Whatever happened to the African renaissance? I thought that shifting priorities, not to mention last year’s xenophobic violence, had long since consigned it to the dustbin of history, as a catchphrase anyhow.
Just when it seemed that we were to hear of it no more, here’s the man, who started it all, going on about it again. Thabo Mbeki — remember him? — is still telling people to be part of the African renaissance. Granted, his speech was part of the Africa Day celebrations at Rhodes University. But even a man so apparently distanced from reality must know that this is an idea that never really took hold in the popular imagination.
There was a time when it all seemed so promising. Back in 1996, Mbeki’s speech marked a transition from national consciousness, in the form of the rainbow nation myth, to a continental focus. “I am an African,” he announced. “I owe my being to the hills and valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the desert, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land …
I owe my being to the Koi and the San whose desolate souls haunt the great expanses of the beautiful Cape … I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home on our native land. Whatever their actions, they remain, still, part of me. In my veins course the blood of the Malay slaves who came from the East. I am the grandchild of the warrior men and women that Hintsa and Sekhukhune led, the patriots that Cetshwayo and Mphephu took to battle, the soldiers Moshoeshoe and Ngunyane taught never to dishonour the cause of freedom … I am the grandchild who lays fresh flowers on the Boer graves … who sees in the mind’s eye and suffers the suffering of a simple peasant folk, death in concentration camps, destroyed homesteads, a dream in ruins … I come of those who were transported from India and China …
Being part of all these people, and in the knowledge that none dare contest that assertion, I shall claim that I am an African!
It was a beautiful speech, one that marked Mbeki’s first grand gesture as a statesman. Since everybody knew that Mbeki would assume power once Nelson Mandela retired from politics, his words carried weight. The concept of an African renaissance began to gather momentum as the national mood shifted away from the reconciliatory emphasis of the rainbow nation — soon dismissed as “rainbowism” — and Madiba magic. Mbeki told a gathering of US corporate chiefs and African officials at the May 1997 Attracting Capital to Africa conference in Washington that the African renaissance had already begun. It was here that Mbeki presented himself, to a receptive audience, as the spokesman for Africa.
Soon enough, the words “African renaissance” developed a power all of their own, almost a magical quality — as if, by evoking them, political correctness was guaranteed for a cause. The African renaissance had rapidly become what Ray Hartley, then political editor of the Sunday Times, described as “one of those globally adored notions that no one dares contest”. The SABC changed its slogan to “The pulse of Africa’s creative spirit”. Calabashes and beadwork began to proliferate in corporate campaigns as business gravitated towards a concept apparently tailor-made for annual reports and corporate videos.
“Perhaps the biggest issue that faces our leadership is to find the challenging idea that can galvanise and energise all the people. The African Renaissance and the African Century are the end result of such an epoch-making idea,” gushed Saki Macozoma back in 2000. Similarly, the managing director of Microsoft (South Africa), Mark Hill, declared: “Microsoft is currently contributing towards making the African Renaissance a reality. We don’t believe this to be a cliché, but rather a serious challenge facing South African businesses interested in the future of this country.”
Whether ordinary South Africans ever felt the same way is open to debate. The 2000 edition of FutureFact, a report by the UCT Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing, reported that research indicated broad support for a leading role for South Africa in African affairs, and one of the positive aspects of the African renaissance was that it had “powerful symbols”. However, the same report also observed that “cynicism surrounding the African Renaissance is rife”. Hardly surprising, really, given the African renaissance that was starting to take place just across the Limpopo and garlic and African potatoes were being offered as solutions to a disease that ravaged the continent.
It’s interesting to look at the ads of the time — consumer advertising is always a useful clue to those concepts that people relate to and those they don’t — and note that very few non-government or non-corporate campaigns used the African renaissance as a creative idea. (MTN was a rare exception, with TBWA Hunt Lascaris developing a campaign that imagined an entire world embracing Africanness; I remember how one of the scenes featured a French woman saying “Hei suka wena” to her boyfriend.)
That ad appeared back in the year 2000, when the African renaissance was already in decline. Soon enough it gave way as a dominant idea in public discourse to the Brand South Africa era, when the chattering classes became obsessed with the economy and the performance of the rand, the International Marketing Council began to promote the country in earnest and people like Mark Shuttleworth were held up as national heroes. The mood, for a while, was relatively positive and practical, focused as it was on tourism, the expansion of the black middle class (we all love our black diamonds) and bidding for international sporting events like the 2010 World Cup.
So to see reference being made to the African renaissance now, after Polokwane and Manto and Msholozi and all the other muddy roiling water that has passed under that particular bridge, is somewhat disconcerting. Anachronistic even, as if we’d been transported 10 years into the past. Somehow, the African renaissance was always a concept that made sense to elites, but not to people on the ground. It was too remote, too theoretical, oddly lacking in any kind of emotional traction.
