RE-IMAGINING AFRICA

By Frederick Kuo

May 22nd, 2016

“Take up the White Man’s burden, Send forth the best ye breed

Go bind your sons to exile, to serve your captives’ need;”

Rudyard Kipling

Throughout the last five centuries, Africa has existed in the Western imagination between two polarized extremes. One is the Africa that exists as treasure trove of spoils, a source of slaves to take as free labor, and a vast land full of natural riches for the taking. The other extreme is the Africa that is in need of saving, a place of needy and helpless souls where Westerners can live out their fantasies of missionary heroism.

However, in the dawn of the 21st century, a different African story has emerged which is, and should be, challenging the way that the West imagines Africa. From Nigeria to Kenya, and from Angola to Ethiopia, Africa is now one of the engines of global economic growth clocking in over 4% annually. Instead of a continent in need of saving, Africa is shaping to be the next great frontier for development and economic opportunity. For the West to take part in this new African story, it is crucial that a new relationship with Africa is to be constructed.

“HELPLESS” AFRICA

Ever since the first Portuguese ships began to ply the shores of Sub-Saharan Africa, the “dark continent” has existed in the Western mind as a passive, helpless entity. The first several centuries of widespread contact coincided with the European age of discovery and industrialization, both events spelling great suffering for the peoples of Africa.

As Europeans colonized the New World, the need for a vast and compliant labor force drew them to West Africa, an easy source for slaves as the region had been practicing the institution of slavery for hundreds of years. Starting from the 16th century to the 19th century, tens of millions of Africans would eventually be brought to the New World and dehumanized with a racialized institution of slavery, creating the greatest diaspora today that is culturally disconnected from their origins.

As competition between great European powers flared, Africa became a boundless source for colony taking. The “Scramble for Africa” culminated with the Berlin Conference of 1884 where Africa was divided as bounty and the institutions for wholesale European colonization for Africa was formalized.

In 1870, only 10% of Africa was colonized. By 1914, over 90% of the continent’s landmass, with the exception of Ethiopia, Dervishland, and Liberia, was under European control.

With colonization, also came religious missionaries, who saw themselves as generous and enlightened saviors doing God’s work by saving the heaving masses of heathen souls. This well-meaning but ultimately misguided and self-righteous attitude was captured in Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden” describing Western attitudes towards its colonies.

In post-colonial Africa, Western imagination and intervention through humanitarian aid and the presence of Western NGO’s continued this legacy of missionary zeal and the attitude that the West, without input from the Africans themselves, understood what is best for Africa.

As Western nations matured through centuries of social upheaval and evolution to become more humane and comfortable societies, the image of Africa evolved from a place to be looted, to a place of misery where Western man could live out his savior fantasies.

With the political instability and ensuing chaos and mismanagement that followed decolonization, the image of famines, genocide and helpless Africans became ingrained in the Western imagination. Though the image of Africa transitioned from bounty to be seized to that of an eternal victim, one thing remained constant, the passive nature of Africa’s place for the West to make its mark and to bestow civilization unto.

ENTER THE DRAGON

In the year 2000, the Economist ran a cover story, “The Hopeless Continent” which argued the thesis that Africa was beyond help and doomed to a future of barbarism and underdevelopment because of its poor social institutions and corrupt governance. A few years later, this story line would face a complete rebuttal as the continent became central to the strategic interest of a rising superpower from the east, China.

Although China had established diplomatic ties with a wide number of African nations and even participated in aiding anti-colonial struggles in the continent since the 50’s, its presence on the continent had largely been minimal.

However, at the onset of the 21st century, China, experiencing the throes of the most massive industrialization in human history, began to identify Africa, a continent full of natural resources, commodities and a vast untapped market, as a place of great long term strategic value.

Using a diverse arsenal of tools, from increasing trade, investment, loans and infrastructure aid, China has emerged as the dominant foreign power in Africa, and as a favored partner for African countries looking to emulate its rapid development.

From a negligible trickle in 2000, China’s trade with Africa topped $160 billion in 2015, ranking as far and away the largest trade partner to the continent. In 2014, China signed more than $70 billion in infrastructure contracts in the continent, and Chinese banks now provide more loans to African nations than does the World Bank.

In the West, China’s investment into Africa has often been painted in the light of neo-colonialism or of exploitation. Certainly, there are aspects and incidents relating to China’s wide involvement that can be colored in that way. China’s involvement in Africa is also clearly defined by its own interests and not altruism. However, what this criticism fails to address is how China has become so successful in Africa.

The answer to this question lies with how China has essentially treated Africa not as a continent in need of saving or lecturing, but as partners in a long term business deal. Exhibiting no self-appointed missionary zeal, China has approached African states with an amoral and persuasive message based on mutual benefit.

In this way, China treats Africa with far more dignity than Western governments and NGOs who view the Africans as hopeless children who need guidance. Instead, China strikes business deals that exchange loans, infrastructure aid and goods in exchange for African commodities, political support and access into its vast and emerging markets while leaving Africans alone in finding solutions to their problems.

