Justine Sacco is not alone.

On December 20, 2013, Justine Sacco, the now-former director of communications at IAC made a tweet on her way to South Africa: “Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” The tweet immediately went viral, causing storm and strong condemnation on social, electronic and in print media. Sacco has since apologized for her reckless ‘joke’. In her statement, she regretted “For being insensitive to this crisis — which does not discriminate by race, gender or sexual orientation, but which terrifies us all uniformly — and to the millions of people living with the virus.” Sacco’s predicament is testimony that maybe the African gods, spirits and ancestors have said "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH".

Sacco’s insensitive tweet represents the longstanding Western characterization that Africa has endured since it first made contact with the Western world. Since pre-colonial period, Africa has had disdainful labels such as dark continent, primitive society, third world, least developed society, and, currently, high risk region, all coined by elements in the West. This western condescending attitude is represented, for example, in Hugh Trevor-Roper’s 1963 remark that “perhaps in the future there will be some African history… But, at present, there is none; there is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness…and darkness is not a subject of history.” In 1969, Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. secretary of state, amplified Trevor-Ruper’s statement when he posited thus: “Nothing important can come from the South. The axis of history starts in Moscow, goes to Bonn, crosses over to Washington, and then goes to Tokyo. What happens in the South is of no importance.” Even after making such a statement, Kissinger went ahead and won a joint Noble Peace Prize together with Le Duc Tho in 1973.

Sacco’s statement is reflective of the stereotypes that the West has fabricated about Africa. These stereotypical images of Africa are derived from movies such as lion king, and biased and superficially selective media coverage.  For example, for some people in the West, watching The Last King of Scotland, Kony 2012, and War Dance is knowing everything about Uganda. Yet, Uganda does not live in the past. Idi Amin, whom the movie Last King of Scotland is based on was deposed from power in 1979 (before many of us were born). The war in Northern Uganda, which War dance reflects ended in 2005. However, construction of realities about Uganda based on these historical experiences has continued even when conditions have considerably changed.

In some instances, the people who visit Africa only get obsessed with what they perceive as negative/bad experiences to feed their stereotypical sentiments about Africa. To convince their stereotypical friends and family members back home that they have been to “Africa” (they mostly say Africa instead of particular countries in Africa that they have visited), they take photo of bad roads, makeshift houses, homeless people, malnourished children, etc. In their world of imagination, a better Africa does not exist.

Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda. An image like this is rarely captured by Western visitors who come to Africa.

This attitude has a lot to do with class struggle than racism. It is about hegemony and supremacy, both fueled by national origin more than race. It is a dangerous form of patriotism where national pride is built around the attitude of looking down upon other societies. I have met none-white people whose perception of Africa is extremely negative and patronizing. The interaction between Africa and the West, in most part, is infested with Africans being treated as kids and listening signposts that need to be lectured to. Before the 2012 elections in Kenya, Johnnie Carson, the former U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs lectured to Kenyans that “choices have consequences”. This is one of the very many cases where the West is presented as noble while Africans are perceived as savages that do not have and cannot find means to mobilize themselves and tackle challenges that affect them. 

For the West to retain relevancy and control over Africa, they have to continuously pander to and present the fabricated images of a helpless/needy, begging Africa. This is clearly reflected in the “Machine Gun Preacher (2011), a fiction film based on the LRA. In the film, a retired alcoholic and drug-using biker from Minnesota comes to Northern Uganda and South Sudan upon converting to Christianity. He finds the children under constant attack from the LRA and becomes the hero who leads armed raids to rescue them.” (Mwenda, 2012). The impression created in this film is that a Western retired alcoholic and drug-using biker is much more effective and efficient than trained members of any African military force.

As Steve Biko once noted, “One of the most difficult things to do these days is to talk with authority on anything to do with African culture [politics, economics, social issues]. Somehow Africans are not expected to have any deep understanding of their own culture or even of themselves. Other people have become authorities on all aspects of African life ... There is so much confusion sown, not only among casual non-African readers, but even among Africans themselves, that perhaps a sincere attempt should be made at emphasizing the authentic cultural aspects of the African people by Africans themselves.” This common consciousness that is cultivated in the West is getting deeply entrenched in Africa that for every problem on our (African) continent, a solution must be sought from the West (Mwenda, 2012).

