In the last few weeks, I stumbled on a paper that I wrote over 10 years ago on the future of Africa after attending a conference in South Africa. The theme of the conference was, “Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World”, with emphasis on finding ways to reaffirm international cooperation on shared interests on matters such as the global economy, international security and the environment. At the event, African political and business leaders were expected to join other heads of state from the rest of the world as well as global business executives at the forum on salient issues facing Africa and Africans, identifying the problems and proffering practical solutions.
This diverse gathering equally reminded me of the Economic Justice Institute, which was jointly organised by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa and the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa and was themed, “Economic Justice in Africa: Globalisation, the State and Civil Society” as well as the World Social Science Forum, which had as its theme, “Transforming Global Relations for a Just World”, which was attended by scholars, researchers, practitioners and civil society activists that have been calling for change.
What has changed in Africa since then? The EJI looked at development and sustainability, power, control and access to resources, rule of law, gender and the evolving African state, its location in global political economies and the challenges of representation, accountability, political mobilisation, environment, climate change and prospects for continental transformative change. The discourse on “Race, Caste, Class and Gender Issues in Africa Today”, chaired by Dr. Emmanuel Nuesiri, a scholar, whose research interests cover global transformations, environmental governance and social justice. Dr. Nuesiri had been involved in the Responsive Forest Governance Initiative (RFGI) project, focused on the relationship between democracy, political representation, forest governance and climate change mitigation while the speaker was Dr. Diallo Diop, a Pan-Africanist.
Dr. Diop traced the history of racism in many societies, noting that racism had negative connotations and associated with injustice. He stressed that the issue of race was pivotal to our globalised world, which is highly classified in the lines of hierarchy of top-bottom, white-black and rich-poor in which the Europeans were unfairly ranked at the top, Africans were put below while the Asians were fixed in-between. The three recommended books, which the resource person reflected upon while making his presentation were: De l’égalité des Races Humaines (Of the Equality of Human Races: A Positivist Anthropology) by Anterior Firmin (Published in 1885); The Racial Contract by Charles W. Mills (Cornell University Press, 1997); and The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (The New Press, 2010). While acknowledging and identifying other forms of cultural and gender discrimination, Dr. Diop said that the inequality among human beings could be seen manifesting in the prejudice of the minority against the majority as well as between male and female persons, noting that it is a reality that people have to deal with each other on the basis of their phenotype.
Matriarchy, according to him, was a social characteristic of the African society even though females in Africa were mothers in their house-holds. He expressed his displeasure over the fact that human beings discriminate against each other without logical reasons. Drawing strengths from the inspiring messages central to the recommended books, the Pan-Africanist called for the need to fight for a new social order that would bring about equality and better life for all using the non-discriminatory African model as against the European model that is highly discriminatory and naturally geared towards profit-making. He pointed out that conflict is classless and could happen to any society. He pleaded that all men would be accorded equal access to basic needs of life and be allowed to have aspirations that would guarantee them peace, unity and freedom. The resource person also called for a common language for Africans so as to promote better integration and have a common sense of purpose. Reviewing the proceedings, Dr. Nuesiri, a Marie Curie BRAIN Fellow at the University of Potsdam, Germany, thanked the resource person for his rich and thought-provoking presentation.
During an assessment, he tasked the participants to rank the following social variables in an order of how they perceive them to be of utmost concern to them in which majority of the voters chose ‘gender’ as number one while ‘race’ and ‘caste’, came last. At the end, participants aligned with Dr. Diop’s line of thoughts and expressed the optimism that Africa could truly be united, develop and attain greatness, provided there is a common vision driven by Africans themselves, patriotic leadership and by adopting home-grown Afro-centric development model as against the existing, ‘imported’ and ‘strange’ ideas and models that have brought about chaos, acrimony and set-backs to our continent. As we inch closer to 2023, Nigeria and a number of African countries would be going to the polls to elect leaders that would decide how far we can go in realising the continent of our dreams. What should really be our hope?
