We’re all Ghanaians: Reclaiming Pan-Africanism for the African Renaissance

On January 22, 1957, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, then Prime Minister of the then Gold Coast, wrote a letter to Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois and his wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois, inviting them to attend the auspicious occasion of what would on March 6 of that year become the independent nation of Ghana. It would be the first Black African country to achieve independence from a European colonizing country, and would be joining North African countries, including Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Sudan, who had already achieved their independence.

The US Government refused to issue passports to Dr. Du Bois and his wife Shirley to travel to Ghana. They ended up missing the hugely significant occasion. But Du Bois replied to Dr. Nkrumah’s letter, in which he performed a highly meaningful and symbolic act for the future of the Black world. Considered to be the father of Pan-Africanism, Dr. Du Bois bequeathed to Dr. Nkrumah the presidency of the Pan-African Congress, which had first met in 1919, in Paris. The next Pan-African Congress would be meeting on African soil for the first time ever, and Dr. Nkrumah would, as per Dr. Du Bois’s bestowing, be presiding over it. Thus the torch of Pan-Africanism, the struggle for people of African descent worldwide to overcome centuries of dehumanization and exploitation, was passed on to Kwame Nkrumah, to Ghana, and to Africa.

The celebrations marking 50 years of Ghana’s independence this week reassert Ghana’s place as the world center of Pan-Africanism (Pierre & Shipley, 2003, in Falola, Ed., Ghana in Africa and the World). In addition to being proud and happy for all Ghanaians in the world, I’m also very pleased for Malawi’s participation in this momentous celebration. The President of Malawi, Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika, is in Ghana as I write, with a Malawian contingent that is reported to include traditional chiefs and the Kwacha Cultural Troupe, Malawi’s national traditional dance troupe that preserves the best of Malawi’s performing arts heritage.

In Malawi we have every reason to join the Ghanaians, and the entire Pan-African world, in celebrating Ghana’s jubilee. As Walusako Mwalilino reminds everyone on the Malawi listserv Nyasanet, it was in Ghana that Malawi’s first president, Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, spent a good part of the 1950s, where he became very close to Dr. Nkrumah, having first known each other in London where Dr. Banda has been practicing medicine for sometime. Dr. Nkrumah would eventually become actively engaged in Malawi’s own struggle for independence from the British. We are indebted to Kanyama Chiume, a Malawian who played a crucial role in the struggle, for giving us an elaborate and inspiring account of the support Malawians received from many Africans on the continent and others beyond, at the height of the struggle.

In his autobiography, Kanyama (1982) writes about visiting London in 1959, whereupon learning of his presence, Nkrumah sent ₤100 to help in the work Kanyama was doing in London. Days later Nkrumah offered Kanyama an airticket so that on leaving London Kanyama should fly directly to Ghana to continue strategizing and mobilizing resources to aid Malawi’s freedom struggle. In Ghana Kanyama was given a triumphant welcome, and “was carried shoulder high amidst shouts and placards to the effect that a Nyasalander murdered is a Ghanaian dead” (p. 122).

And more support from Nkrumah and Ghana was yet to come when Kanyama met with Nkrumah:

“When I saw Nkrumah personally he was most vehement in his denunciation of imperialism in Nyasaland. Since the Devlin Commission had already been appointed, and we were determined to defend our colleagues in detention, he offered ₤10,000 to cover the defence costs. In addition, he placed at our disposal the services of an able Ghanaian lawyer, Mills Odoi, to accompany whoever we chose to go to Central Africa for the purpose.”

When Kanyama met Nkrumah again in early 1964, Nkrumah could not have been more forthright and passionate about the significance of Pan-Africanism:

“Nkrumah talked about the urgent need for an All-African government. ‘Many of our troubles, Chiume,’ he emphasized, ‘are due to the fact that we are not united. We must have a continental government to prevent the further balkanization of Africa and, as far I am concerned, when Malawi is finally free and only seven of us are ready, we should just plunge into it. Others will follow.” (p. 167).

The ideals of Pan-Africanism as practiced by Du Bois, Padmore, Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Toure, Nyerere, Obote and others played a very important role in helping Black Africa overcome a racist, oppressive colonialism, but it did not solve all of Pan-Africa’s problems. Even at the height of the independence struggle problems arose due to betrayals, as Gamal Nkrumah, the son of Kwame Nkrumah told the BBC this week; lack of unity; and external interference by the colonialists who were determined not to see Africans govern themselves. In the months following Malawi’s independence, Banda became increasingly dictatorial and intolerant of opposing views. He and Nkrumah fell out, and Banda even ordered the closure of the Ghanaian Embassy in Malawi. In Ghana itself internal divisions, fomented by the CIA and other Cold War suspicions, also led to problems, including the military overthrow of Nkrumah. To this extent, the Pan-Africanist philosophy was ill-prepared for the unforeseen tragedies that followed.

Whereas some might think that this spelled the death of Pan-Africanism, others think that these events provide us lessons with which to re-examine Pan-Africanism as a framework, and reclaim it for contemporary realities. The 50^th anniversary of Ghana’s independence gives us that moment to reflect on our history and re-envision the future. The African Renaissance project provides a framework in which to reassess Pan-Africanism and retool it for the struggles ahead.

Ghana has embarked on a comprehensive program to lead the rest of the Pan-African world in imagining a new Africa. The program involves harnessing the resources of the African continent and its Diaspora, to place them at the disposal of the new demands now facing us. Ghana has initiated the Joseph Project (click here for more details), inspired by the Biblical story of Joseph who was sold away by his jealous brothers, and who prospered in the foreign lands to which they sold him. He later rescued his family in their time of need. With the project, Ghana is offering citizenship, land and other rights to people of African descent from anywhere in the world. A similar idea has been discussed in the African Union, according to the blog Black Looks, and is so far looking at giving citizenship to Black Americans. Although the project has already been criticized for being economistic in its outlook, it needs no emphasizing the role that Diaspora Africans can play in reviving the entire continent of Africa. In this regard, the two types of Diasporas, the historic and the contemporary, the latter also inclusive of migration within the African continent itself, have enormous roles to play in this renewal (Zeleza, 2005, in Mkandawire, Ed., African Intellectuals).

A long-term strategy in re-envisioning Pan-Africanism for the African Renaissance will not be feasible if it does not place at its center educational curriculum and pedagogy, both on the continent and in the worldwide Diaspora. Curriculum and pedagogy, both at the teacher education and school level, constitute one of the comprehensive strategies that will awaken a Pan-Africanist consciousness in school children, teachers, and their communities, by generating new knowledge about African peoples, their histories, their struggles and aspirations. As with the Pan-Africanism of the 1960s, problems will surface, but the advances made by African peoples worldwide in various spheres of world influence in the last several decades should reassure us of our capabilities to overcome these difficulties. There will be a few who will decide that the African Diaspora identity means nothing to them, "thank God for slavery"; but there will also be plenty more who will reaffirm their Pan-African identity. Thus Ghana’s happy occasion this week is also a time to ask ourselves new questions about what Pan-Africanism might look like, and what role each of us can play, in the era of the African Renaissance.

Black History, pan-African citizenship, and the 21^st century

As Black History Month winds up in the United States and in US Embassies around the world, I want to reflect on the larger meaning of the month, and to imagine how a pan-African identity for the 21^st century might consolidate the gains of the Black world and help usher in a whole new different reality. The Public Affairs Section of the American Embassy in Malawi has carried out several activities in several cities and towns in Malawi to commemorate the history of Africans in America. According to The Nation edition of February 14, 2007, activities marking the month have included poster shows, book exhibitions, film screenings, and public discussions. On January 15, the Public Affairs Section hosted secondary school students and their history teachers to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is celebrated on the same day that Malawi celebrates Chilembwe Day.

I have already written on the significance of Chilembwe Day in Malawi being celebrated on the same day that is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States, pointing out how both leaders should be seen as activists for peace and social justice. Although they lived their times separated by over half a century, the issues they both dealt with, the struggles of Black people against racism, have a much longer history. It is true that a lot has changed since these two courageous men sacrificed their lives as part of the struggle for the dignity of Black people, and that a lot more still needs to change. I grew up and went to school in Malawi, and even trained as a primary school teacher, but learned very little about Africans in America, let alone about Martin Luther King Jr, or Malcolm X. Hence it is significant that the Public Affairs Section of the US Embassy in Malawi is commemorating Black History Month, and encouraging discussion of Black History in educational institutions. It is imperative that Black History, and its continuing struggles, become integrated into the school curriculum, and in the wider public sphere, especially the media, so that as many Malawians as possible become aware of the lives and achievements of Black people in and outside the African continent.

