• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

THIS IS AFRICA www.thisisafrica.me Issue 3 December 2017 AFRICA The (Un-) Making of Icons in Africa This edition of Perspectives Africa is published jointly by the offices of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung in sub-Saharan Africa. DAKAR ABUJA NAIROBI CAPE TOWN Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung The Heinrich Böll Foundation is a publicly funded institution that is affiliated with but intellectually independent from the German Green party. From our headquarters in Berlin and over 30 overseas offices, we promote civic participation in Germany, as well as in more than 60 countries worldwide. Our work in Africa concentrates on promoting civil society, democratic structures, gender democracy and global justice. Together with our partners, we work toward conflict prevention and search for solutions to the chal- lenges of environmental degradation and the depletion of resources. To achieve these goals, we rely on disseminating information, creating a deeper understanding between actors in Africa and Europe, and supporting global dialogue. Contents 4 Editorial 6 Interview Beyond the Individual: Redefining Icons in Africa Mu~koma wa Ngu~g~ı 11 Winter in South Africa: Mandela’s Contested Legacy in a Divided Nation Richard Poplak 14 Interview #RhodesMustFall – It was Never Just About the Statue Zethu Matebeni 18 Liberation Struggle Icons Fading for Africa’s Youth Takura Zhangazha 22 Mugabe’s Legacy: When a Cock Stops Crowing Brian Raftopoulos 25 Popular Versus Official Iconography: The Case of Namibia’s Andimba Toivo Ya Toivo Henning Melber 28 Interview Icons For My Daughters Fatoumata Bintou Kandé 32 To Define a Continent By Its Icons Diminishes Its Politics and Its People Mary C. Curtis 35 Remembering Amadou Hampâté Bâ Abdourahman A. Waberi 4 Editorial Editorial Which African leaders qualify as an icon? demics, Zethu Matebeni, the student pro- Perhaps this is always a controversial ques- tests challenged an existing campus culture tion, but it was much easier to answer, say, that many say still excludes and alienates 25 years ago, when the public memories of black people. The students’ anger, how- Pan-Africanist champions such as Kwame ever, was not only directed at Rhodes as a Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere were still symbol of colonial oppression. It also called fresh, Nelson Mandela had just walked out into question the legacy of Nelson Mandela of prison, and Robert Mugabe was a widely and the country’s negotiated democratic respected leader. Today, lists like New Afri- settlement, which was based on national can’s 2004 “100 greatest Africans of all time” reconciliation and political transforma- – in which these leaders took the top four tion. Richard Poplak further unpacks this places – seem somewhat stale. Beyond dynamic in the context of a deeply divided famous musicians, artists and authors, the society where anger is growing about high time of easy consensus on who is an “Afri- income and wealth gaps that continue to can icon” seems past. The sands are shifting run along racial lines. beneath the political icons of old. The significance of former struggle Africa’s youth feel betrayed. The 2015 icons is contested in other African countries #RhodesMustFall protests in South Africa as well. The portrayal of Robert Mugabe’s are testimony to this. What began with a legacy by Brian Raftopoulos shows how student throwing faeces at a statue of colo- a once celebrated liberator turned into a nial icon and mining magnate Cecil Rhodes deeply polarising dictator, able to invoke at the University of Cape Town gave rise to both admiration and contempt at the same nationwide calls for the “decolonisation” time. In contrast, Henning Melber’s essay of universities and free higher education. on a Namibian struggle hero reflects on As described by one of the university’s aca- the popular desire for leaders who remain 5 Editorial truthful to their principles, and how peo- with regard to African countries. However, ple can use iconography to dissent against Mu~koma wa Ngu~gı˜ sees hope in new, hori- dominant narratives. zontal social movements that may bring to Takura Zhangazha notes the hegemonic the fore a new iconography that transcends influence of the Western mass media that the individual and depoliticised “saviour”. has transferred young people’s awareness of In reality, neither history nor culture is stag- African political icons to new figureheads, nant on the continent. As Ngu~gı˜ puts it: “We mostly in music and sports. Away from the have to allow Africa to be many things, to global gaze, however, contemporary Afri- claim old, new and growing cultural and can popular culture and politics continue political traditions as its own.” to introduce and sustain a multitude of This edition of Perspectives seeks to cri- icons. Fatoumata Bintou Kandé highlights tique the meaning of “African