African Dilemma and the Post-colonial Experience: A Tale of Colonial Software running Indigenous Hardware

The postcolonial period has witnessed a struggle between African (indigenous) civilization and Western civilization. African is still entangled in colonial legacies, she has not yet moved beyond colonial pasts.  A number of questions emerge from this trajectory: did independence of the state from colonialism translate into independence of the mind of an African? If independence of the state was the answer to the colonial woes, how vague was the question? Did colonialism corrupt us so much so that we are determined to alienate ourselves from our cultural history and identity? Is this a case of colonial software (colonial mindset) running indigenous hardware (native Africans)?

Nobody captures this African predicament than Ali A. Mazrui who has noted that the colonial mindset has stimulated “…the development of Western tastes without Western skills; Western consumption patterns without Western production techniques; urbanization without industrialization; secularization (decline of religion) without scientification (the rise of science); and capitalist greed without capitalist discipline.”

The story of post colonial Africa has been a story of squandered self-determination and surrendered sovereignty, a tale of liberated states being occupied by colonized minds. It is a narrative of forgotten ancestry and eulogized westernization, alienation of indigenous knowledge in pursuit of western knowledge paradigms. It is a contest between Western and African civilizations, a case of cultural ambiguity substituting native identity. 

The continent of Africa has undergone three form of colonialism. The first form ended at the advent of independence of African states while the remaining two are still in full force:

The first form of colonialism was presided over by colonial masters from Europe. This form of colonialism took a form of spreading European civilization - Victorian morality to different corners of the continent, and occupation of some territories. For the first time the colonial master stepped on the African land, ruled over Africans of the soil and blood and acquired native territories. This colonialism set the stage for two other forms of colonialism. Therefore, one can argue that the subsequent two forms of colonialism are an elongation of original colonialism.

The second form of colonialism has been perpetuated and sustained by the Africans of the blood and soil. These Africans see life through the lens of the former imperialists. They want to live like Europeans on African soil. They distance themselves from their native cultural identity. This is synonymous with indigenous new bottles containing colonial wine. Even after decades after independence, the mindset of this breed of native Africans is still under colonial servitude. The indigenous hardware is being run by colonial software.

The third and final form of colonialism is being applied and presided over by ex-colonizers in their respective countries. This can be referred to as offshore colonialism, and is executed by proxy. Under this form of colonialism, economic and political policies are imposed on ‘independent’ African states. These impositions feed into the strategic geo-economic and political interests of the former colonizers and not the native people of the continent. State institutions and systems are ran on models and policies designed and imposed by the West through organisations such as World Bank, International Monetary Fund, European Union, among others. The imposition of neo-liberal economic policies on a number of African countries by the World Bank and IMF in the 1980s and early 1990s gives a clear snapshot into the taxonomy of this colonialism. This form of colonialism has been exacerbated by the aid, humanitarian and charity industry. Political leaders and some native elites are used as proxy agents in this post-colonial.

But how did we get here?  A number of factors have converged to fashion this social, cultural, political and social trend. To understand where we are we need to revisit history. During the colonial rule, Western education was introduced; the school emerged as the centre for knowledge acquisition, production and propagation. The colonialists knew that in order to colonize the natives, they need to imprison and indoctrinate their intellect. The school changed peoples’ perception of life. The school was eulogized as the only base and source of knowledge. Nobody illustrates this eloquently that Mahmood Mamdani in his book Politics and Class Formation in Uganda. He posits thus:

“The political usefulness of missionary education, it should be clear, stemmed from its dual nature: it was technical as well as ideological, that it imparted skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetics [sic] as well as values such as loyalty to the existing order and discipline d self-sacrifice in the interest of that order. This was not education, but training; not liberation, but enslavement. Its purpose was not to educate a person to understand the objective limits to the advancement of individual and collective welfare, but to train a person to accept and even administer the limits in an ‘efficient, reliable and honesty’ way.”