In integrating Black History into the Malawian curriculum and in the public sphere, it will be necessary to overcome the tendency to teach only the safe, benign aspects of Black History, leaving out the difficult parts. This entails telling our children the truth about the dehumanization that Black peoples have suffered at the hands of powerful white people and their institutions, as well as the continuing disdain and disrespect Black people continue to suffer at the hands of racists of all races, including a few fellow Black people as well. Of continuing concern are educated, elite Blacks who, unable to understand racism and its insidious ways, choose the easiest way out, disinheriting their Blackness and identifying themselves with racist white power and privilege.

I have recently learned, from my pan-Afrikan sistas at Black Looks, of suggestions made by the African Union for African countries to offer dual citizenship to wealthy Black Americans as a way of encouraging them to financially support African countries. The idea is brilliant, especially if it can be stripped of its financial motivation and made instead to focus on forging solidarity and the championing of pan-African causes. The financial aspects will be there alright, but not as the primary motivation. As the sistas at Black Looks and Baffour Ankomah urge, the concept must be extended to Black people around the world, not just Black Americans. The uniting factor here must be understanding and appreciation of the Black struggle, and hence solidarity must be sought with all peoples who share in this ideological cause, regardless of geography and of race. There are a few non-Black people who share a rich, meaningful appreciation of this cause, and who must be acknowledged for their humility, deference and solidarity.

In a powerfully and poignantly argued essay, Ezrah Aharone has written about the contradiction of the strategic importance of Africa and its resources to the West, and now, increasingly, to Asia, while African Americans have more or less abandoned ties with their ancestral homeland. Aharone decries the absence of Africa in the Black America revival project outlined in Tavis Smiley’s Covenant with Black America, observing that: “It’s urgent and imperative therefore that all leaders of African descent understand the ‘geo-strategic economics’ of how the world was fashioned into this current state. Otherwise they are, by default, perpetuating a world system rooted in irresolvable inequities.”

Back on the continent itself, the struggle for unity continues, with the ideals once championed by Kwame Nkrumah further receding into oblivion, as the education system fails to educate young Africans about pan-Africanism and Black Consciousness. The evidence of this oblivion can be seen in recent threats to potentially unifying, ultra-modern projects such as the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy), aimed at connecting a large part of the continent South of the Sahara to reduce telecommunications costs for ordinary Africans. Charges and accusations of control and exploitation have already stalled progress on the project, and now an Indian technology company, Reliance Corporation, has announced plans to construct a cable line along the same route originally planned for EASSy.

In Malawi, the Shire-Zambezi waterway, a multi-billion Kwacha project that President Bingu wa Mutharika had hoped would reduce Malawi’s exports and imports costs by linking the country directly with the Indian Ocean via the Zambezi and Shire Rivers, is reportedly threatened by Mocambique’s plans to construct a bridge along the waterway targeted by the project. A recent report in The Nation reveals details about miscommunication and lack of consultation between the Malawian and Mocambican governments.

Many Africans do realize the crucial importance of regional and pan-African cooperation in the many projects needed to uplift the continent, but outside conscious efforts that build on historical struggle and shared destinies, such projects end up falling victim to capitalist greed and profit-mindsets. Even when these projects are initiated and developed by the most highly educated Africans with the best technical know-how, without this important aspect of education—pan-African consciousness—the greatest ideas for the enhancement of the continent will always be frustrated. The pan-African consciousness I am talking about here should also embrace Africa-centered ways of knowledge production, based on the values of uMunthu/uBuntu, which, according to Desmond Tutu, celebrate the achievements of others in the knowledge that our humanity, and hence our destiny, are bound up with one another. Much of Western-style schooling as inherited and practiced to this day is completely devoid of these virtues, as have argued Rev. Dr. Augustine Musopole and Rev. Prof. Harvey Sindima. As a result, we have the most highly educated minds coming up with very bright, innovative ideas, but with no direct benefits for the majority of the African people.

Whether it is in the realm of Black History, or in the realm of 21^st century technological innovations meant to lift the continent out of its doldrums, a pan-Afrikan consciousness, and solidarity with other Black people around the world, and others who share in these ideals, need to be an integral part of our thinking.

Legacies of peace and justice: John Chilembwe and Martin Luther King Jr.

That the month of January is set aside in Malawi and in the United States to commemorate two black leaders in two different periods of history, and on two different sides of the world, is a coincidence only the heavens can arrange. In Malawi, January 15^th is celebrated as Chilembwe Day, in honour of the Reverend John Chilembwe. In 1915, Chilembwe led the first ever uprising against white racism and colonialism in what was then known as Nyasaland. 

John Chilembwe, his wife Ida and their child. 
Photo copyright George Shepperson & Thomas Price, 
Independent African

In the United States, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated every third Monday of January, in honour of the man who led the civil rights struggle, protesting racism, and fighting for the rights of Black people and other minorities in the United States. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, also protested against US imperial aggression, and its invasion of Vietnam.  In 2007, the day falls on 15th January, coinciding with John Chilembwe Day in Malawi. 

It is important to note that the recognition for the roles these two clergymen played for the freedom and equality of their people did not come automatically. In Malawi, it took the 1994 transition to multiparty democracy for the new government, led by then President Dr. Bakili Muluzi, to recognize Chilembwe’s selfless contribution to trailblazing the path that several decades later led to the formation of the independent Malawi nation. The Muluzi government went on to even issue new banknotes bearing a portrait of Chilembwe.

In the United States, the struggle to fully recognize Martin Luther King Jr. continues, because the day is still not yet fully recognized in certain states. Worse still, some of the important messages Dr. King gave have been the subject of manipulation and distortion by racist whites and conservative blacks. In California, Texas, and now in Michigan, as of last November 2006, affirmative action has been banned, on the twisted logic that it serves as reverse racism, and that people should be judged based on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. The argument about judging people based on character rather than skin color is a sick, unfortunate and devious misunderstanding of history and of what Dr. King stood and fought for.

The reactionary forces that work to distort history, justify and perpetuate racism are at work not only in the United States but also in many countries that have suffered colonization, exploitation and repression. One successful strategy these forces use is to co-opt individuals from the victimized societies and make them spokespersons of conservative, right wing ideology, who take the side of the powerful and privileged, and blame the victims for their suffering. They work to stifle resistance to oppression by using the word “victimology” to refer to any efforts at raising concerns about effects of racism and inequality. 

For some of these spokespersons, it is a question of not having been properly educated about the history of the world and the violence that white racism has inflicted on Black, Asian, Native and other societies. One hears a lot of self-hating views in Malawi and elsewhere. For some people, as in the case of some who say black people always blame others, this comes as a result of having not had the occasion to study and reflect on the broader, complex context of racism, its historical trajectory, and its continuing presence today. 

The same type of thinking is present in the evocation of the so-called pull-him/her-down syndrome (PhD) syndrome. The people who bring it up might indeed be facing some hardship at the hands of their compatriots, but attributing this to such as a generalization betrays an inability to analyze the roots of resentment that comes as an inevitable result of inequitable allocation and distribution of resources and opportunities for advancement. In Malawi these problems are deeply entrenched, and rarely analyzed in depth.

But there is another category of such spokespersons who have gone to the best universities available, and have learned about these histories, but who still choose the side of the racist, rich and powerful. Examples can be found in books such as Keith Richburg’s Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa, and Chika Onyeani’s Capitalist Nigger: The Road to Success, among others. The authors of such books view Africa and Africans from a pathological perspective that sets apart the continent and its history as aberrant, grotesque and irredeemable. 

Instead, the affluent global North is viewed as the antithesis of Africa, set apart from her history and her present, and having developed completely on its own devices, and on it own innate superiority. This is the more disturbing category because it persists in the face of evidence of how the global North developed its wealth by violent exploitation, plunder and looting of Africa, ongoing to this day. Also ignored is the role African people, from times ancient to the present, have played in contributing to the building of the modern world, and who, by being denied their place in history, suffer real consequences that actually perpetuate marginalization for those sidelined from the march of capitalist exploitation.

It is tempting to imagine the disappointment both Reverend John Chilembwe and Reverend Dr. King would have felt at hearing the views of the Malawian bloggers above, or reading the books by Richburg and Onyeani. Perhaps they would not have been so surprised; there were probably many black people, let alone people of other races, who did not understand then that the black struggle was a freedom struggle, shaped by real, practical occurrences in the world. 

