated into Enlightenment
era when Europe witnessed a dramatic knowledge transfer in Areas of Art,
Philosophy and Science. However, this form of globalization was limited in
scope and practice by Eurocentric Historiography in which many European
individuals arrogantly define and write the history of the world along
history of Caucasians' traditions/culture by neglecting taking into
cognizance other races.
Not that globalization is a new phenomenon. It has been a feature of capital
since its genesis in the 16th century as a challenge and later a replacement
to feudalism as the dominant and determining force in social production.
Explorations and colonial ventures are concomitant with its genesis.
In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels predict the worldwide character
of its development when they talk of the bourgeoisie, through its
exploitation of the world market, giving a cosmopolitan character to
production and consumption in every country. They talk of old established
national industries being dislodged by industries utilizing raw materials
drawn from the remotest zones- industries whose products are consumed not
only at home, but in every quarter of the globe.
Africa has always been an integral part of the key moments in the evolution
of the globalizing tendency of capital, though disadvantageously so. Once
again, we turn to Marx who observed that: "The discovery of gold and silver
in America, the uprooting, enslavement and entombment in the mines of the
aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East
Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercialized hunting
of black skins, signaled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production."
The "rosy dawn" was the mercantile phase of capital that fueled the slave
trade and created slave plantations. Here the African body is turned into a
commodity. The industrial phase of the 19th century fueled the scramble for
colonies as sources of raw materials and markets for finished goods. Now the
raw material is turned into a commodity whose cheap price becomes the heavy
artillery forcing capitulation to the capitalist order.
The phase of finance capital then follows when money that previously enabled
exchange becomes itself a commodity of the highest order, a laser-guided
missile that speeds up capitulation and crumbles the protective walls of
nations. Both Lenin, in his book Imperialism: the Highest Stage of
Capitalism, published at the beginning of the First World War, and the
Bretton Woods Agreement at the end of the Second World War, which led to the
creation of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the
General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), foresaw the coming global
dominance of finance capital. The very titles of these Bretton Woods
institutions signal the globe as the theater for the actions of finance
capital.
Globalization expresses itself in Africa as neo- liberalism. These are a set
of policies around stabilization of monetary and fiscal fundamentals on the
one hand, and marketization, liberalization and privatization of the
economy, on the other. The failure of earlier Structural Adjustment
Programmes (SAPs) and their unrelenting critique by African intellectuals
saw some modification of the programmes in 1990s.
In short, the underlying thrust of the neo- liberal and globalized
development "discourse", which centers on policy-making, is deeper
integration of African economies into the global capital and market circuits
without fundamental transformation. It is predicated on private capital,
which in Africa translates into foreign private capital, as the "engine of
growth." It centers on economic growth without asking whether growth
necessarily translates into development.
African intellectuals and politicians have not conscientiously addressed
this complex of issues. Africa has now become a property of the
international market forces worse than it was in the colonial period. The
interest of global capitalist organizations is always profit, not local
development. Hence they always demand peace and security from the local
governments to protect their interests, and they pay lip service to the
imperatives of human rights.
Africa has been to Europe a source of raw materials and cheap labor for its
commercial enterprises and lucrative profit. In order to fulfill this
historical mission and profit realization in Africa, the foreign
organizations had to destroy local systems catering for the needs and
aspirations of local communities.
As Vimbi Gukwe wrote;
"After we have understood Europe's destruction of African cultural and
economic institutions and their replacement by its own as business, then, we
will be in position to know the appropriate action to take to liberate
Africa's creative potential from continued repression and exploitation by
Europe"
This comes about when African leaders and intellectuals turn away from their
own cultures and put the destiny of their countries in European and American
hands. With globalization European systems in Africa will continue with
their hegemony. By continuing to embrace these systems, African leaders and
intellectuals continue to turn their backs on their own people, culture, and
history and surrender themselves to Europe for direction, in political,
social, cultural and moral matters. African leaders and intellectuals
through global culture have lost their minds to Europe by losing their own
culture. They have become possessed and a property of Europe and America.
Global culture propagated by Europe ignores the fact that Europe and Africa
are different.
One of the most significant obstacles to revolutionary fundamental changes
in Africa is mental colonialism, conservative, reactionary and dependent
thinking of the African intellectuals or so-called educated class. Trained
by colonial masters, African intellectuals and leaders are mere students
ready to carry out orders of their former masters. Their intellectual
training has bred a dependency syndrome in them and left them with the pride
of Cambridge, Oxford, and London Universities where they have been trained
to be better colonial agents. Hence they cannot be entrusted with the
mission of liberating the African continent.
The Late Prof Chango Machyo explains the condition of the African
intellectuals;
Generally speaking, the educated African is not a revolutionary. And the
higher up in the educational ladder he or she climbs, the more conservative,
reactionary and dependent he or she becomes. The role of the educated
African is always to seek to be on the safe-side where the chances of
falling into things of eating are brightest. Those who seemed to be
revolutionary during their youth, slowly but surely shed their revolutionary
outlooks as they grow up. They change their colours and preach "moderation"
and "we must be realistic" joining the continuing efforts being made to
derevolutionize the masses- the peasantry and workers- and urging them to
forgive and forget.
Chancellor Williams added;
"Black officials once elected to office, turn out to be as conservative and
reactionary as any white congressman from the backwoods of Mississippi."
Intellectuals' dependence has betrayed the African revolution for political,
social and economic emancipation. Their intellectual training has not only
tamed them but also made them better civil servants of the colonial and now
globalizing systems. This is the kind of education that Walter Rodney
describes as "education for subordination, exploitation with creation of
mental confusion and the development of underdevelopment." The history of
the struggle for liberation in Africa was intended to change this white
paternalism still embraced by African intellectuals including potential
leaders. White people in Washington, London, and Paris decide and blacks
implement the decision.
In Africa, foreign ideologies and value systems are embraced in the name of
progress, modernization, and even globalization. The development of African
thought in both academy and politics will only be possible the day African
intellectuals make an ideological shift to Africanism. Mafeje writing on the
need for African intellectuals to re-Africanize their thought reminds them
of the guiding principles in Ancient Egyptians thought; "Know thyself"
Looking at African philosophical thought Mafeje finds grounds for
reconstruction and self-realization. African universities have to be shaped
by and influenced by their social context on the one hand, and on the other,
to address the challenges posed by globalization.
Received on Thu Jun 05 2014 - 12:57:16 EDT