an introduction to sentiments of African writers on the future of Africa, dedicated to Westerners

interested in the ethics of development

BY LEAH ERICA CHUNG

Dear Reader, As an industrial design student who always dreamed of saving starving children in Africa and is now more serious about pursuing development as a career, I’d like to thank you for picking up this pamphlet. After years of studying development projects, such as the various initiatives of designers and partnered NGOs to create products for impoverished communities, I have come to the point where the ethics of development itself has been poking at my conscience.

Projects like these that failed to understand their end-users and their culture made me wonder: are we really helping “them”? Do we even have a right to help? “Won’t these global development projects only create a sense of dependency and essentially cripple communities from solving their own problems for the future?”

F. Abiola Irele’s essay “The Political Kingdom: Toward Reconstruction in Africa,” affirms the desperate call for Westerners to understand Africans, their rich, complex history and culture before reducing them to helpless victims of poverty and disease. Irele notes the literature of Paul Johnson and Tom Stoppard where they view Africa as a “vulture’s garbage dump” in which colonial powers will build a “wonderful world (6).” A stereotype of Africa that persists today is that of a “pestilential Africa,” where the continent is constantly presented in the press as a breeding ground of disease. However, Irele eventually relays an optimistic message, which encourages Africans to “take to heart the sneers, the put downs, the insults, the condescension and the contempt of [their] detractors taking them as spurs to a renewed commitment to the welfare of [their continent] (31)”

Channeling the ignorance and Afro-pessimism of Westerners into positive energy is an admirable action forward. In the meanwhile, the white man must contend to keep quiet, and read on.

Leah Erica Chung

RISD Industrial Design ‘14

The Life Straw is a plastic straw-like device with a water filter built in. It was initially designed for people in rural African regions where clean water is not easily accessible. When I first found out about it, I thought it as genius. You would simply go to any water source, drink from it through the Life Straw, and no matter how dirty the water you could drink filtered water in seconds. However, this project failed dramatically as the devices were too expensive for the target regions anyway, the filters weren’t readily available, and it looked completely ridiculous when used.

Optimism Score (OS)The OS indicates how optimistic one feels toward the future of Africa. This score dictates where on the spectrum it is placed.

Colonial Acrimony Score (CAS)The CAS indicates how bitter one feels towards the colonial powers. This score is not necessarily inversely proportional to the optimism score as some Africans can hold harsh feelings towards colonial powers yet have a positive outlook on the future of his/her country.

OPTIMISTIC

Legend/Key

OPT

IMISM SCORE 00AC

RIMONY SCORE 0

Based on essay: “National Liberation and Culture”

Amilcar Cabral is one of the most optimistic thinkers of the African scholars presented in this pamphlet as he focuses on not so much the injustices committed by the colonial powers but moves beyond that into the rich culture that humanizes the African people and in a sense weakens the legacy of the colonial powers. Cabral shows no bitterness towards them as is the natural inclination of others scholars but instead suggests that perhaps the colonial domination is what enabled Africa to strengthen its identity and to respect its cultural values even more.

AMILCAR CABRAL12 September 1924 – 20 January 1973Guinea-BissauNationalist thinker and politician

OPT

IMISM SCORE 10 ACRIMONY SCORE 0

Culture as a weapon.He goes as far as commending the achievement of Africans to be able to develop their culture in adverse conditions “from deserts to equatorial forests, from coastal marshes to the banks of the great rivers subject to frequent flooding…” He further asserts his optimistic tone as he describes the

value of culture and the important role it plays in the movement toward national liberation. He defines culture as “the product of this history just as the flower is the product of a plant.”

OPT

IMISM SCORE 09 ACRIMONY SCORE 0

Based on interview: Emmanuel Dongola “Conversation with Chinua Achebe About His Return Home to Nigeria”

Achebe is undoubtedly a firm believer in the future of Nigeria. Without being consumed by revolutionary calls to action, he calmly affirms the problems of Africa and asserts the potential of his nation to escape tyranny and burgeon into a democratic country. Achebe recalls an incident in the Muritala Muhammed International Airport upon returning home when he was initially denied access to an aisle chair, not because there weren’t any available but simply because nobody bothered to bring it. Though he testifies to the dysfunction of his country through this example, he does not hold bitterness towards anyone and claims that ““it is no longer fashionable to blame the outside world; it’s best to take the responsibility for it.”

In Achebe’s novel “The Anthills of the Savannah,” the ending of a new born baby that “needs to be brought up” is a metaphor to a post-colonial Nigeria that also needs to be brought up in order for a sense of hope to help the country grow.