Old buildings in Nguludi, in the area where Chilembwe lived. 
Photo copyright Steve Sharra

For John Chilembwe, even the scholarship on what happened in 1915 has tended to portray him as a psychopath, while the British colonialists of the same time have been praised, according to the late Dr. Mekki Mtewa (1977). Writes Dr. Mtewa: “It fits the burden of history that, for this reason, and this reason alone, Harry Johnston was knighted by the British Government, and he still lives as a symbol of colonial posterity in the Museum of Malawi. While the other, a native of the country itself, died like a dog, and is crowned with the most epithetic titles, and his mark is subject to ridicule” (p. 229). 

Being 1997 when Dr. Mtewa’s article came out, it is gratifying that Chilembwe’s place has been properly restored in Malawi, with the commemoration of his heroism on this day, January 15^th, and his immortalization on the Malawi currency, the Kwacha.

The legacies that both men of the cloth have bequeathed to us remain relevant today: to recognize injustice when we see it; to fight on the side of the oppressed and the marginalized; and to dedicate our lives to making the world a better, more peaceful and equitable place for all.

Language, politics and development in Malawi

The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) last week made an announcement that should open the way to new ideas in not only determining what qualifications prospective Members of Parliament (MP) in Malawi ought to have, but also in how to revitalize Malawian languages for more widespread development. The Commission announced that it has removed the requirement that a prospective MP be in possession of the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE), the secondary school leaving certificate, or that they sit for an English proficiency test, if they do not possess the MSCE. The timing of this announcement coincides with the next National Language Symposium, organized by the University of Malawi’s Center for Language Studies, with the theme Literacy for Development: The role of the African language. The twin issues of language and politics are extremely important, and have consequences that affect the long-term development plans of any society. At the heart of the matter is the question of the production of the knowledge necessary for a society to better understand itself, and to find new ways of solving its intractable problems.

As was to be expected, a few Malawians expressed disappointment and bewilderment with the announcement, claiming that the legislature would now be free for all. In other words, these Malawians feared that parliament would now be open, in their view, even to “uneducated” and “illiterate” Malawians. Some wonder how Malawian MPs can communicate with each other if they are not obliged to use English, arguing that not every Malawian can ably debate using Chichewa. "How does the MEC expect the electrorate [sic] to be assures [sic] that their represantive [sic] will contribute if they cannot speak English?" asks someone on Malawitalk. Such views are common and widely held not only in Malawi but in many countries as well, and they need to be addressed in a methodical, organized way.

To begin with, it was a huge blunder all along to equate school certificates or English proficiency with what we may term “the type of intelligence or capability required to represent one’s people”. The reasons why we have always made this blunder are understandable. First, it is the only way we are familiar with of accounting for one’s ability to be a representative. Second, it is what we have always done, what was bequeathed to us by the colonial administration, and we have been content with carrying it on, without the need to change anything. Third, there exists this very strange, widely held notion and totally mistaken view that the best way of measuring any kind of intellectual capability for any kind of occupation is English proficiency. This view is widely held not only in Malawi but in most parts of the world, especially the formerly colonized world. Not only is it a mistaken view, it is also a very inefficient way of accounting for intelligence or capability. The numerous boxing bouts in our political parties, the widespread political prostitutions, lack of creative and critical thinking among our politicians, etc, should be ample evidence of this inefficiency.

It is possible to devise a better, more efficient and accurate way of ascertaining whether one is capable of being a leader or a representative, but it needs a lot of effort, energy, time, creative and critical thinking. It is certainly something no country, to the best of my knowledge, has ever done before, at least not on a deliberate, elaborate scale. And this fact need not daunt us at all.

One way could be to begin by studying past and present MPs. To do this, we would need to come up with a widely agreed upon set of criteria as to what are regarded as good characteristics of an MP or other types of representatives. Who have been the best MPs Malawi has had since independence? What were their backgrounds? Why were they elected by their people? How did they do their campaigning? How did they do their work of representing their people? And many more questions.

We could draw out detailed, lengthy auto/biographies of these MPs and their time in parliament, views of the people they represented, their records of performance in the august house, and their own perspectives of how they about their duties (for those still alive). From this we could chart out the most desirable qualities and qualifications for an MP.

Knowing that the current measures, and the previous ones, have not been perfect, chances are the auto/biographies that would emerge from this arduous, long-term process would not be perfect either, but that would be no reason not to embark on the exercise. It might also be necessary to draw out characteristics of other equally successful leaders and representatives in other areas of Malawian life, not restricted by electoral politics, nor these types of qualifications and English proficiency tests.

The goals in such a process would be manifold. First and foremost, for us to destroy the dangerous myth that intelligence = school certificates or English proficiency, or vice versa. That way, we would be opening up the arena to other equally deserving Malawians who have none of these alien qualifications, but are sufficiently endowed with Malawian wisdom and a deeper understanding of who we are as a nation, what our heritage is, and what destiny we want. We have many Malawians who fit this description, but we haven't taken the time to find out who they are (see this Daily Times article on a form one drop out who has created electricity for his house and his parents’ house <http://www.dailytimes.bppmw.com/article.asp?ArticleID=3312>.

Another goal would be to promote ways of making the knowledge required to represent people and run our nation widely available to every Malawian. So far this knowledge is restricted to only those who have school certificates and can read and write English, who are less than 10 percent of the population. We can not go on running a nation in which over 90 % of the population are in the dark as to how the country is or should be ran. Related to this, we would also be constructing new knowledge for running the nation. We would uncover lots of buried knowledge that has been kept hidden because of the restrictions we have had in place up to now.

An obvious advantage with widening access to knowledge of running the country would be that it would encourage more, better qualified, well deserving Malawians to seek public office. More Malawians would also be encouraged to seek out this type of knowledge, as it would be familiar, available in a language they use and understand, and relevant. A lot of the practices we follow in running our economy, education, judiciary, sports, community services, politics, etc, are alien and irrelevant. This is one of the reasons we have anger, frustration, despair, hopelessness and even feelings of inadequacy among many Malawians.

It will be important for as many Malawians as possible to understand the historical and political reasons behind the entrenchment of foreign, colonial languages in most formerly colonized countries. Language plays such a crucial role in the development and underdevelopment of any society. In many formerly colonized countries, the failure to use local languages in government systems has been at the heart of the underdevelopment of these countries. One only needs to look at all those countries that are considered more successful, and ask what languages they use for government business, education, their economic systems, legal and judiciary systems, and other important social institutions. They all use their own languages, and not languages they inherited from foreigners. And a quick look at all the poorest countries of the world will also show how for government and other important business, most of them use the language inherited from their former colonizer. Much of this has to do with practical realities, but of the short-term. Language policy and planning are long-term endeavors, and require leaders and researchers who have long-term visions for their countries.

This is not an argument for the abolition of the English language from our government and social institutions, far from it. It is true that English is a language of global importance, and that knowing how to write and speak it enhances one’s social standing. And I am not oblivious to the irony that I am writing this in English. But there is an ugly side to the over-reliance of a foreign language for the most important business of any country. This over-reliance creates obstacles in the creation and flow of knowledge and information needed for development. When the most important knowledge in education, health, the economy, governance and other institutions is in a language other than one people are familiar with, people’s access to knowledge and information is restricted. And this is what leads to the underdevelopment we all love to complain about. It is myopic of us not see the connection between the suppression of knowledge production because of the choice of language, and the underdevelopment and inequality that surrounds us. The many Malawian private schools that prohibit the use of Malawian languages and institute English-only policies are making this myopia worse, and the consequences for the country are going to be dire. The right policy ought to be a healthy balance between English and Chichewa, with Chichewa receiving the same amount of research and intellectual attention as does English. It is suicidal for Malawians to imagine that there's no need to conduct research and intellectual inquiry in Chichewa and other Malawian languages. If we want to learn from the developed countries, let us learn their respect and love for their languages, which they continue researching, writing and publishing in.

To return to the argument about why the school certificate and English proficiency requirements were both absurd and insane, the example of Lucius Banda has been a striking one for me. I find it disturbing that I have not met one Malawian who has ever questioned why Lucius felt the need to forge an MSCE certificate in order to be eligible to run for a parliamentary seat. Many people I have discussed the issue with have said he deserved it, and they have offered various reasons. “He did the crime, he had to do the time.” “He became too important for his own sake.” “He was fooled by other politicians who wanted him to do their dirty work.” “He was playing with the government and the president.” My next question has been whether Lucius really needed an MSCE or an English proficiency test to prove that he is an intelligent person and can represent his people. Here, the vindictive attitude ceases, and a willingness to rethink the issue sets in. “He is very bright”; “He is very successful”; “His English is superb”, “His music is some of the best Malawi has ever produced,” “He has wisdom,” etc etc.

