Through the Looking Glass

Issue 3 December 2018 AFRICA Through the Looking Glass: Images of African Futures 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 5 Editorial 6 The New Image of Africa in Black Panther Ainehi Edoro 10 Interview Moving Past Afrofuturism Rafeeat Aliyu and Masiyaleti Mbewe 14 Interview But Africans Don’t Do Speculative Fiction!? Chiagozie Nwonwu 18 How Did the African Future Begin? Imraan Coovadia 22 Afrofuturism = Radicality Mawena Yehouessi 29 Interview Africa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution: The Need for “Creative Destruction” Beyond Technological Change Rasigan Maharajh Editorial 5 Editorial The Hollywood action movie Black Pan- ist ideas have been brought to life, particu- ther captured the imagination of audiences larly by African-American intellectuals and around the globe. In several African coun- artists, to break away from these limitations. tries, it quickly became the highest grossing In their own context, African intellec- film of all time. The tale is set in Wakanda, tuals like Ngu˜gı˜ wa Thiong’o and Achille a technologically advanced African king- Mbembe call for the “decolonisation” of dom that avoided the shackles of colonial- language and knowledge in order to chal- ism and slavery by isolating itself behind a lenge the single narrative of a continent guise of poverty and deprivation. Although that languishes on the periphery of cultural what it presents as “African”, in terms of nar- production and lags behind global progress rative and images, is far from uncontested, in technology. In a similar vein, the Rhodes the film catapulted Afrofuturism – a disci- Must Fall student movement in South Africa pline or aesthetic that enlists science fiction demanded the decolonisation of cultural and technology to imagine black identities and social spheres along with education and futures unconstrained by past and pre- and the economy. sent circumstances – from the avant-garde Against this background of politi- circles of artists and intellectuals into the cal and cultural disruption, Perspectives mainstream. approached writers to inquire, specula- The movie was released into a particu- tively or not so speculatively, into an African larly fraught political moment, as the world future. What inspires our fascination for the witnesses a surge in right-wing extremism future and the futuristic? Is there a conver- in the so-called “democratic” and “devel- gence or divergence between the futures oped” North, notably the United States and imagined in Africa and the Afrofuturism Europe. This cuts deep to the core of these emerging from the United States? Can we societies, raising questions about the norms imagine futures that go beyond redress- and values that were thought to underpin ing past injustices? Is Africa prepared for their democratic order. At the same time, the the technological advancements that are globally influential entertainment industry central to both Afrofuturism and the much- faces mounting criticism from within their touted Fourth Industrial Revolution? societies and across the world about the The result is an eclectic mix of contri- narrow representation of diversity in their butions and conversations across the arts, productions. Growing numbers of voices culture, philosophy and politics. They offer protest the distorting effects of racism that glimpses of African futures – fantastic, ide- people of colour experience in their daily alistic, or sober, but always self-confident – lives, as well as the role of racist narratives that place the continent at the centre of a and depictions in delineating the realm of world to come. imagination. As American screenwriter Yta- sha Womack argues, “We have been duped Layla Al-Zubaidi into only believing one narrative about our- Regional Director selves. And this creates a co-constitutive process in which we imagine a limited sense Jochen Luckscheiter of possibility and create limited lives in this Programme Manager image.” From the 1950s onwards, Afrofutur- 6 The New Image of Africa in Black Panther The New Image of Africa in Black Panther Ainehi Edoro Wakanda, the fictional home-country of Utopian Impulse the superhero Black Panther, might be set in Africa, but the terms of its representa- Wakanda is not the first fictional African tion were crafted in Hollywood. The child world to hit the big screen or circulate globally in popular imagination. However, the of Marvel and Disney, birthed by Ameri- movie offers a new way to see Africa on can director Ryan Coogler, is not, strictly the silver screen and, more broadly, in the speaking, an African project. Yet the world of fiction. Something sets Wakanda movie sparked a special interest across apart from, say, Zamunda in Eddie Mur- the continent. phy’s Coming to America, Kukuanaland in Ryder Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, or the many other fictional African spaces The power of the film lies in the completely in the Marvel Comics universe. Zamunda novel image of Africa it presents to Africans. is small, closed-off and timeless in the way In other words: there is a good chance that Disney castles are – a blown-up miniature Africa and the rest of the world may not have of a world trapped in a jewel box. The Africa seen the same movie. Others saw a Marvel we find in Kukuanaland, built largely on the Comics blockbuster decked out with all the racist fantasies of 19th-century England, is usual cookie-cutter thrills and frills. Africans incomprehensible. saw all of that, and a whole lot more. They Wakanda is different, and not only saw in Black Panther an “African portrayal because it is a highly advanced civilisation. from an African perspective”, as the actor Unlike the purely aestheticised Africa of Danai Gurira (who played Okoye) put it dur- Zamunda, Wakanda is a fantastical African ing the Johannesburg press junket. world sprouted from real-world elements of The Guardian in Nigeria, South Afri- African life. The costumes were inspired by ca’s Mail & Guardian, and Kenya’s Daily designs and fabrics sourced everywhere on Nation ran column after column, teasing the continent, from Accra to Maasai com- out the resonances of the film for their read- munities. Parts of Black Panther’s score were ers. Social media was awash with outpour- composed and recorded in Senegal, where ings of support. From sold-out showings Swedish-born Ludwig Göransson collabo- in Addis Ababa to multiple-city premieres rated with Senegalese singer and guitar- attended by A-list celebrities, there is no ist Baba Maal and other local musicians. Ainehi Edoro is an assistant pro- fessor of English at the University doubt that the movie struck a chord with Wakandans speak Xhosa, one of the official of Wisconsin-Madison, where she African viewers. Less than a month after its languages of South Africa. The chief of the teaches African literature and 21st-century fiction. She received release, Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former Jabari people has a Nigerian accent. her doctorate at Duke University. vice-president and current presidential For non-African moviegoers, Wakanda She is the founder and editor of aspirant, used it as a campaign platform in might appear “African” in a broad and, per- Brittle Paper and series editor for Ohio University Press’s Modern an article on Medium titled “Black Panther: haps, clichéd sense. But African viewers are African Writers imprint. A Good Film with Many Lessons for Nigeria”. able to see the source material in the fin- The New Image of Africa in Black Panther 7 ished product. Because they know which yet to be. For Nigerians in the audience, and Wakanda is a fantastical African parts are real, they can better appreciate perhaps some of the Chibok family, seeing world sprouted from real-world elements of African life. the futuristic transformation that takes what “could have been”, had Wakanda come © Marvel Studios/ Disney place. In this sense, Wakanda is always slip- to the rescue, raises the possibility of what ping into the frame of the real Africa and “might be” in a future, however distant. vice versa. The African viewer can close the The utopian politics of the film rely gap between fiction and reality and, doing heavily on Coogler never straying too far so, set off the utopian impulses in the film. from Africa as we know it. But this reli- By “utopian impulse”, I mean the aspect ance on the “real” Africa has its problems. of the film that invites the spectator to ask: The characters of Shuri, Nakia and Okoye “What if Wakanda were Africa?” or “How does Wakanda hold a promise of what Africa could become?” One of the most politically The utopian politics of the film rely heavily resonant moments in the film is the opening on Coogler never straying too far from Africa sequence. Set in Sambisa Forest, it is built on the kidnap of the Chibok girls by Nige- as we know it. But this reliance on the “real” rian extremist organisation Boko Haram, Africa has its problems. which Nakia (played by Lupita Nyong’o) helps to foil.

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