With school came the foreign language and education systems and models. Intellect and academic excellence was determined by how good a person a foreign language. Sadly, this mindset (colonial software) still exists being housed by some indigenous hardware (native Africans). The school distanced the indigenes from their families and communities. The rift between natives and their indigenous value, knowledge and intellectual systems widened. Western oriented books, teachers, subjects, education systems, procedures, pedagogies constituted the basis of education. Consequently, tacit, cognitive, psycho-motor and affective intelligences were all influenced by western education. Cultural identity was eroded, cultural history lost. Colonial software was being developed to run indigenous hardware. The road to colonization of the mind was paved.

As we have seen above, western education is one of the aspects that have determined human existence. Second to education is religion. Nothing in the history of African civilization has ever titled the social, cultural and political dynamic than education and religion.  Many people converge in schools and churches than any other spaces or avenues or occasions in African communities. Whereas education was introduced by colonialists to arrest the intellect, religion was introduced to capture the faith of Africans indigenes. Indoctrination of the intellect and faith completed the installation of colonial software (mindset). Schools and churches acted as installation centers where colonial software was installed into indigenous hardware (African natives). Like the Western school, the church dragged, quite forcefully, indigenous people away from their indigenous knowledge and ways of life. Worst still, the preachers, who were part of the colonial scheme demonized indigenous knowledge. It was a gospel of indigenous cultural defamation. The indigenous software inside the indigenous hardware was crashed, to be replaced with colonial software. The bible, biblical scriptures and dogmas formed the basic for this colonialism configuration.

Western theology and education situated outside indigenous knowledge and cultural systems was always going to alienate continental Africans from their lived existential realities. By constantly pursuing new western oriented knowledge, native Africans were caught in a web of self sabotage and self identity obliteration. But was an act of ingenuousness. An amalgamation of the colonial and indigenous hardware would have been a better option. Indigenous software was disregarded, the people lost track of its anthropological, sociological and theological base.

Foreign Language: A Component of neo-colonialism

In the article Language and the Rule of Law: Convergence and Divergence, Ali A. Mazrui observes that the official language of almost every constitution south of the Sahara is European. Sub-Saharan constitutional law is almost entirely Eurocentric in that sense. Every right, every civil liberty, has to be interpreted in terms of its meaning in the relevant euro-colonial language. But can legislation be rightly and justly interpreted using foreign language as the magnifying glass? How does constitutionalism developed on the benchmarks of foreign language serve the interests of the critical mass, majority of whom are less educated? Is that constitutionalism just to all (including those who cannot read and interpret it)? Within the context of legislation, we again see indigenous hardware (African legal fraternity) being ran by colonial software (Eurocentric legal language).

The story of language as a driver that has facilitated and sustained neo-colonialism stretched beyond legal fraternity that Mazrui posits. In Uganda, for example, English is the official language. Gladly, it is not the national language. Because Uganda does not have a national language, this has enabled local languages to survive, and cross-tribal learning of languages by natives for trade and other social cultural and political purposes.

In most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, foreign languages are used within education systems and official work. Foreign languages as a medium of communication (teaching and learning) in class and lecture rooms concretize the installation of colonial software (colonial mindset) and indoctrination of the native mind. This orientation prepares natives to implement policies, programs and models developed by former colonizers (in their respective foreign languages).

Post-colonialism, globalization and the place of native Africans

The post-colonial and globalization era  has been a period of continued colonialism. This time it is not colonization of the state but the mind. The mindset of the native Africans is under siege from within and without. The gods must be wondering what happened to their descendants. The ancestors must confused about whether this is the world that they set their descendants to inherit. The wave of change is sweeping across the entire continent. This change is taking Africa far away from her cultural and native history. The African is being de-africanized. S/he is not European, neither is s/he American nor Asian, and s/he is not sure whether s/he is still African.

But where does this leave native Africans? There is a school of thought that believes that the colonial mindset has globalized native Africans. That foreign culture and lifestyle that is permeating the demographic walls of Africa has, after all, situated native Africans at the centre of global enterprise. Yet, Africa is yet to claim her place in the global arena. She is still at the periphery of the global enterprise. In fact, the existence of the colonial mindset has prepared native Africans as global consumers of what is produced by the key players in global market. Native Africans are not neither global producers nor entrepreneurs.