It may be true that Lucius was originally sentenced for what the judge felt was a breach of the law, but it is not enough to stop at that and close the story. What he broke was a very poorly conceptualized, intellectually vacuous law, one that did not even need to be there in the first place. And most of us know many other Malawians who have broken this law and have never been brought to book. It is also true that he was singled out for punishment by the leadership, because of his role in pushing the impeachment issue. This was a case of a loophole being used to create another loophole. Are these really the kinds of laws we want intelligent, successful Malawians to be held by? Is this really the kind of Malawi we want to build?

I perfectly understand that the proposal I’m making here is idealistic, and would take a very long time, and a lot of resources, to be fully realized. But the future we will be building is worth every drop of sweat, worth every tambala we can invest. In the meantime, it would be important for the MEC to articulate its reasoning and explain the significance of its decision, so Malawians can begin debating the topic. It would also be important for MEC to liaise with other organs of government and civil society in Malawi to begin cataloguing the debate, and embark on a process to map out strategies to ensure that their decision does not lead to undesirable consequences. Ultimately, we will be laying a good foundation for the future of the country by balancing our policies between global practicalities and the dynamism of local access to knowledge and information. The University of Malawi’s Center for Language Studies has pioneered the research and deliberation needed to lay this foundation, and the knowledge thus far produced needs to be made as widely available to many Malawians as possible, in languages they understand and use.

The pivotal importance of the language issue in politics, education and development makes it imperative that we argue from an informed, well-researched position. As such, those interested might wish to consult proceedings from the series of National Language Symposium meetings, organized by the Center for Language Studies at the University of Malawi. The most recent proceedings appear in _Implementing Multilingual Education_, from the 2003 symposium. Next week is the aforementioned 2006 annual symposium, and I encourage everyone who can attend to please do so.

Other selected suggested readings include:

1. Brock-Utne, B. & Hopson, R.K., Eds. (2005) _Languages of Instruction for African Emancipation: Focus on Postcolonial Contexts and Considerations_, Mkuki na Nyota Publishers and Center for Advanced Studies of African Societies (CASAS)

2. Mkandawire, T. (Ed., 2005) _African Intellectuals: Rethinking Politics, Language, Gender and Development_ UNISA Press, CODESRIA & Zed Books (in particular read B. S. Chumbow's chapter The language question and national development in Africa, pp. 165-192)

3. wa Thiong'o, N. (1986) _Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature_, Curry & Heinemann.

Redefining ‘development’ in Malawi: beyond the pessimism

For Malawians who haven’t been in Malawi for sometime, the one question they never fail to ask someone who has just returned from the motherland is: So, how is Malawi? Being such a vague, general question, it takes some probing to get at the heart of the query: Is Malawi developing? Ten or so years ago I would have interpreted ‘development’ in a specific way: the sprouting of new, big and tall buildings, and new tarmac roads, in Malawi’s cities, towns and rural areas. In the last six or so years I have come to think of ‘development’ in different ways, to the extent that I have had problems defining it for my own purposes. A big part of that has to do with what I was reading in graduate school, in courses varying from literary theory to historiography to educational theory to epistemology, all of them gripped by what today seems more of a passing fad than a new paradigm. It is what Tiyambe Zeleza calls ‘the posts,’ propelled by what Thandika Mkandawire has called a surfeit of Western opulence, or some such term. But this should be another story for another day. Today I want to dwell on how I have retained the definition of ‘development’ as progress, as the erection of big, tall buildings, roads and other infrastructure in urban and rural Malawi (and for that matter, Africa as well). I say ‘retained’ because I have added new categories in the definition.

Development, as it is defined in general terms, is a source of both hope and frustration for many Malawians. When I landed in Blantyre on Tuesday October 31, I spent the next morning checking my email at MalawiNet’s wireless Internet café (the wireless part didn’t seem to be working, yet). At MK60 for every 15 minutes (roughly US$0.45), it was quite inexpensive, at least for anybody who uses email as part of their regular routine. Later in the day I went to new Ryalls Hotel to board the afternoon Coachline bus to Lilongwe. The Coachline is Malawi’s top-of-the-line public transportation system between the three major cities, expensive as it is elitist. You have to be affluent in order to afford the Coachline on your own. Having never been a well-to-do Malawian, I have never been on the Coachline bus. Not even after this attempt.

I turned up at the hotel on time, and found that the regular bus that goes as the Coachline, a beautifully modeled, classily built and glitzly gliding bus that does not stop anywhere between Malawi’s major cities, had been replaced by an ordinary bus for that day. This was not even the Express bus, next in line after the Coach and also supremely comfortable. Rather, this was the third-tier type of bus, very noisy, poorly lit, and very hot on a hot November day. We were told that the 5-fleet Coachline, termed the Paradiso, was unavailable. One had been involved in an accident; one was in Lilongwe, one was in South Africa, and another one was in Zambia, under hire by the Malawi government. They refunded part of the fair, amidst groans about the degenerating standards of the bus company, and of things in general in Malawi, according to a few people I overheard. We arrived in Lilongwe four hours later, and I was taken to Riverside Hotel, next to Lingadzi Inn. Riverside is a new hotel built just months ago. It is exquisite in its white paint, beautifully designed, quiet, and magnificent. The receptionist couldn’t find my name on the list of booked guests for that day, so I ended up at a motel in Likuni. By the end of the following day the management of Riverside Hotel had faxed the administration officer of the project I was in Malawi for, apologizing for the inconvenience. They even offered an explanation, and added the latest news that they had just finished the construction of 36 new rooms, which would be ready soon. They ended the letter by saying there was room for me for that night, Room number 1.

I spent a couple of evenings in Lilongwe, driving out to surrounding rural districts during the day and returning to the city in the evening. What I saw on those few evenings fits the definition of ‘development’ used by most Malawians, including those living outside Malawi. I was curious to find out exactly who was responsible for most these transformations, and was told of Malawian Indian business magnets. Riverside Hotel is one example, as is Cresta Hotel, inside the sprawling, magnificent complex known as Crossroads, that houses shops, offices, pizzerias, laundromats, etc. (For fear of digressing, I will put aside my views about the importance of Third world consciousness and solidarity for another day)

For those who haven’t been to Malawi in the last ten or so years, the number of huge, sprawling, expensive shopping malls is something to write home about. The number of top class hotels and lodges spread all over the city is uncountable. Several of them offer free wireless Internet, despite quoting their rates in US Dollars, upwards of $90 a night. Driving out of Lilongwe during the morning and evening rush hours now takes twice the time it used to ten years ago, due to traffic jams. Many of the cars you see are spanking new latest models. The controversial Kamuzu Mausoleum is a site to behold, regardless of one’s disapproval over the use of so much money to honor a leader who victimized, murdered and exiled thousands of Malawians. It is quite ironical that it has now become quite common in Malawi today to hear people reminisce of the good old days, when there was food security, negligible crime rates, a good educational system, and a stable economy. I have written elsewhere about how I resent this whitewashing of Malawi’s dark past, and how dangerous I find this type of amnesia and nostalgia. But I should also mention that there does exist in Malawi more complicated views of Kamuzu’s reign, which do highlight both the atrocities as well as the successes of his policies and philosophies. Be on the lookout for one such forthcoming work, Reverend Stewart Lane’s Malawi memoirs, titled Peculiar Honours, to be published by Dr. John Lwanda’s publishing house, Dudu Nsomba.

In Blantyre I was only able to drive through the city on one afternoon. The same type of ‘development’ taking place in Lilongwe is also taking place in Blantyre, with lots of huge, beautiful buildings taking shape all over town. They include shopping malls, mega churches, residential houses, media institutions, educational institutions, and many others.