Some continental Africans are squarely culpable for lending credence to this Western characterization of Africa. Executives, economists, artists, politicians, religious leaders, social workers, policy makers, researchers etc crisscross European and North American cities and boardrooms to market trauma, hunger, wars, malnourishment, AIDS, in exchange for handouts. The elites that stay home preoccupy themselves with founding non-governmental organisations and writing project proposals to attract donations from the West. The level of  dependency and “donorism” (as president Museveni calls it) has reached an alarming, self-defeatist, and appalling stage. Moreover, this money rarely reaches its proposed recipients.

Justine Sacco’s words are spoken everyday, by so many people, in so many different ways/versions. This is what we (African immigrants) are bombarded with in our day-to-day interaction with people in West and the Western media. It is time for Africans and non-Africans to come out and challenge this Western characterization that is symptomatic of deeply seated hegemony, "orientalism" (Said 1978), “alterity” (Mudimbe, 2013), and “orientalization and otherization of Africa” (Mazrui, 2005).  The African gods, spirits and ancestors are singing  "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!" Let's all respond in chorus!

Alfdaniels Mabingo is a Fulbright Fellow at New York University

Did South Sudan ask the real questions?

For more than a week now, South Sudan has been embroiled in a military conflict that has claimed more than 500 lives. This conflict is a result of what the South Sudan government alleges to be a failed military coup/mutiny orchestrated by Riek Machar, South Sudan’s former vice president.

The roots of this conflict reside in the military struggle between military groups in South Sudan and the Khartoum government that started more than 30 years ago.  Whereas SPLM/A was the dominant force in this struggles (with its military leader, John Garang at the forefront), there were so many other military groups and ethnic militias that were engaged in this struggle such as South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF). It is worth noting that these different military groups controlled territory, some of which was and is still mineral rich.

After signing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement  (CPA) with the Khartoum government in 2005,  SPLM/A was trapped in a conflict of interests. Some leaders within its ranks such as John Garang pursued the idea of a new (unified) Sudan whereas others preferred secession of South Sudan from North Sudan. John Garang pushes the idea of a new Sudan with hope that he would be the first black president of the new Sudan. Both Arabs and non Arab Sudanese endorsed his ambition and vision when they massively welcomed him and the SPLM/A leadership to Khartoum on July 08, 2005, a gesture that shocked the Khartoum regime.

Dr. John Garang. Maybe his dream of a new/unified Sudan had solutions to the crises in Darfur, South Kordofan and South Sudan

It seems that after signing the CPA in 2005, the SPLM/A leadership preoccupied themselves with finding a compromise between these two interests. This may have weakened the internal capacity of the new state to fully focus on the existing political and military challenges of the time.

One of the areas that the SPLM/A government needed to urgently address was how to assimilate and integrate other military groups and militias into one military structure. Instead, the SPLM/A created a structure where the military groups and militias remained militarily semi-autonomous with all the infrastructure and fully fledge chains of command. SPLM/A just coopted leaders of these groups into government but never dissolved their military structures into one unified force.  Worst of all, these leaders wielded influence authority and control over their respective groups. As such, these semi-autonomous units became a bargaining tool for political and economic self-aggrandizement by their respective coopted leaders.

This volatile arrangement created internal dislocations and instability and fed secessionist sentiments and threats of breaking away inside South. This fragility was compounded by the fact that some military groups were tribal in composition, and they controlled territory and mineral wealth.

It should be born in our mind that ever since she attained independence in 2011, South Sudan has been under siege from Sudan (north) over disputed border territories. The tension between the two countries reached its peak in 2012 during the Heglig crisis when soldiers of both countries clashed in the border town of Heglig. Additionally, South Sudan has been a ground on which the Ugandan government and that of Sudan have continued to settle their military scores. Since 2011, SPLM/A government has been engaged both internally and externally, an act that has denied it ample time and space to concentrate on finding solutions to internal challenges facing South Sudan.

Mineral dealers who bankroll leaders of different armed groups and militias in exchange for unconstrained access to mineral resources have also fueled the internal conflicts in South Sudan. If the current crisis is not resolved this behavior will do none but escalate.

As planes evacuate foreign nationals from South Sudan, let's remember that there are millions of South Sudanese whose only home is South Sudan. The danger with this crisis is that it might energize or be energized by other armed conflicts in nearby areas such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Central African Republic, and Darfur.