In Uganda, for example, after 50 years of political independence, material that is telecast on local television is predominantly foreign, the leading newspapers are published in English; classroom textbooks that are used for academic reference are foreign; most of goods and services consumed are imported (foreign); models, policies, and programs that run local institutions are foreign. The classroom, living room, office, church, shopping store is de-africanised.

The advent of computer digitalization came with hope and excitement that transformation of native Africans was on the horizon. This excitement is slowly being extinguished by the inability of the indigenous people to utilize digital technology for human innovation.  Never in history of global computerization has Africa ever invented any digital application that has influenced modern civilization. Google, facebook, twitter, youtube, myspace, yahoo, etc are all results of Western productivity. Even internet itself is a Western product. These are products that indigenous Africans are happy and proud to consume. The colonial software has successfully dragged the native African/indigenous software into a club of global consumers.

Africa needs to revisit and redefine her postcolonial logic. In indigenous knowledge, Africa has the treasure that can leap her to social, economic, cultural and political excellence. The people of Africa need to look inside before looking outside for economic, social and political progression.

Who owns dance?

Dance is as human as human race. It is an aspect of daily life and exemplification of social, political, theological, cultural, and economic existentialities of any given community. The discipline of dance has metamorphosed with evolution in human civilization. As Judith L. Hanna elegantly put it, to dance is human. But who owns dance? The proceeding questions will set the stage for this discourse: why did man dance? How did man come to dance? When did man begin to dance? Did man dance for money or to accumulate wealth? How did man sustain the durability of dance? Why didn’t man abandon dance for other things? Is man living by ethos that influenced the genesis of dance?

Firstly, to locate the true owner (s) of dance, we need to trace the origin of man and dance (in the same order). Let us situate the discussion in this historical context. As I have already noted, dance is as old as human ancestry. In his book The Africans: A Triple Heritage, Ali Mazrui posits that if there was a Garden of Eden where the first man and woman lived, that garden was Africa. The continent of Africa is the: mother of humanity, Eden of human ancestry, and brooder of human civilization. Professor Mazrui’s view is based on archeological excavations of Pronconsul in 1931 and Zinjanthropus in 1959 in Rusinga Island and Olduvai Gorge (east Africa) respectively. Laboratory experiments carried out on Pronconsul suggest that s/he might have lived 25 million years ago as compared to Zinjanthropus’s one and a half and one and three-quarter millions years.

"The skull of Zinjanthropus was found in association with chipped ‘pebble tools’," Mazrui noted. Therefore, East Africa, as archeological evidence indicates, is the original home of the very first Homo sapiens (thinking man), Homo erectus, and Homo hibilis. Did the original Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, and Homo hibilis dance? Is there a possibility that ancient human civilization transmuted with metamorphosis of music and dance?

If man started life as a gatherer and hunter then man engaged in dance. It must be born in mind that Zinjathropus, for example, was found with “pebble tools.” Possibly, early man engaged in food production for human survival. This search for survival facilitated man’s attachment to the earth and nature. The earth became the mother of human life. To celebrate harvest, gatherers danced and sang. It is detectable that to celebrate a successful hunting venture, the hunters danced. Furthermore, hunters camouflaged using body movements (mimicking animals) as one of their hunting strategies.  Therefore, it is conceivable that these lived experiences incarnated movement.

Another important factor that contributed to creation of music and dance is man’s desire to communicate. Did dance and music proceed or precede oral/verbal language? Did verbal language give birth to dance and music? Did dance and music contribute to formation of verbal language? The thesis that dance and music predated verbal/oral language is undisputable. In the process of developing lingua franca, man relied on movements and sounds. For example, before early man named a pounding stick or hoe, or spear, he first made it; before man got names for different species of food crops, he first gathered them; before man named different wild edible animals, he first hunted them. In most activities that man engaged in such as hunting, fishing, farming, etc the theory “action speaks louder than words” was very apparent. In a number of ethnic dances, vocal accompaniment just accompanies movements, thus lending credibility to the assertion that, perhaps, dance predated verbal language.  