In Zomba, the university town I grew up in and know better than any other Malawian town or city, the general view is that there is very little of this type of ‘development’. The central business area is pretty much the same as it has been for the last ten years. There have been a few innovations, but not to the same extent as Lilongwe or Blantyre. The Zomba Central Hospital, formerly Zomba General Hospital, now has a wall entirely surrounding it. St. Charles Lwanga parish, my parish, is also putting up a wall around it. There have bee a few hotels and lodges, but only a handful. The one area Zomba is experiencing the same type of ‘development’ as the major cities is the construction of residential houses on the outskirts of the town. In Malawi, as in most countries around the world, building or owning your own home in the major towns and cities is considered, and rightly so, the most important investment one can make. The building industry has thus experienced an astounding boom, and will likely continue to. There are new, huge, gorgeous homes built and continuing to be built in the Sadzi/Three Miles area, Mpondabwino, the exclusive Old Naisi, Mangansanja and Mulunguzi areas, and the areas surrounding town, including St. Mary’s and Ndola, to a lesser extent. At Jokala, some ten or so miles outside Zomba municipality, a rural project is constructing a public library and a conference hall, away from the nearest urban center. Sports stadia, market squares, bus depots, roads and other infrastructure have sprang up in several districts, including Balaka and Dedza, among others.

If all of this does qualify to be defined as ‘development,’ there is also something I find to be quite curious and peculiar in the way some Malawians perceive their country. Whenever I have asked the question about ‘development’ in Malawi, the responses have been muted at best, and negative at worst. I have been told things such as: “Malawi is the same as you left it. Nothing has changed.” I do not recall reading anything about all these ‘developments’ either on the Malawi listservs, or in the online papers. Perhaps I haven’t been reading carefully enough. For as long as I can remember there has been an unmistakable air of pessimism and negativity amongst many Malawians, both inside and outside Malawi. Some of it stems from the notion that Malawians view themselves as “less-than” other Africans, to paraphrase the columnist Bayana Chunga in the Sunday Times of October 15, 2006. In some cases this inferiority complex is spoken in terms of Africa and the Black race in general.

During this current stay in Malawi, I’m finding myself having to discuss this complex almost on a daily basis, especially with educated, elite Malawians. Some of them are educationists, working on educational policy, training trainers of teacher professional development, and lecturers in our teacher training colleges. Most of these views are exactly the same as those one encounters, on a daily basis, on the Malawi Internet listservs and in the daily and weekly newspapers. However it must also be said that compared to 2004, when the presidency changed hands, the number of people who feel optimistic about the country’s leadership and the economic policies it is espousing is growing.

The encouraging thing about all this is that through their self-criticism and self-negation, Malawians can be said to be exhibiting high expectations for themselves, though in a converse manner. You have to turn the criticism around in order to observe the high expectations about ‘development’. In retaining the definition of development as held by the majority of Malawians, I am also aware of how narrow, insufficient, and perhaps even retrograde that definition can become. By this I mean that it is a definition based more on a scale that measures our ability to ‘copy,’ than to innovate and create new ideas, trends and products. This is a very important distinction to make. The definition of ‘development’ as buildings and infrastructure does capture the hopes and aspirations of many Malawians, but its narrowness and insufficiency comes from its inability to encourage the reconciliation of our endogenous institutions, traditions and cultures with our desire for change. Built into all our institutions of governance and social organization, ‘development’ is seen more as what we learn from other countries, especially the white societies of the global North, than what we ourselves and our fellow blacks and global Southerners create.

Our response to the question “Is Malawi developing” therefore needs to be broadened into those efforts taking place in our villages and rural centers, to include the collective and communal resource that Reverend Stewart Lane calls “social wealth.” We see this wealth every time there’s an occasion that brings Malawians together, to celebrate a wedding, to send off the departed, to elect new representatives, to build a new school, church or conference hall. In Dowa, gulewamkulu has been mobilized to support educational efforts. Whereas you would see gule chasing pupils away from school, it now escorts them to school. The conflict between tradition and modernization has existed largely due to the condescending, demeaning attitudes exhibited by educated Malawians over those considered ‘uneducated’ or ‘illiterate.’ A redefinition of ‘development’ also has to consider the changing attitudes of educated Malawians over our traditions, cultures and self-identity as a nation.

Some of what passes for development is really meant to benefit the elites and the powerful, perpetuating the gap between the rich and the poor. This is where a redefinition of the term becomes even more important.

So Yes, Malawi is developing, however you define development. And she needs your support, optimism and encouragement, in addition to your criticism, pessimism and condemnation.

From Material Girl to Spiritual Mum: Madonna, Malawi, and Baby David

For Mr. Yohane Banda, who had never heard of the pop diva Madonna until she visited Malawi last week to adopt his 13 month-old son David, the closest he could relate with the material girl was the word Dona, meaning rich white woman, in Malawian parlance. In a matter of days, he now knows her, and the rich guy Guy Ritchie, as the new parents of his son. My initial reaction to the news was amazement at how a child whose father was alive and available could be termed an orphan, and be considered for adoption. I have since learned from youtube videos and other news articles that Mr. Banda’s first two children died in infancy, and he gave up David for fear that he too would die, after his mother died a week after his birth. The debate that has erupted over the adoption has elicited 67 webpages of comments on the BBC website Have Your Say, and is still raging on across Malawi listservs, newspapers and radio stations. As debate can sometimes be a powerful tool for social change, the views expressed by most people on the topic, in Malawi and around the world, reveal the extent of pessimism on the one hand, and optimism on the other, about Malawi’s and Africa’s future. An unspoken corollary of that pessimism and optimism is the idealization of the global North, of its material wealth and supposed happiness, and of celebrity bliss.

In Malawi and on Malawian listservs, the debate has been about two issues. First, the manner in which Malawian law has been circumvented by a High Court order, exempting Madonna from an 18-month legal residency requirement, and from a ban on international adoptions. Madonna is reported to have met with the Malawian president, Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika, but no official statement was released on what they talked about. The second point has been about whether the child would not be better off growing up in the place of his birth, while receiving whatever help Madonna and other well wishers might provide. On the BBC’s Have your Say website, a frequent refrain has been whether this is not yet another publicity stunt by yet another attention-seeking celebrity. Using the argument about the illegality of the adoption, an umbrella group representing up to 60 human rights NGOs, the Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC), attempted to stop the adoption by going to court, where they apparently did not succeed.

Arguments in favor of the adoption have ranged from accusations of jealousy with the bright future David will be assured of, to archaic laws that are said to contradict the spirit of the new constitution. On whether the child would not be better off staying in Malawi and being supported by Madonna without having to leave Malawi, several people have questioned the wisdom of letting a child grow up in an orphanage when adoption is available, while others have suggested that psychotherapy and counseling should be not only available in the West but also capable of helping David cope with the psychological problems that may arise out of the adoption, and out of having parents of a different race from his.

The myriad views expressed over the issue reveal various assumptions about the conflict between culture and change, the plight of a country such as Malawi and its uncertain future, and the taken-for-granted idea of the West as the best place for a guaranteed future. There can be no denying that having famous Madonna and rich guy Guy Ritchie for parents is going to give David a growing up experience totally different from one he would have in Malawi. He will be afforded the best schools in the world, the most expensive clothes and toys, and the world’s attention. What is not easy to predict, however, is whether wealth, fame and status are going to be enough to guarantee him happiness, satisfaction, and a meaningful life. Many of those who have supported the adoption have not even thought of this as an issue; to them, there is no question that wealth, fame and a ticket to the global North are the best guarantee for happiness and life satisfaction, and a place like Malawi is the last place anyone would want to grow up in, given a choice. Given that Malawi now has about 1 million orphans, the high infant mortality rate, inadequate health care services, a struggling school system, recurrent famines, etc, it is not difficult to see why many believe David will have a much better future growing up as Madonna’s child, in the global North.

It is worth celebrating that today Malawi’s orphan population has been somewhat reduced, and that one of her children has the once-in-a-lifetime chance of becoming a globally recognized face. But the plight of the other 999,999 orphans still needs long-term solutions. Madonna’s NGO in Malawi, Raising Malawi, is going to take in 4,000 orphans. Given the publicity the adoption has raised, it has already been reported that the government ministry responsible for women and children is being inundated with telephone calls from around the world from people who also want to help with the orphan problem. Thus many are only thankful that Malawi has been in the news around the globe, thanks to Madonna.

Out of the millions of views that have come out pouring on the topic, the question of whether life in the global North is qualitatively better than in poor parts of the world has not come up as prominently as one would hope. Schools in the global North can be excellent, but they can also spawn deadly violence, as seen in the several school shootings that occur frighteningly frequently in the United States and other “developed” countries. Black people in majority white societies live under the constant fear and threat of racism and psychological, sometimes physical, violence. The American comedian Chris Rock has argued that he might be a very rich black person, but no white person, however poor, would willingly change places with him.