A lot, in fact, like the man who first gave it impetus. Do we debate whether either of them still have something to offer the world? I suspect the question is moot. After all, the world has long since moved on.
lyndall beddy, trying very hard to rewrite history in an ego soothing fashion…
dont try too hard!
Alisdair
The Arabs had an impressive culture when Europe was in the dark ages, but it was NOT an African culture just because it was on the African continent. And China had a civilisation with written history going back 5000 years.
There is old African culture in Europe and Ethiopia BECAUSE they were close to sealinks with other cultures. Africa below the tsetse fly belt was totally isolated.
Mbeki’s Timbuktu project is an embarrassment – you have to watch the SABC documentary to understand how embarrassing it is. Like Mbeki claiming Timbuktu (from the 9th century) is older than all other cultures, and showing all the versions of the Quraan. Meanwhile in the backround are Taureg on camels, and they are in the land of the Dogon – REAL African culture. No wonder they showed it once and very late at night!
Edwin
What is inaccurate?
what history books do some of u people read , damn .
any way dare i say that 60 yrs in the future bob will be viewed as a visionary who gave the land back to the people . ok it’s an opinion dnt kill me for it .
african Renaissance , have u guys have ever been to yeoville , i am fluent in 9 languages , my head hurts everytime i pass through there , i can hear every conversation .
remove these stupid boarders , they were not there any way 100 yrs ago .
africans are a different sort , that includes all you non blacks as well , we don;t do things by the book .
geez one day we will revist this topic again .
@Sarah
Firstly, let’s start off by defining African Renaissance as Africa’s renewal and rebirth, and in that context, let us begin to recite some of the comic points (which are exclusively South African by some coincidence) you have made to put a flower on the “grave” of this great thought, by a great African intellectual. In addition, let us agree to use Mbeki’s two focus areas of African Renaissance as crucial points of reference, that being issues of democracy, peace, stability and good governance, the second point being socio-economic issues.
You mention that Africa shifted her priorities from the above issues to being “obsessed with the economy and the performance of the rand,…people like Mark Shuttleworth were held up as national heroes”. Even thou these are purely South African issues, the African Renaissance being a continental thought, I see no shifting of priorities here. I would be forgiven for thinking Mark Shuttleworth is an African and him being held up as a national hero serves to confirm Africans taking pride in the successes of one of their own.
You also mention that “African renaissance was always a concept that made sense to elites, but not to people on the ground. It was too remote, too theoretical, oddly lacking in any kind of emotional traction.”. It is actually a pleasure to inform you that the xenophobic attacks that you and your kind like to mention as a sign of anarchy in Africa were actually as a result
…result of socio-economic issues and corruption in authorities that the very same idea of African Renaissance has resolved to tackle. Alexandra residents, and later all South Africans, took a stand in favor of good governance and provision of basic services, even thou it is with pain to remember that some small sections of the criminal elements amongst our people took advantage of the situation to perpetrate their own agendas.
Lastly, moot also is your suggestion that since from your eyes the African Renaissance has died, the world has moved on. Isn’t it the very same world that continues to invite South Africa to strategic G7 meetings, the very same world that continues to trust Mbeki with issues such as that of the Sudanesse president, which world are talking about Sarah? You come across as someone who perhaps was fond of Mandela, and somehow expected him to forever preach the gospel of reconciliation, which if I may say, is still not popular to the people on the ground.
Perhaps reading about the African Renaissance from The Guardian is not the same as experiencing the mood we experienced on the rainy lawns of the Union Buildings on the 9th of May 2009.
Sidakwa
Both the OAU and AU made their first rule that Africa’s borders must not change – which is why genocides have been allowed if not encouraged of the non Muslim populations of Biafra (Nigeria) and Sudan(Darfur) and they are treated as secessionaries. This does not stop Africa’s Leaders virtuously blaming the “colonialists” for the borders they refuse to change.
Europe’s borders themselves are the result of history and war – with about 4 countries that speak German, and 3 French.
The term “Renaissance” is commonly identified with European civilization and signifies the rise of the modern world and the cultural rebirth from the 14th to the 17th centuries (a revival of learning and culture). The applicability of this term in an African context seems problematic in the sense that most scholars do not recognise the existence of a distinct African “civilization” with a distinct cultural identity. For instance North Africa is seeing as belonging to an Islamic civilization, while most other parts of Africa contain elements of Western civilization (i.e. European imperialism). Ethiopia is also cited as a country which constitutes a distinct civilization/culture of its own. Therefore how realistic is the concept of a continental-wide “rebirth”? Since the coining of the term “African Renaissance” there has been debate in overcoming common challenges facing the continent through the promotion of regional “co-operation” (which term has been synonymously used with “integration”) within the framework of RECs, NEPAD and the AU. Despite much hype and publicity over the establishment of these bodies, the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) today remains the most advanced form of regional “co-operation” in Africa; dating back to the 1889 Customs Union Convention between the British Colony of Cape of Good Hope and the Orange Free State Boer Republic. (continued)..
Sbu
The trouble with Mbeki is none of his theories showed any grasp of common sense or understanding of people.