Death, life and natural calamities compelled early man to be spiritual. Man recognized that lifespace rotated around extra-ordinary earthly and non-earthly forces. Hence, spiritual and worship dance emerged as a result of this ethno-divinity.     It is this buffet of human historical circumstances that created conditions that compelled early man to dance. Therefore, if Africa is the cradle of human ancestry as archeological and pantological studies have indicated, she is the mother of human artistry.

The quest for human survival coupled with the activities that facilitated the desire for man’s existence made man a competitive animal. Man became territorial as communities claimed ownership of hunting and gathering territories. With this competition came the search for communal identity and rivalry between communities. Dance and music emerged a form of identity. Very imperative to underscore from this historic creative configuration and artistic taxonomy is the fact that dance emerged as a communal practice, leading to communal identity. The quest for survival (through farming, hunting etc) and search for spirituality connived to instigate communal kineasthetic creativity.  How did communities create dances for communal identity, celebration, rite of passage, spiritual fulfillment, and socialization?

Communities developed philosophies that support communal value, knowledge and support chains. The philosophies rotated around spirituality, continuity of life, ancestry, human survival and existence, communal hierarchy, with nature as the foundation.

Creation of different tribal/ethnic music and dances depended on the experiences of different individuals. The performance experience acted as space that allowed individuals to express their experiences and capabilities; a negotiation round table on which communal identity was discussed and forged. In a reciprocal style, the individual identity formed communal identity, and the group identity reinforced individual distinctiveness. Individual performers relinquished their individual personality to form community characteristics. Choreography and performance happened at the same time but with lasting and communally accepted byproducts.  Consequently, different forms of dance such as funeral dances, initiation dances, harvest dances, royal dances, worship dances, children dances, courtship dances, fertility dances among others were created to define human existence.

Until colonial interruption, this practice was still very common, popular and highly appreciated in Africa. It is worth noting that communal dance performances are still subsisting in communities that have not been fully permeated by urbanization and globalization. From the above disclosure, it is valid to conclude that the history of dance and man is soaked in communal ownership. Whereas communal choreography, performance and ownership of dance is still apparent is some communities, there is an emerging trend of individual ownership of dance. At what point did individuals claim ownership of dance? How did we get to this situation? What socio-cultural trends have facilitated this mindset and behavior? Is individualized ownership of dance good for dance and man? Is the dance sector dancing to the tunes of capitalism? Who owns dance? This is what the following text is all about.

Margaret H’Doubler provides partial answers to the aforementioned questions when she posits thus:

Every age has had its dance, and the fact that dance has lived is evidence of its value. The universal interest in dance rests upon the fact that it carries on and systematizes an activity that is operative in everyone’s experience. It is co-existence with life. Like the history of all other arts, the history of dance follows those changes in attitude and feeling and those fluctuations in man’s concept of art which have given to every period its distinctive qualities. Its history therefore is one of changes in those points of view by which man has built his ideals rather than a chronicle of techniques and forms.

In Africa, ethnic dances are hastily becoming neo-traditional. Dance troupes, companies and individuals are claiming ownership and dance. This practice is a new phenomenon. The fact that the concept ‘choreographer’, for example, does not exist in ethnic tribal languages in Africa is evidence enough to show that dance artistry was not individualized. The process of creating these dances was so organic, communally oriented and all inclusive to the extent that communities did not deem it imperative to brand individuals choreographers. The community was the choreographer. As the legal fraternity and adherents of indigenous studies are grappling with copyright laws, and fathoming who does and who does not own indigenous ethnic dances, individuals and companies have gone ahead to claim copyright over indigenous dance forms. Entangled in this struggle of ownership and cultural disempowerment, the communities where these dances originate are just looking on helplessly. Legislation is not strong enough to defend these communities and their products from this emerging breed of dance ‘klepto-capitalists’. 