A lot of educated Africans grow up to despise and dismiss their African identity, accepting the received wisdom of the inferiority of the black person (except themselves personally) and the supposed superiority of the white race. Perpetuated through school knowledge, these beliefs pervade our minds to the extent that we come to see Africa as a place set apart from the rest of the world in terms of development, civilization, technology, and wealth. We come to think of Africa as stagnant, unchanging, and forever backward. It is a tragic truth that many Africans have lost hope in the struggle to solve Africa’s problems, and now adopt white supremacist views on their own identity and destiny.

Although their actions have been interpreted as jealousy and anachronism, the Malawian lawyers and activists who have drawn our attention to the way in which Malawian law has been compromised for the sake of a celebrity adoption have shown that not every African has been sold on the white supremacist bandwagon. Granted that there are NGOs who thrive on foreign money which they misuse and enrich themselves with, there are Malawians who are genuinely concerned about Malawi’s problems, and are working both inside Malawi itself and outside, to help ease the problems. The very Malawians who are making accusations of jealousy and archaic laws would be the first ones to blame the Malawian legal system the moment child traffickers learned of the power and influence of money and fame, and began targeting Malawian children. Hopefully this debate has alerted us to such a possibility, and we are embarking on a process to make sure it does not happen.

All said and done, the future of the world does rest on our ability to deal with the race problem, and Madonna’s act could be seen as one example in that direction. As she told Merle Ginsberg of the pop culture and fashion magazine, W, in the April 2003 issue, she sees it as her “responsibility […] to bring light to the world and make the world a better place.” For us Malawians, we will need to think deeply about the breakdown of our social and communal institutions, which in the not-too-distant past used to be strong enough to handle problems of orphanage. Thanks to the fluctuations and unpredictabilities of globalized economies and inequities, our safety nets are gone, and our desperation is tearing us apart. Yet, we have been able to deal with change before, and although it is undoubtedly going to be very difficult, I do not see why we cannot, in the long run, and with the support of our friends, deal with the coming problem.

Desmond Tutu, Bill Clinton and uMunthu

I first drafted this entry more out of an urge to vent, than to reflect. I had difficulty writing about an airport ordeal and connecting it to the African Renaissance and Black Consciousness, until I learned of the recent remarks made by Nobel peace laureate and retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former US president Bill Clinton. Archbishop Tutu has decried the moral depravation in South Africa, a breakdown of uMunthu, whereas Clinton has adopted uMunthu (uBuntu in South Africa) and offered it as an important tool in dealing with the world’s problems. Clinton was speaking at the Labour Party convention in the United Kingdom in September. What I present below is an attempt to grapple with the dilemma of uMunthu and self-criticism in Africa, in the context of an airport ordeal I was subjected to at Johannesburg International Airport recently. It wasn’t until I heard Archbishop Tutu’s remarks that I began making sense of my ordeal and what the former Archbishop fears is happening in South Africa.

Archbishop Tutu has been one of the chief advocates of uMunthu as a philosophical framework informed by theological and social urgency in South Africa’s political transition. Lately he has been critical of the moral direction South African society is taking. Delivering the Steve Biko Memorial Lecture at the University of Cape Town recently, the Archsbihop is reported as saying: “The fact of the matter is we still depressingly do not respect one another. I have often said black consciousness did not finish the work it set out to do.” What he said on this occasion made me wonder if my ordeal at JNB was not a manifestation of the problem he was describing.

Because of the flight connection I missed from JFK to Johannesburg International Airport (JNB), it was my expectation that my luggage, two big bags containing my clothes, books, gifts, etc, would not arrive on the same flight with me at Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) in Lilongwe, Malawi. So it was not a surprise that I landed on Malawian soil without my two bags. The lodge I was staying in kindly offered to collect the luggage from the airport and bring it to my room. The person from the lodge who went to collect the luggage called me from the airport and said he was not sure if he should go ahead and pick up the bags from the carousel, given the condition the bags appeared to be in. One of the bags came off the belt half opened, with things rummaged and appearing as if some had fallen out. He asked if I had locked them both, and I told him no. I had been instructed not to lock them back in Lansing, as airport security in the United States opens and unlocks all checked in baggage. If I was going to report anything missing, he suggested I come to the airport myself and sort things out.

When I got to the Lost and Found section at KIA, I found both bags zipped close. I opened them and could not immediately tell if anything was missing. It took me a few seconds to begin recounting in my mind the things I had packed. It took me days to sort out exactly what was missing. Most of them were gifts, ie, clothing, lotions, perfumes, etc. Almost half the contents of one bag were missing.

I decided I would submit the pilferage form at the responsible airline’s baggage office in Johannesburg, on my way back to the US, rather than in Lilongwe or Blantyre, as I did not have enough time to spare in Malawi.

So on Saturday afternoon, September 16, I landed back at Johannesburg International Airport, and proceeded to check in for my connection to New York’s JFK, via Dakar, Senegal. I tried using my sense of direction to identify the section dealing with lost baggage, before realizing that I was only succeeding in getting myself lost within the airport. An airport official advised that I needed to check with immigration if they could allow me to the said section, as that was in-country. I got to what I took to be the immigration area, and was told that I had gone beyond the immigration point and needed to go back. I retraced my steps, and presented myself before the nearest station. An immigration officer stretched out her hand for my passport and boarding pass, and I handed them over. “You are not a diplomat! This is for diplomats only,” she shouted, before punching a number of keys on her computer keyboard. “It says up there clearly—For Diplomats,” she continued. “I didn’t see it, I’m sorry,” I replied.

“Did you overstay?” I told her I had just landed, barely an hour ago, from Malawi, and I was in transit. “Then how come you went beyond this point? You have entered the country. You shouldn’t have passed this point!” She was now shouting even louder and gesticulating angrily. She called out to another woman and, as far as I could tell from her tone and gestures, she lashed out at her for not watching the entry point. The other woman came over and asked me the same questions the first woman asked. “You entered the country illegally. We charge 3,000 Rands for that.” As far as I knew, I had barely moved from one side of the international departures lounge to another, and here I was, being accused of being an illegal immigrant in South Africa! I told them I didn’t understand what the fuss was all about, I was just trying to get to Lost and Found and report missing items. They weren’t impressed. They went ahead and stamped my passport, before one of them ratted out fast instructions on how to get through immigration and find Lost and Found.

All through the harangue and rudeness I did my best to stay calm and not answer back in anger, something I have recently come to realize I have great trouble doing at times. I decided I would try filing the report in New York, if I was able to get that far.

I was raging inside as I walked away from the immigration, resisting a strong urge to go back and make myself clear, so to speak. For reasons I doubt I have the clarity of mind to articulate, I became aware that I was repeatedly asking myself a series of questions: What happened to the African Renaissance? What happened to uMunthu? What happened to Black Consciousness? To African and Third World solidarity? What does any of this have to do with any of the above questions? I wasn’t going to find answers to these questions, until four weeks later, through the serendipitous occasion of the 75^th birthday anniversary of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

In reconstructing my worldview around concepts such as the African Renaissance, uMunthu, Black Consciousness and Third World solidarity, I have found myself rethinking some of the easy urges we have acquired from the Western school system. In particular, I am talking about the tendency by us elites and educated Africans to be overly critical of other Africans, African institutions, African governments, African cultures, sports, education, and even politics. I am not talking about genuine criticism that has indeed been central to the understanding of some of the causes of our problems, and to the transitions we have embarked on. Rather, I am talking about criticism spawned mainly by the underlying tendency to see ourselves as Africans and everything African through the perspectives of Northern global dominance and ideologies, long hand for white supremacy. In this regard, an easy reaction to the experience I was subjected to, from the missing luggage to the incomprehensible charge of being an illegal immigrant in a lounge at Johannesburg International Airport would have been to say that’s how Africans conduct their business—inefficiency, incompetence, and even rudeness. In fact that’s what I saw and heard several white passengers saying when their luggage didn’t arrive with them in Johannesburg from New York. No one needs to be reminded how common it is to associate Africa with incompetence, and Europe and America with efficiency.

But because of my sensitivity to such insensitivity about Africa, I refuse to subject Africa to such comparisons, realizing that incompetence and inefficiency happen even in those places considered highly developed and “civilized”. Thus on the surface, the problems of luggage missing, rude immigration officers, planed being late, etc, should not be seen as peculiar to Africa only. As a matter of fact, I missed my connection on my way to Malawi because an American plane was delayed at an American airport. I experienced another delay on my return flight from New York to Cincinnati. The air hostess apologized by saying “It’s JFK; what else can I say?” Upon which one passenger responded: “You need say no more. It’s JFK.” And another one: “That’s all you need to say.”