Including his theory that Mandela had “done” reconciliation and he would “do” transformation.
Why could they not be done simultaneously?
And Mbeki’s “transformation” seems to have “transformed” SA into a malfunctioning, corrupt horror show with total destruction of some very important bodies (Road Accident Fund, Land Bank etc etc etc).
I’m with those who say the AR never went away. It is a vision, and ideal, and I don’t think anyone seriously expected a great flowering of industry and culture that would completely transform Africa in a decade or less.
Meanwhile, Africa has progressed significantly in that time. It is much more democratic and there are plenty of bankable stats to corroborate this. We have our first woman head of state. In many places development is proceeding at breakneck speed. There are many signs of pan-African cultural, academic and political development.
That venality, corruption, opportunism and war hasn’t completely vanished is regrettable, but it doesn’t obviate the real and significant change that has occured in the last decade. For the most part Africa is a better place than it was a decade ago, with more democracy, less war and more intra-African collaboration.
Of the over 1000 different cultures in Africa – which one was going to be resurrected anyhow?
@Lyndall Beddy
Mbeki’s thinking is, unfortunately, not for the common mind, hence he is referred to as an intellectual! You ask about transformation as if you were not in South between 1991 and 1999, the nation needed to be reconciled before it could be transformed, sadly, some segments of our country (crucial ones for that matter) are still not interested in this reconciliation, therefore delaying transformation. They would rather listen to Tutu preaching the gospel of the rainbow nation while they sit comfortably in Sandton pointing at the dump Alexandra has turned to under the new black government.
As to your “over 1000 cultures” resurrection comment, you seem to have totally misunderstood the concept of African Renaissance, which I have come to expect of you. We defined African Renaissance as the renewal and rebirth of Africa with reference to issues of democracy, peace, stability, good governance and socio-economic issues, not the emptied reference you are making. Again, try looking at the “faults” of the thought rather than the “faults” of the thought originator, you might find some discomfort at the fact that there exists a possibility of Africa actually renewing itself without the help of the west.
Perhaps for you more worries would come from the realization that Africans (including Mark Shuttleworth, and Thabo Mbeki) are actually giving the world something positive to relate Africa to, like the continued progressive and positive state of affairs of the Republic of South Africa. I understand that your kind was greatly disappointed…
…by Mbeki’s non-violent admittance to his recall by the ANC, which was oddly unAfrican by your standards, and your resistant efforts to paint Mark Shuttleworth European because of his skin colour, but try to give us a chance, perhaps African Renaissance is not a threat to European greatness and dominance, and it has not come to mess up yours and Sarah’s association with anything great.
Sbu,
I agree with you: Mbeki’s thoughts are not for the common mind. (Beetroot and garlic juice…) Sadly, his delivery was also not for the common man. He fiddled while the townships burned…
Please, come out of the clouds. Intentions are great – but I want water in the taps. Under Mbeki and now Zuma, the whole infrastructure is crumbling.
“Under Mbeki and now Zuma, the whole infrastructure is crumbling”???
I get peeved at such closed-minded comments because they hide the truth. The bread that was once reserved for the “chosen” is now being shared by everyone, and this puts a strain on the knife that is supposed to cut it for everyone. The South African infrastrucutre was build to serve a few, hence its incapacity when its suppose to serve a lot.
You and Sarah need to stop this one-sided rowing, you are swaying the boat the wrong way!
Piffle, Sbu.
That which was working, no longer works. Water once drinkable, is no longer, Roads that had no holes, have holes. These occur in areas that CAN afford fixes. Why? Purely and simply: incompetence.
No more of this drivel blaming apartheid please. It’s time to blame Government – local and national for lack of service delivery.
Even transformation of farms ! The money is there – just get on with it…
I put it to you Sbu, that it is you who are close-minded. Stop living in the past. This is what the Afrikaners used to do in the ’60s and’70s – blaming the Anglo-Boer War ! Apartheid is dead. Unfortunately, incompetence is living and so is its brother – corruption.
wow, in reading the article, one would be tempted to think the AR was supposed to be an event, not a process.To think the AR is dead is to ignore the various efforts that have been made by people across the continent to improve their socio-economic conditions, through various initiatives, some of which are geared to eradicate the colonial mindset of thinking “Western is better”.Admittedly, there is some way go in doing this, but this does not detract from the fact that the idea is alive.It may not be as alive in South Africa, as it is in other parts of the continent, but the fact remains.How you choose to refer to it is neither here nor there, in my opinion.I think the same could be said for programmes such as NEPAD, which some people seem to think has died. Just because you do not have Thabo Mbeki touting the programme does not mean it is dead.As far as I am concerned, the geanie is out of the bottle and there is no way you can put it back in.The most dissapointing feature about the AR idea is that civil society (in SA atleast) has not seen fit to propagate to the extent possible, with the result that the it has not managed to enter the consciousness of ordinary South Africans to the extent required.in my opinion, that would be fruitful that spoting a flat line.