Certainly, individual ownership of dance coincided with ‘theatrerization’ and ‘choreographirization’ of dance. When dance migrated from community to the theatre, the era of individual ownership was ushered in. Dance as a performing art lost out as well. Quite a number of dance elements were altered to suit the tastes, preferences and demands of the buyers-audience. The theatrical setting could not allow exploration of dance to its entirety.

More still, this forced migration of dance from the community to a theatrical stage was demographically divisive. It created two groups: the active performers on one hand and a very passive audience on the other. The performer vs audience arrangement alienated the audience from taking an active role in communal performance, choreography and evaluation of the performance. The performer got a justification to claim ownership of dance. Companies and individuals owned dance techniques and styles. The performers packaged dance as a product and service and they demanded pay for provision of the same. Dance became a commercial commodity with buyers (audience) on one hand and sellers (performers) on the other. Individual ownership of dance was in full force.

Let us now focus on how formal education has concretized individual ownership of dance. By formal education, the author refers to the transfer of skills and knowledge from the teacher or instructor to the learner or student in a classroom and studio setting. Formal education has been a significant catalyst in advancing human civilization. In a number of cases, formal education has acted as fountain of human innovation. But formal education has some drawbacks. One of the downsides of formal education is its ability to institutionalize and pigeonhole knowledge. As a result of formal education, we now live in a world of the educated/knowledgeable and less or/and uneducated (less knowledgeable).  Yet, like oxygen, knowledge is ubiquitous. Additionally, formal education creates ersatz social classes, pitying the educated (the who-can-affords) against the less educated (the who-cannot-affords). Formal education is a demographically divisive tool.

In lieu of the above consideration, it is a considered view of the author that ‘classroomization’, institutionalization, and ‘studiorization’ of dance have, to a very large extent, compounded its individualized ownership. ‘Classroomization’ and ‘studiorization’ of dances raises the challenge of accessibility and affordability. Affordability does not automatically translate into accessibility as some schools, universities and studios require a maximum number of students admitted. On the other hand, accessibility to dance studios and classrooms does not automatically translate into ownership of dance by the learners. The dance instructor, teacher, educator or trainer still owns dance; s/he owns the material that s/he teaches. In this case, the dance teacher/instructor/ trainer and institutions own dance. The quest for ownership of dance rages on.

Especially noteworthy is the fact that dance studios are more exclusive of people than inclusive. The ones who cannot afford training charges are kept out while those who can afford are admitted. Yet, lack of ability to meet the studio charges does not mean deficiency of desire to get involved in any dance experience. Clearly, commercialization, commoditization, and monetization of dance play into this ownership nomenclature.

What is the way forward? The first step is for us to recognize and acknowledge that dances came from people-communities; dance belongs to people. To de-individualize ownership of dance, we need to: de-classroomize, de-institutionalize, de-studiorize, de-theatricalize, de-choreographirize, de-monetize, de-commoditize, and de-commercialize dance. Let us break all the barriers that deter people from accessing and actively participating in dance experiences. The deterrent walls have been built with bricks of over theatrerization, classroomization, choreographirization, commoditization, institutionalization, studiorization, commercialization and monetization of dance.

The home should be the starting point in the revolutionalization process of dance ownership. How can a child grow up without dance? How can a couple express love for each other without dance? How can a family host visitors without dance? How can a family convene a meeting without dance? How can communities live in harmony without dance? How can elders tell stories to young ones without dance? How can parents show love to their children without dance? How can children show love to their parents and fellow siblings without dance? How can a person, family or community celebrate any achievement without dance? The family is the best nursery of dance; the courtyard is the most perfect classroom/studio for dance training; open community spaces are the most ideal performance stages for dance; the people are the best performers, choreographers, designers and critics of dance.

Dance came from people, it belongs to people. People deserve to own it. If dance is taken back to the people it will flourish, and life will blossom.  Let’s take dance to the people; perform, enjoy and create it with people. Dance needs all of us, and we all need dance.