On the face of it, it appears futile, if not irrelevant, to spend time highlighting cases of incompetence and inefficiency in the global North. Many people would say these happen few and far between in the North, whereas in Africa they are the norm. In my view, that type of thinking is indicative of the very mentality I am decrying here, the tendency to associate excellence with the North and backwardness with Africa and the global South. For me, making the African Renaissance work involves challenging these stereotypes and encouraging people, Africans and friends of Africa, to be sensitive to unfair and unjust portrayals of Africa. uMunthu accepts criticism of Africa and her problems, but not when launched from white supremacist ideologies, as if often the case, by both Africans and friends of Africa.

Given what I was subjected to at Johannesburg in September, I agree with Archbishop Tutu’s appeals to Black Consciousness and uMunthu. However it is also incumbent upon the media to be more analytical and present the social context in which Africa is viewed in the global sphere. I often worry when important Africans give aid and comfort to anti-African agents by offering them language with which to actualize their prejudiced views of Africa. But in advancing our uMunthu worldview, one difficult question is the extent to which we should restrain ourselves from self-criticism for fear that it will be taken advantage of by racists, Afro-pessimists, and other agents of anti-Africanism.

Adding on to Clinton’s exhortation for the world to embrace uMunthu, Dr. Kennedy Lweya has opined that uMunthu as a “concept has a powerful meaning and potential to transform the world into one of better understanding and respect for every human being - it is about treating others as we would [want] to be treated.” It is in this spirit that we see the number of scholars who are researching, writing and publishing on uMunthu growing, in Malawi, South Africa, and other African countries. Lesser known than their South African counterparts, Malawians who have advanced this scholarship include Harvey Sindima, Augustine Musopole, Gerald Chigona, Richard Tambulasi, Happy Kayuni, and a few others. Anybody wishing to avail themselves with how uMunthu looks like, and why its scholars believe it has the potential to contribute to a different understanding of the world's problems, would do well to consult these and other scholars.

Homeless in New York City

Having missed my connecting flight from JFK in New York City to Johannesburg, I have found myself homeless in the city that's open 24 hours. But even more striking for someone with my worldview are the numbers of homeless people on the streets of New York City, well known as capitalism's freemarket capital of the world. Homeless people are literally every where, on the sides of the streets, sleeping on cardboard boxes in juxtaposition to the world fame of The Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden, and the Penn metro station.

I lay no claim to having discovered homeless people in the world's largest and most well known city, as these issues have been written about by countless journalists, academics, fiction and non-fiction writers before. However I can't help asking myself how come with the unparalleled advancement of capitalism and wealth creation, this great city, and many others, cannot find a lasting solution to human desolation and homelessness? I saw similar conditions in downtown San Fransisco, another great American city, in April. And homeless people are to be found in many major cities around the world. We have homeless people even in Malawi's major cities, Blantyre and Lilongwe, but the reality is that the bigger and wealthier the city, the worse the problem.

The systemic conditions that lead to problems such as these are the same conditions that rendered me homeless last night. The captain kept announcing that we were waiting for clearance from air traffic controllers at JFK to depart Cincinnati and head for The Big Apple, as New York City if fondly called. Our flight was supposed to leave Cincinnati at 2.12pm, but we didn't leave until 3.12pm. The confusion and sprawl that is JFK International Airport meant that I had to move from our landing terminal, get onto the AirTrain, and find the terminal for the flight to Joburg. As my luck would have it, the gate number printed on my ticket, 25T, does not exist at JFK, as I later learned after half an hour of moving from terminal to terminal.

Finally, I found the desk of the airline I was supposed to connect with, and I stood there for another hour, waiting for somebody to come and attend to me. When she finally came, she told me the desk had closed for the day. She advised me to go back to the original airline that booked my ticket to rebook. There I asked where they would put me up for the night, and I was told the airline had no control over air traffic control, and it was not their responsibility to pay for my accommodation. I was forced to part with a considerable amount of the little money I had just to find a prison-cell sized hotel room in downtown NYC, near famous spots such as Broadway, The Empire State Building, and Madison Square Garden.

With the most recent restrictions on what you can and cannot put into your carry-on luggage, this means buying a fresh tube of toothpaste, which you will use once and throw away as you can't take it with you on the plane. The same goes for liquid deodorant, for those of us who sweat like pigs at an open air show.

In the capitalist world, you can pretty much be on your own if you are poor, in a system whose grip and control on your life determines every move you make. The systems are all interconnected--airlines, air traffic controllers, hotels, the metro, but once you are out in the lurch, and you are not wealthy, you can be dumped by the very system like a bag of trash from a skyscraper. The very system that leaves you desolate in a big city like NYC is the very one that creates the many homeless people bundling themselves up on the sidewalk, drenched from the midnight drizzle of August.

Sooner or later I'll land on Malawian soil, and will witness exactly the same phenomenon, a system in which a few people manage to get ultra rich, the majority ultra poor. Since we are all trained to attribute success to individual effort, and desolation to individual lack of, the giant wheels will keep turning, fulfilling the biblical promise that the poor will always be with us. Only, in my case, the poor will always be us.

Dear Professor Zeleza,

This is in response to your recent blog entry that presents a much needed historical perspective on the current Arab-Israeli conflict. A Sunday July 30 CNN question of the day asked viewers to email in their comments on whether they felt it was “now” time for the US government to call for a ceasefire. I’ll be lying if I say I was shocked by the blatant bias in CNN’s question, clearly regurgitating the US govt’s position in refusing to call for a ceasefire so as to allow Israel to continue massacring innocent Lebanese and destroying their country, on the pretext of disarming Hezbollah. What I found outrageous was that CNN assumed that the US government’s position was the same as their viewers’ position, who include a global audience. That’s what I have found most disturbing, that the mainstream is calculatedly presenting the Euroamerican perspective, attempting to mislead a worldwide audience into believing that an Arab position in this conflict is not only illegitimate, it is probably non-existence—just a base instinct to wipe out Israel without any provocation, without any historical grievances.

Your analysis goes well beyond the rehearsed position spat out by the mainstream media and by so-called political leaders who claim that the whole conflict was started by Hezbollah’s abduction of two Israeli soldiers. I have not seen one single news source or Euroamerican politician or pundit acknowledge that Israel’s continued illegal occupation of Arab territory is an injustice that is as much cause for the conflict, as it needs to be addressed. In fact Noam Chomsky, nobel laureates Harold Pinter and Jose Saramago, and other activists have pointed out that Hamas’ and Hezbollah’s abduction of the said Israel soldiers was in fact a retaliation for Israel’s abduction of two civilian Arab brothers the previous day. And according to Tanya Reinhart, an Israeli professor of linguistics at Tel Aviv University, Israel has in fact been preparing for a “massive war on Lebanon” for several years.

The only consolation I find in this whole crisis is the ability by several Israeli scholars and citizens to condemn their own government for the atrocities it is committing against its Arab neighbors, pointing out that Israeli aggression over the years is a major cause of the decades-long conflict in the middle east. Several Jewish activists have been courageous enough to stand up and declare their condemnation for Israel, pointing out that rather pretend to criticize both sides equally, they side with the victimized, the oppressed and the colonized. Some have even been demonstrating in the capital Tel Aviv.

Much as some would like the world to believe that European imperialism ended decades ago and that current world problems have nothing to do with the legacy of European colonialism, it is worth pointing out, as you do, that the origins of this particular lie in European anti-Semitism and racism. The task of educating people ignorant of this history is frighteningly huge, given the prominence of CNN, the BBC, Reuters and other mainstream news sources whose EuroAmerican biases prevent many from learning the truth. I’m nevertheless optimistic about the possibility of a greater awareness of the root causes of many of these conflicts around the world. Those Jewish and Israeli activists able to overcome the disinformation campaign and the kindred triumphalism, choosing instead to promote solidarity with the global South and the “wretched of the earth”, give me much hope.

Zizou’s issues: football’s aesthetics vs. global ethics

Who would have predicted that on the morning after the grand finale of Germany 2006, and in the days to follow, much of the world would be debating a headbutt and its probably or allegedly racist provocation? The issue has divided people’s opinions, with some believing that the reputation of the game solidly rests on the upholding of a virtue called “sportsmanship,” in which a player should not react to a provocation, however insulting. Others contend that as long as it fails to address the problem of racism head-on (pun coincidental), football as a game does not deserve the attribute of being a beautiful game. Regardless what side of the debate you are on, the incident makes one thing clear: football is more than about athletic aesthetics and kinesthetics. It is also about global ethics and responsibilities in addressing problems of racial injustice and historical inequality. These problems are evident and in need of attention, even if it turned out that Matterazzi’s comment to Zinedine Zidane, popularly known as Zizou to his fans, was benign, if not amiable.