CHINUA ACHEBE16 November 1930 - presentNigeriaNovelist, poet, professor, critic

OPT

IMISM SCORE 08 ACRIMONY SCORE 5

Based on book: “The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah”

Before Nkrumah became the first President of post-independence Ghana, he established the “Accra Evening News” which advocated for 1) preference of self-government with danger to servitude in tranquility, 2) the right to live as men, and 3) the right to govern themselves. In his autobiography, he shares many of the articles featured in the newspaper, which essentially is the platform on which he communicates his energetic calls for independence. He empashizes organization as the key to “make an effective demand for the control of [their] own affairs, so that [they] can be in a position to remedy innumerable economic and social ills which mar life in this country and reduce [them] to miserable specimens of humanity.” Amidst his impassioned call to positive action, he doesn’t forget to address the colonialists as “provocateurs and stooges.”

“Organize! Organize! Organize!”

Thought his tone is often dramatic and sensationalist, he makes a key point when he claims that they have “every right to manage or mismanage” their own affairs. Nkrumah’s views on why the British should leave the Ghanaians alone sheds light to how international development organizations can rethink supposedly helpful interventions. Perhaps it is more empowering to preserve the right of developing countries to “manage” or “mismanage” as they choose than to assume a condescending position of rescuer.

kwame nkrumah21 September 1909 – 27 April 1972GhanaFirst President of Ghana & Prime Minister

OPT

IMISM SCORE 05 ACRIMONY SCORE 2

Based on essay: “A View of Nigerian Independence”

Solarin doesn’t show much contempt towards the colonial power, nor does he even mention them often in his essay. But that’s only because his critical eye is focused on the Nigerian leaders. Nigeria’s Minister of Finance had traveled the world three times in search for foreign development capital instead of devising a plan toward self-sufficiency in-house. Though Solarin admonishes the Nigerian leaders for resorting to “international begging,” this is also a testament to how dependent and crippled the Europeans left them.

Solarin provides statistics on Nigeria’s high under-five mortality rate, the much too low number of doctors, and refers to his country as “leprous.” It is interesting to see African writers themselves utilizing the Western-created stereotype of Africa being pestilential. He uses the dramatic imagery of a rudderless ship, aimlessly cruising in the dark night with bickering passengers and ministers to illustrate what his negative perception of post-independence Nigeria is. Despite Solarin’s harsh criticism of his political leaders and home country’s affairs, he claims that it is simply honest self-criticism, which will be “[their] greatest savior.”

TAI SOLARINAugust 20, 1922 - June 27, 1994NigeriaEducator and author

OPT

IMISM SCORE 03 ACRIMONY SCORE 5

Based on book: “On the Postcolony”

Achille Mbembe is not afraid to acknowledge the various negative interpretations of Westerners on Africa. He admits that his diagnosis is harsh. According to him, Africa is constantly attributed with things of “lesser value, little importance, and poor quality.” It represents all that is “incomplete, mutilated, and unfinished,” and “its history is reduced to a series of setbacks of nature in its quest for humankind.” He continues the laundry list of pessimism, stating that Africa is a “headless figure,” “a bottomless abyss,” and “primordial chaos.” Need I continue this roast? Besides the gory imagery Mbembe enlightens his readers with, he speaks specifically about the enchantment of the postcolonial authority and how it is but a vehicle of “narcissistic self-gratification.” He shares the story of Paul Biya, the President of Cameroon, in which his visit to Belgium was published to the masses as an exaggerated celebratory ordeal that was meant to deceive the people into thinking that the country was moving forward in the international arena. Mbembe believes that this apparent powerlessness of postcolonial leaders on the world stage and that of the African people in their respective nations will only leave space for more violence to take control.

achille mbembe1975CameroonPhilosopher and political scientist

BIBLIOGRAPHYAchebe, Chinua. "Conversation with Chinua Achebe About His Return Home to Nigeria." Interview by Emmanuel Dongola. 29 Nov. 1999: 1-13. Print.Cabral, Amílcar. National Liberation and Culture. [Syracuse, N.Y.]: Syracuse University, 1970. Print.Irele, F. Abiola. "The Political Kingdom: Toward Reconstruction in Africa." British Institute in Eastern Africa. 1-35. Print.Judd, Peter. African Independence. New York: Dell Pub., 1963. Print.Mbembé, J. -A. On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California, 2001. Print.Nkrumah, Kwame. The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1957. Print.

PESSIMISTIC

PRODUCED FOR ANANI DZIDZIENYOWEST AFRICAN WRITERS & THE POLITICAL KINGDOM

“So I choose not to be a pessimist. I choose not to be a pessimist because, if I am an optimist, the worst that

can happen to me is that I’ll be disappointed at the end. If I am a pessimist I’ll be miserable all the way.”

Chinua Achebe