The fact that Western media sources consistently condemn China’s no strings attached attitude towards dealing with African regimes as proof that this is a disservice to Africa’s peoples actually demonstrates a certain lack of understanding that the West has of the worldview of many Africans.

In actuality, China’s own narrative of national rejuvenation, as a non-Western nation which was humiliated by Western Imperialism but has managed to revive itself as a great power, is one that has deep resonation in Africa and elsewhere in the non-Western world. It is this lesson, as well as the fact that Western democratic institutions are actually not readily applicable to the societies of many developing nations, that the West needs to learn.

THE AFRICAN STORY HAS CHANGED

Due to a variety of factors from the tidal wave of Chinese investment, to strong demand in commodities and increasing modernization, African countries have begun to rank among the world’s fastest growing in the past 15 years. From 2000 to 2010, African countries averaged 5.4% in economic growth, which made the continent rank among the fastest growing regions of the world. Since 2010, this growth has slowed to 3.3% although the impact of slower growth can be traced to the dip in oil prices affecting oil oil producers such as Angola, Nigeria, Sudan, with growth slowing to 4% from 7.1% in these countries.

However, despite increasing challenges, many countries in the region continue to register high growth reflecting a diversification of economies. Between 2010 to 2014, the service sector in Africa increased to 48% from 44%, while the manufacturing sector’s contribution to the continent’s growth increased to 23% from 17%.

Africa’s future trajectory points to increased prominence on the world stage and a sustained position as a region of high growth. This is primarily due to two factors, Africa’s continuing urbanization moving it away from being a primarily rural nation, and Africa’s young population which will see the continent possessing the world’s largest working age population by the year 2034.

Africa is still primarily a rural continent, with only 37% of its population living in cities. However, it already ranks behind Asia as the most rapidly urbanizing continent in the world. Since urban economies typically have three times the level of production as rural ones, the continent’s urbanization will lead to significant increases in consumer spending, industrialization, and economies of scale, all leading to greater opportunities for entrepreneurs to establish themselves as leaders in rapidly growing markets during their initial high growth phases.

In the next fifteen years, Africa’s consumer spending is projected to increase to $2.2 trillion, triple the level today. Megacities of the continent such as Cairo, Lagos and Kinshasa will soon be joined by Luanda, Nairobi, Addis Ababa and many others. With this explosion of urban life, entire chains of service industries will need to be provided, creating immense opportunities for local and global entrepreneurs alike. All of this potential point to expansive and sustainable economic growth for the next several decades.

The next several decades will have many industrialized nations in the West and Asia experience significant aging as their populations no longer have as many children and life expectancy continues to rise. Africa is already the world’s youngest population and by 2034 will have a working age population of 1.1 billion, making it the largest in the world. A young working population combined with increasing urbanization and industrialization will drive economic and consumer growth in the continent, making it one of the most economically dynamic regions in the world.

In the past fifteen years, Africa’s reality and promise has significantly shifted. From a continent derided as “hopeless” by prominent Western media outlets, Africa is now projected to become a great engine of economic growth with a rapidly urbanizing and growing market. Africa’s time has arrived. 

A NEW AFRICA STRATEGY

The next several decades will see Africa moving towards a more central place in the global economy rather than existing on the margins as it has been. The vastness of a continent nearly four times the size of the continental US, a young and booming population, and an era of rapid urbanization and growth will ensure that a presence in Africa will be crucial to global business and political players of our day. African states themselves will claim a larger voice on global affairs, and with growing economies of increasing scale, will eventually claim positions of prominence.

In the modern era, the West has long neglected Africa, either dismissing it as a hopeless basket case, or simply considering the continent only in issues of resources, security and defense. The entrance of China has suddenly shifted the paradigm in which Africa had been imagined. In the past, the West held a monopoly as the bearers of money and technology to which African states were forced to pander to in order to gain access to either one or both. However, today, China’s presence provides alternatives to African nations minus the traditional political interference of Western states. As more states such as India, Brazil and others seek to gain influence on the continent, African states are at an unprecedented position where their strategic options are better than at any time before.  

Although China has made a deep imprint on the continent, and today reigns as the largest trading partner of the continent, the West and particularly the United States retains key advantages including possessing more transparent political models, better and more mature technology in certain key sectors, and recognizable global brands that China still lacks. However, these advantages are not guaranteed forever, in fact, the window in which they exist is shortening day by day. Therefore, it is crucial that the United States, and other Western nations begin to re-assess their attitudes and strategies in the continent in order to solidify partnerships with African countries as the continent gains more prominence in the future.  

The West today has the opportunity to renew their relationship with Africa. To emerge from a dark history which began with exploitative imperialism to a more recent one marked by patronizing parenting. The reality is that Africa today is a continent teeming with ambition and energy, and it is time that Western states began to treat Africans as equal partners and to learn about their goals and needs on their own terms.

The invocations of “White Man’s Burden” continues to exist only in the Western mind, an attitude that once led to the shackling of Africans themselves, now only serves to shackle Western abilities to understand Africa’s potential and future. The time to abandon that mindset is now, otherwise, Western influence in the continent will continue to subside, and more rapidly than we could probably imagine.

PUBLISHED

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-china-knows-about-africa-the-west-doesnt-16295