South Sudan people are caught in the middle of this conflict. It is only a political solution that can deliver peace and hope to their hearts

It is politics that brought all these warring military factions together. The same politics can help these same groups to mend fences. Politics is the only womb that will give birth to peace, hope, and prosperity for the people of South Sudan. The current crisis is begging for a political solution.

Alfdaniels Mabingo is a Fulbright Fellow at New York University  

Rescuing African Dances from Citadels of Annihilation: a Pentagonal Paradigm

The colonial era opened a new phase for deterioration of African dances by compelling (and in some cases coercing local people to lose trust and confidence in these cultural practices). This absurd trend has extended through the postcolonial period. The fears that African dance practices are enmeshed in palisades of profligacy are not a hyperbole. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that some dances have been condemned to the chasm of extinction.  For example, kifuule dance among the Baganda people is no longer performed.  ones that are have managed to survive are struggling to find sanctuary in the ever evolving local and global convolution. This is not want to create an impression that attempts have not been made to preserve and revive some of these art forms. Various efforts have been made by arts organisations, academic institutions, artists, and museums to keep the spirit of these dances alive.  But in most cases, these endeavors have done all but shambled.

The detachment of these art forms from the people (that are supposed to preserve them) has gravely hastened their entombment. The architects of these artistic practices knew that the best library is the people. They entrusted communities to create, preserve and disseminate these practices through performances that organically existed within these communities. Wo/man coexisted with dance and music. The principle was that wherever there is a wo/man there is music and dance; wherever there is dance there is life. Every woman has two beings, her own and the creative being. Every man has two minds, his own and the artistic mind. Every society has two souls, the souls of the community and the soul of art. Every woman carries two wombs, the baby’s womb and the womb of music and dance.

A group of women performing dance in rural Africa. African dances are caught between revisiting their roots or taking unknown new directions. Photo by Holly Mann

The African society has gradually digressed away from this principle. What went wrong? Should we just keep singing requiem songs as this artistic richness is being condemned to mass burial? Can these dance forms be pulled out of the maxillae of degeneration and tendered back to humanity? Or, to paraphrase the African adage, does the calabash on the water even know where the river is heading?

All is not lost. Hope is still looming large. Mother African can still reclaim her womb - dance. This hope borrows legitimacy from a pentagonical model proposed by Mazrui and Ostegard (2002) to address Africa’s challenges in a global age. This model covers five key processes: ‘indigenization, domestication, diversification, horizontal interpenetration, and vertical counter penetration.’ which, if applied to African dance practices, can frontally expedite the revival, survival, and relevance of these dances within globalized contexts. It is to the applicability of these five processes to the revival and survival of African dances that I now turn.

African dances are in search for their indigenous soul. The road to this search is painted with tears of the lost glory. And I say to African dances: ‘Relax, African dances. Relax! For you cannot put on the bones of your former self. But you can gather some flesh for a shadow of your earlier persona.” For African dances to reclaim their earlier persona, indigenization process of dance practices has to be set in motion. Indigenization process for this case will “include greater utilization of indigenous techniques, personnel, and approaches to purposeful change” (Mazrui and Ostegard, 2002, p. 2002). As I noted earlier, communities have left dances to waste away. The process of resurrecting dances should take place in communities where these people live with a people as active players. The different needs these dances once served still exist. Festivals, ceremonies, competitions, and other home-based and community-based occasions need to be rejuvenated. For as long as dance is part of Africa’s histories, stories and heritage it can be indigenized. For as long as communities have histories and heritage they can still indigenize their artistic practices.

Westernization and globalization have tended to overlap in Africa. Be it in social, political, cultural and economic spheres, the two influences have taken foot on the African soil. Should African dances be hostage to westernization and globalization? Domestication of artistic practices can free African dances from this inimicalness. Domestication entails using/applying foreign ideas, paradigms, institutions, and approaches for the benefit of the local communities. University, school, church, dance company, government ministry are all foreign ideas and institutions in Africa. But these institutions can play a pivotal role in stimulating the centrality of African dances in social, cultural, economic and political development. What does a university, school, church, government ministry, Dance Company, tourism center lose by integrating native dances into its core activities? Is it intellectually sacrilegious for an African scholar to study, research about, and teach and wribe about native African dance? Domestication of imported knowledge, concepts and ideas has been done, albeit remotely.  In a number of cases it has played to the gallery of where it is imported from than where it is applied.

