Afrocentricity as a catalyst for Africa’s development Blog 28
Africa needs complete restructuring and transformation of its political economies from dependent to self-reliant ones Adebayo Adedeji (1979)
Walter Rodney is among many scholars that have written extensively about Africa’s economy in its original form - prior to colonialism, imperialism and neo-colonialism. Rodney makes a fundamental point that the manner in which Africa’s economy was organised prior to colonialism, ensured that everyone benefited from it. It is not just the issue of the economy. Life, in general, during the pre-mercantilist period (a period before the seventieth century) was organised in a way that worked well for all Africans.
This article revisits that paradigm that shaped society and the economy and proposes ways that 21st century Africa can emulate aspects of it in order to benefit the majority of the people. This article departs from the understanding that there was a single socio-economic development model that ensured that the economy benefitted everyone.
It is worth highlighting at this very onset, even ad nauseum, one of the important points that WEB Du Bois makes in his outstanding book – The World and Africa – that; Africa, especially its economy, was and remained poorly understood because there was not much written about it. Samir Amin argued in his 1972 paper on Underdevelopment and Development in Africa, published in the Journal of Peace Research,“a society cannot be reduced to a mode of production. The concept of mode of production is abstract”. Limited information about the pre-colonial African economy results in misunderstandings when one argues for a return to that approach of an economy that benefited everyone. Some people interpret such an argument to mean that 21st century Africa should look like pre-colonial Africa.Of course, that is absurd. The argument about Africa’s roots implies that aspects of it that worked well during the pre-mercantilist phase could be adapted today and going forward.
In short, the African economy prior to colonialism was shaped by the notion of communalism. Walter Rodney in his timeless book – How Europe Underdeveloped Africa – defines communalism as a system where “property [is] collectively owned, work done in common and goods shared equally”. This is in sharp contrast to capitalism, which came with colonialism, which, according to Rodney, resulted in the “concentration in a few hands of ownership of the means of producing wealth and by unequal distribution of the products of human labour”. Clearly, communalism is a more attractive system for those who care enough about the human condition in general and the further advancement of the African continent in particular. As Samir Amin argued in 1997 in one of his eloquent works – Capitalism in the Age of Globalization – the capitalist or free market or free enterprise economic philosophy does not work for the many. Amin puts it well when he says that “contemporary society is manifestly in crisis, if we define crisis as a situation in which the expectations of the majority cannot be satisfied by the logic of the [capitalist] system”. Amin goes on to say that “capitalism and crisis are not incompatible: far from it, because the logic of capital necessarily generates crisis. The solution implies a modification of the rules of the game…an alternative social project”. The crisis of capitalism that Amin wrote extensively about is still with us today. Arguably, the crisis has worsened and the world is stuck in ‘crisis management’ when what is required is a complete overhaul of the predominant paradigm of liberalism and neo-liberarism. This is a global challenge!
The question remains: what should Africa do to further pursue its socio-economic development? This article proposes what it calls African Economic Renaissance. Washington Jalang'oOkumu problematizes the notion that “Renaissance is exclusively or primarily concerned with economic growth…” He argues that we need to “obtain absolute clarity to the nature of the economic and social development to which Africa would aspire in the context of the Renaissance movement”. Okumu is quite correct that ‘economic and social development’ means different things to different people, and he is also very right that African Renaissance cannot concern itself “exclusively and primarily” with economic growth. And, indeed, economic growth is not an end in itself and we know that the nature of economic growth matters. For instance, Africa has been performing relatively well, in standard measures of economic growth, but challenges of underdevelopment, poverty, etc. remain.
Bearing in mind Okumu’s argument, a case can be made that there must be aspects of African Renaissance that concern themselves with socio-economic development of the continent. Political and cultural emancipation, for an example, cannot be enough. The consciousness of the peoples of Africa about our history, our civilisations, our contribution to scientific advancement and so on and so forth, though critical on their own, would also require an economy that works for Africans. African Economic Renaissance implies the rebirth of the African economy and it implies a different economic system than the dominant free market system.
This article suggests that the Afrocentric paradigm can be a decolonial tool that can also ensure African Economic Renaissance. Ama Mazama in her excellent book – The Afrocentric Paradigm – argues that Afrocentricity should be seen as a paradigm that shapes the reconceptualization of the historical reality of African people. Molefi Asante in his vibrant book – An Afrocentric Manifesto – defines Afrocentricity as “a consciousness, quality of thought, mode of analysis, and actionable perspective where Africans seek, from agency, to assert subject place within the context of African history”. What is instructive from the perspective of Afrocentricity is that ‘African agency’ is critical. In other words, Africans should determine their destiny. Arguably, Africans should decide on the economy and or the economic systemthat works for them. Africans have had an economy and an economic system that worked well for them, particularly prior to the fifteenth century. As Walter Rodney put it: the predominant principle of social relations [in Africa, before fifteenth century] was that of family and kinship associated with communalism.
African agency that the Afrocentric paradigm calls for could be applied in allendeavours towards decoloniality. Departing from a premise that coloniality continues after colonialism and colonisation, Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni argues that “decoloniality is born out of a realisation that ours is an asymmetrical world order that is sustained not only by colonial matrices of power but also by pedagogies and epistemologies of equilibrium that continue to produce alienated Africans…” Although the two notions (i.e. Afrocentricity and decoloniality) do not mean same things, there is resonance in the two notions and if applied together, a different world could emerge because the centrality of the historical experience of colonialism is recognised in both Afrocentricity and decoloniality.
With regards to the African economy – in all its variegated forms – African agency might mean that we revisit the pre-mercantilist African economy and or economic system. Perhaps a modified form of the pre-fifteenth century African communalism can be adapted for the continent going forward. Some argue that this is farfetched. Indeed, it is probably unthinkable. However, it is not unfeasible especially in the context that everything that has been done since the seventeen century has not worked for Africa (and for the world as a whole). To implement a new socio- economic development model for Africa, informed by Afrocentricity, might very well mean that Africa disengages from the rest of the world to get our house in order before we interface with the rest of the world again. Africa has enough reasons to do this. In particular, Africa was forcefully brought into the global economy largely through European and Arab slave trade – which Christianity was complicit in. In future, Africa can determine the terms of its reconnection with the global human society.
In conclusion, there is no doubt that we must rethink the political economy of our continent. Part of the rethink involves ensuring that what Adebayo Adedeji said, in his Statement to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in Geneva in July 12 1979, happens. Adedeji argued for the “complete restructuring” of African political economies. Another aspect of rethinking Africa’s political economy involves the formulation and implementation of appropriate policies. Siyanbora Tomori puts it well in his paper entitled Evolving a New Development Paradigm for Africa – when he says “Africans should formulate and implement policies that are consistent with their needs even if these are not always approved by the international community”.
My article takes these views further – spurred by two outstanding African economists Samir Amin and Thandika Mkandawire among others. I argue that the African political economy needs more than “complete restructuring” and “policies”. Rather, informed by the Afrocentric paradigm, and in the context of decoloniality, Africa requires a new socio-economic development model – something akin to communalism. As we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Organisation for African Unity, an argument is made thatdifferent social processes are needed, given that what we have tried in the past 50 years has not taken our continent where it should be.