Those who see the game as being more about sportsmanship and athletic aesthetics than about global ethics insist that the best reaction to a provocation on the field is referring the matter to the referee, rather than responding to the provocation. The issue of not responding to provocations has been a defining problem for individuals and groups dealing with problems of social justice for many centuries. It may be said to share philosophical turf with ideas such as non-violence and the biblical ethic of turning the other cheek. Some movements based on these precepts have been successful, but others have merely worked to the advantage of the powerful and privileged, leaving the concerns of powerless and underprivileged groups unattended.

From the perspective of sportsmanship and athletic aesthetics, Zidane should have kept his calm and reported the matter to the referee. But this perspective ignores the question of whether the referee would have believed Zidane, having not been within earshot of the incident. Would the world have believed Zidane? A non-response from Zidane would have in fact meant that the only sound to be heard the morning after would be the deafening cacophony of Italy’s triumph. Would a complaint about racism, in a world in which racism has sometimes been blamed on the victim, have any chance of being heard in such a triumphalist din?

Another point being made is that a non-response reaction to a provocation on the field would have been more appropriate considering that the behavior of sports stars on and off the field has a huge impact on young people worldwide. This is also a good point to make, but it subordinates the problem of racism as being less important than the need to provide young people with impeccable role models. Subordinating the problem of racism to the backyard of perfect, spotless role models strikes me as not only immoral, but also unrealistic and misleading. Do we really expect young people to be that uncritical? Even if we accept that many young people are indeed uncritical and buy wholesale into the myth of the perfect sports star or celebrity, is that the kind of worldview we want to encourage in our young people? For how long are we going to sweep under the carpet the problem of racism and injustice in world football?

The problem of racism should not be seen as superficial and merely having to do with the temperament of players on the field only. It should be seen as a more profound problem, affecting the hopes and aspirations of billions of underprivileged people around the world. It should be seen as representative of the other intractable issues that have so far not been given prominent attention, including the fact that this was another all-Europe affair in which Eurocentrism as both an ideology and reality was on display yet again, as far as the hosting of the tournament, the slots per confederation, and FIFA’s selection of the best 23 players of the tournament. While the diverse ethnic and racial makeup of the French team was one indication of how racism can begin to be overcome in the very heart of Europe itself, that observation is, for the moment, being buried under superfluous condemnations of an act that may have been the culmination of years of pent up rage, as alluded to by those more familiar with Zidane’s experiences growing up and the larger problem of racial integration in French society. This is not a perspective that can be easily understood by some ensconced in the racialized privilege and class comfort of material surfeit.

Rather than seeing Zidane’s headbutt as an ugly act tainting the reputation of a so-called beautiful game, it should be the pervasive racism of European domination of world football that is truly ugly. The beauty of the game should not be seen in terms of aesthetic and kinesthetic displays on the field only. It should also be seen in the actions FIFA takes to make the game live up to that attribute by being an instrument of active world peace and global social justice. With South Africa 2010 on the horizon, one hopes we are heading in that direction.

African football, global inequality and 2010

Much of the African media’s analyses on the reasons why no African team went beyond the second round at the ongoing World Cup Finals in Germany focus on one theme that reflects much of the African media’s analysis of Africa’s problems: self blame. Virtually no analysis I have so far looked at mentions broader issues of global, historical and political injustice and inequality, in how world cup berths are allotted in the different FIFA confederations. In fact, a Rwandan columnist repeats a common refrain about how Africans always blame colonialism for their ills, when no such thing has even been mentioned in any of the analyses and comments, whose uniting feature has been blaming African teams for lacking self-confidence and resources. Such is the strength of the reluctance to examine African problems in their broader context that blaming colonialism is considered not only taboo, it is brought up even when nobody mentions it.

In Malawi, The Nation newspaper of July 1 quoted national team players, sports commentators and coaches as saying African teams lacked tactics and “failed to properly read issues on the pitch and react quickly.” Another player blamed it on lack of self-confidence, saying African teams gave a lot of respect to the more experiences teams. The Zambian paper The Post quoted the Nigerian coach Augustine Eguavoen as attributing the problem to lack of experience, while the Business Day of South Africa quoted Farouk Khan, youth development coach, as saying it boiled down to lack of facilities to promote the sport in Africa. The Zimbabwean Independent put their finger on “naivet.” There is no denying of the validity of each of these issues.

However, in addition to these analyses, I want to suggest a deeper examination of historical and political trends apparent in the development of the game since 1930, the first time that the world cup finals were staged, in Uruguay, South America. With the exception of Japan and South Korea in 2002, the world cup finals have always been played in two regions, Europe and the Americas. Is it much wonder, then, that the world cup has always been won by teams from these two regions, and never from any other region of the world? To date, after 17 world cup tournaments, in a period of 72 years (as of 2002), only 7 seven teams in the world have ever won the FIFA World Cup, all of them from either Europe, or South America. Is it such a big surprise that these two regions boast the world’s most accomplished footballing nations, and that other regions do not have such pedigree?

The inequality and injustice of the game’s organization is even more blatant in the way world cup finals slots are apportioned. The continent of Europe has 51 national football associations, and has 14 (15 in 2002) world cup finals slots. Africa, which has 52 member associations, has only 5 slots, an improvement from 1978 when Africa was accorded only one slot. South America has 10 associations, yet it claims 5 world cup places. Asia, with 44 associations, has 4 places, while Oceania, with 11 associations, has no slot of its own, relying on a victory in a play off with the 5^th placed in South America to be accorded a slot. Unstated in these allocations is the fact that some of the teams that are accorded national status in FIFA are not even sovereign nations. Examples include Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, teams that do not have nation status at the United Nations, yet they are accorded the opportunity to compete with a 3 to 1 chance of making it to the finals over sovereign African and Asian nations. This not an argument against these teams’ world cup berths; rather, it is an argument against the injustice and inequality facing African and Asian nations.

To its credit, FIFA has been more open and accepting to demands from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for more places and support, thanks to the two FIFA’s presidencies of Joao Havelange, a Brazilian, and Sepp Blatter, a Swiss, who is the current president. According to Paul Darby’s (2002) study of the development of football in Africa, politics and colonialism have been apparent at each turn of the game. In his book titled Africa, Football and FIFA: Politics, Colonialism and Resistance, Darby argues that the contours of the development of football in Africa reflect the struggles of African countries in global politics and history. Writes Darby: “Africa’s position within FIFA’s global hierarchy can be illustrated and informed by drawing upon explanations which take into account of the globalization of culture, economic models of global development and a range of perspectives in international relations” (p. 7).

Darby’s framework and approach, which lead him to conclude that Africa has contributed a lot to world football, is shared by other researchers, including Alegi (2004), Cornelissen (2004), and several others. This is why I find it intriguing that much of the commentary in the African media says nothing about the broader contexts in which African football has to dribble and tackle. It does not take sophisticated thinking to understand how more opportunities to play in the world cup finals translate into improvement of the game back in the region accorded those opportunities. The self-blame train, interestingly, does not see this point.

There is much to be admired in the tendency for us Africans to blame ourselves, contrary to those who claim that Africans like to blame others. However there are broader contexts that must be taken into consideration, to make the analysis more accurate. A lot of the self-blame can in fact be seen as coming out of the inferiority complex that is widely, and perhaps correctly, understood to plague many Africans, who never cease to see Europe and America as the unmatched epitome of civilization and advancement. Some of the self-blame also comes from an attitude of Africans’ dissatisfaction with conditions in their own countries, unbalanced with an acceptance of the status quo at the global level. These are effects of a Eurocentric mindset, in which these particular Africans, mostly from the elite ranks, have been schooled to view themselves through European worldviews.

After several shots from the penalty box, Africa has finally scored into the goal of the hosting rights to the 2010 world cup finals. A few commentators have observed that Ghana’s performance in Germany has been worthy of world cup finalists, and that to those who have followed Ghanaian football, this has not been a lucky flick. Whereas hosting the tournament on African soil does give African teams an added boost, the reality of five slots, against historical domination and slot advantage from Europe and South America, does not offer much hope for an African team winning the cup. Africa’s victory lies in the gradual triumphs registered so far, a reflection of the awareness of the inequality and injustice of not only the world game but global relations as well, on the part of Africa’s struggle leaders and other fair-minded individuals around the world.