icon”, to explore some of Senegal’s national heroes and also the changing readings of icons of the past, some hidden female icons whose stories and the issues they may reveal or veil. In have been sidelined in the country’s public doing so, we invite the reader to take a fresh memory. In his essay on writer, poet, eth- and more imaginative look at the continent. nologist, numerologist and spiritual leader Amadou Hampâté Bâ, Abdourahman A. Layla Al-Zubaidi Waberi portrays another outstanding Afri- Regional Director can figure who remains relatively unknown despite his historical significance. Jochen Luckscheiter Mary C. Curtis argues that, although Programme Manager the tendency to reduce countries to nega- tive stereotypes and positive exceptions is Nancy Onyango global, this has been especially persistent This is Africa 6 Beyond the Individual: Redefining Icons in Africa Beyond the Individual: Redefining Icons in Africa Interview A scholar and novelist of note, Mu~koma wa Ngu~gı˜ is an important voice in the con- temporary discourse in and about Africa. In this interview, he challenges conventional notions of what an African icon is and by whom they are determined. Noting the shift from vanguardist revolutions to people-powered and -led revolutions, he proposes a new iconography for our times. Richard Oduor Oduku: What comes to mind when you think of the notion of icons in society? Mu~koma wa Ngu~g ı˜ : I am taking issue with the very concept of icon. For one to become an icon, he or she has to be deracinated, cleaned up and depoliticised for our consumption. Mandela becomes an elderly affable man instead of a revolutionary. Martin Luther King Jr. becomes an emblem of love across races, forgetting his militant oppo- sition to war and his class-based approach to social change. And those who cannot be cleaned up do not become icons; certainly, figures like Malcolm X and Castro or, closer to home, Thomas Sankara, are not allowed to become such because their names cannot be abstracted from their radical politics. I also think most of the people we consider to be icons would not see themselves as such. They would see themselves as ordinary peo- ple who, against difficult odds, as in apartheid, colonialism and dicta- torships, spoke up. They were not born icons, circumstances created them. The icon is what we choose to remember. Who are some of the African icons that you would choose to remember? Mu~koma wa Ngu~g~ı is an Assistant I often think of Ruth First, an anti-apartheid revolutionary assas- Professor of English at Cornell sinated by the apartheid government in 1982 as our very own Rosa University and the author of the Luxemburg, the Polish-German revolutionary assassinated in 1919 novels Mrs. Shaw (2015) Black Star Nairobi (2013) Nairobi Heat in Germany because of her political activism. I would also mention (2011) and two books of poetry, Malcolm X, because why shouldn’t we claim him for Africa? After all, Hurling Words at Conscious- ness (2006) and Logotherapy he claimed Africa for black Americans when he sought solidarity with (2016). He is the co-founder of Tanzanians, Kenyans and Ghanaians before his assassination. Or the Mabati-Cornell Kiswahili W.E.B. Dubois and Sol Plaatje, the pioneers of what would become Prize for African Literature and co-director of the Global South the radical Pan-Africanism embraced by Kwame Nkrumah. Project - Cornell. The Rise of the I mention these to challenge who can become an African icon – do African Novel: Politics of Lan- they have to be black? Then what do you do with Ruth First, a white guage, Politics and Ownership is forthcoming from University of Jewish woman? Do they have to be African? Then what do you do with Michigan Press (March 2018). Randall Robinson, an African-American who actively fought against Beyond the Individual: Redefining Icons in Africa 7 Ruth First was a journalist, acade- apartheid? Why shouldn’t we celebrate Sojourner Truth or Frederick mic and gifted political activist. © Derek Smith Douglass for advancing the rights of black men and women? Or Tous- saint L’Ouverture, who led the Haitian revolution’s defeat of French and British armies, making Haiti the first nation on earth to free all within its borders, regardless of race? If we take all these into consid- eration, then the notion of icons will always be smaller than the his- tory they created. In fact, there is an argument to be made that icons bury the history they made. Female icons are largely marginalised in our historical narratives. Why do you think this is the case? Take Kenyan history, for example, and the legacy of the Mau Mau or the Kenyan Land and Freedom Army. The Kenyatta and Moi govern- ments had vested interests in suppressing it in order to loot the coun- try blind while cementing neo-colonialism. One could not do the work of recovering the role of women in the anti-colonial struggle without contradicting the dictatorship.

Load more

  40

Copy Link