Relatedly, we cannot talk of African being part of the global cobweb and ignore diversification as a global process. Diversification involves embracing foreign ideas, knowledge, concepts and institutions and allowing them to exist along side the native ones. African dance scene needs to open up its echelons to other dance forms and artistic experiences. Most importantly, the African dance artist, scholar, learner, educator must learn from these fronts of exposure, with aim to deepen their artistic base. New dance forms have made inroads in Africa, but these dance forms have either been thoughtlessly embraced at the expense of the native ones, or they have been ascetically snubbed in protection of the native ones. Obviously, other dance forms are different in philosophy, structure, purpose, and assumptions underpinning their artistry, but this should not be perceived as a threat to local artistic orientations. Strength is when two forces pull in opposite directions. Global discrepancies whether in favour of ‘Westphilia’ or against Africa can be addressed through co-existence of diverse dance forms and artistic experiences.

The area that should concern all Africans – dance artists and non-dance artists alike is the lack connectivity and artistic corresponded between different African communities. This is a sign that horizontal interpenetration is yet to appear on the African horizon. Even in case of neighbouring countries, there is little or no understanding, exchange and appreciation of dance forms from cultures in these countries. Scanty crossovers exist at the border, and that’s it! Individuals have cross-crossed borders but dance forms have not. The spirit of pan-Africanism has not reverberated in African dance artistry. There is no East Africanisation of West African dance artistry and vice versa. In dance terms, central Central Africa, which lies between East Africa and West Africa, is not even aware that these two neighbors artistically exist. Dance artistry has so far failed to connect Alexandria with the Cape of Good Hope. Is regionalization and continentalization of African dance artistry under siege from globalization and Westernization? Have we drunk too deep of the Western malt and tested too little of African spring?  Arts organisations, academic and research institutions, government ministries, and civil society organizations can stimulate horizontal interpenetration through dance. A university in Malawi can introduce a course in Zambian dances. A South African dance researcher can conduct research and write about dances from the Congos; A Ghanaian national television can host a program about Ethiopian dances; an Egyptian dance company can have Cameroonian dances as part of its repertory.  Dances can be traded in spite of the demographic differences. This will open new frontiers of intra-continental artistic re-organization and new cultural conformations.

Since the colonial period, Africa has been on the receiving end of Eurocentric and Anglo-centric hegemony. It is not farfetched to say that the process of globalization has so far showed signs of one sidedness. The West has penetrated Africa, with very little offered in return. It is not disputable that Africa has experienced some form of modernization. Mazrui and Ostegard (2002) define modernization to “mean change which is consistent with the present stage of human knowledge, which seeks to comprehend the legacy of the past, which is sensitive to the needs of future generations, and which is responsive to its global context” (p. 214). Has African modernization sought to comprehend the legacy or the past? Has it been sensitive to the needs of future generations? Has it responded proportionately to the global context? The dance practices do not seem to suggest so. An analysis of the dance sector reveals that African is still limping in as far as using dance to globalize African experiences is concerned. There is urgent need for vertical counter-penetration. 

African dance practices have to stamp their presence at the courtyards of western and Eastern artistic bastion. The route to globalization should be littered with African dance artistry in areas such as dane research, education, performance, and scholarship. The shadowiness of African dance artistry in the Western and Eastern worlds is a challenge that needs to be urgently and frontally confronted. Where efforts have been made to support, encourage and promote African dance artistry, they need to be buttressed. But mostly importantly, Africa needs to be understood for what it really is. African dances need to be appreciated as dance forms that are deeply grounded in human philosophy and science. These dances firmly rest on a well systematic platform whose pillars are deeply held in human thought and human conscience. African dance stretch beyond just having hunters gather and jump around a dead elephant in the middle of the forest or tribesmen and women just moving and shouting around a very big heap of food harvest.

African dances have been part of African cultures. If culture is a “lens of perception, means of communication, basis of stratification, spring of motivation, standard of judgment, pattern of production and consumption and foundation of identity” (Mazrui and Ostegard, 2002, p.214), then the dilemma of African dances is indubitably a predicament for African cultures. A polygonal approach to salvaging African dances from chains of debauchery is possible for Africa – provided the calabash on the  water gets to know where the river is heading.