Last class brought up many serious and interesting questions regarding the topic of the role of ethnicity in African states. Reactions to these questions and opinions derived from them varied. In this short article I am going to mirror and react to one of these judges and I will try to construct my own personal optic on how to perceive this problem.
It needs to be mentioned at first that I do not perceive any problems of Africa to be easily measured or descripted by comparison. Africa is a unique continent. I believe this to the extent of that I do not see much use in comparison to developed countries evolutionary processes at all. Nor do I believe that colonialism harms or advantages brought to Africa are comparable to any other regions and can be comparably evaluated.
Based on this let me level with one opinion mentioned during the class. It is no surprise that the opinion I am going to address was based on comparison – not on a fair one. It was stated that if we would look deeply into the development curves of modern states it can be traced back in time to one phenomenon – the phenomenon of nationalism and national identity which led to unification of the nations and therefore to the development of modern day states. The rhetoric was implying that if there is a chance for modern African states, this should be achieved by unification processes at first – meaning the unification of language, tribe, ethnics, etc. It does not mean that all of these requirement has to be met, but at least some of the unifying acts should be impelled.
It was said that this is what brought big states together and that it is a natural way of achieving a working state. Vision based on similarity as basic stone of state building and control of masses. It is true that we can track this phenomenon in the past when focusing on modern states, it is even true that similar societies tend to band together. What is false is the statement that it is a pillar of progress and modernization. On the contrary. What was useful in past is for worse in these days – modern day states are having big problems with the rise of nationalism that prevent further development in many industries and social areas.
It is a trend to try to invoke a postmodern multicultural societies. And it is for practical reasons – the flow of the cash capital, working human capital, digitalization, technologies and other postmodern pillars of development. One may go maybe too far by stating that if we were to build modern states on the principles of equality and diversity from the begging, these problems would never occur in modern day states. Is it possible? The traditionalist would argue that the creation of states and governments is a narrow process with little space for compromises and diversion. I simply do not believe that. The states we tried Africa to compare with had shared a similar history of development – in these day there were little sources for state creating inspiration. In times of Germany’s unification it was best to imply united principles etc. There was no indications whatsoever that the best way to prosperity is open mind, limited boarders, multiculturalism, pluralism etc. But as we see the world around us today, these principles bring prosperity. The problem lays in security issues tied closely to nationalist tendencies and differences between both the culture and religion.
But it goes back hundreds of years, this hostility. So if we are to give advice to African countries it should not be the advice of promoting nationalism and unification as such. We should encourage African states to deal with the differences and to try to open the minds of citizens to the fact that states are defined by its territory not by some ethnicity aspects. It surely is a social construct – the believe that ethnicity, skin, religion or any other variable would bring chaos and violence. Many societies act as such because they were given this conclusion and it is deepened within them. It is in the end natural to band with similar. But natural does not always means best – it was natural at one point of time for us to kill one another because of fear, but it is decisively better to cooperate with each other. Same goes for societies – it is natural to perceive different culture, ethnicity, and religion as dangerous to our own values. But it is not for the best.
That is why I would recommend different approach in Africa for if it would follow the same course of modern states history, it would only repeat our mistakes of bloodshed, wars and misery. This is, in the end, the up to day state of Africa today.
We should promote the values we gained later. It is not true that one has to learn only by own experiences – the values shared and promoted shape our perceptions and opinions. As children learn not to fight with each other because their parents experienced the bad outcomes of individual fights, we should teach African states to cooperate with each other rather than fight. Same goes for ethnic groups and tribes.
So let choose to promote better ways of development than we did with our own nations and stop to use comparison as sole empirical source and measurement of success.
Let’s believe in Africa as such
It needs to be mentioned at first that I do not perceive any problems of Africa to be easily measured or descripted by comparison. Africa is a unique continent. I believe this to the extent of that I do not see much use in comparison to developed countries evolutionary processes at all. Nor do I believe that colonialism harms or advantages brought to Africa are comparable to any other regions and can be comparably evaluated.
Based on this let me level with one opinion mentioned during the class. It is no surprise that the opinion I am going to address was based on comparison – not on a fair one. It was stated that if we would look deeply into the development curves of modern states it can be traced back in time to one phenomenon – the phenomenon of nationalism and national identity which led to unification of the nations and therefore to the development of modern day states. The rhetoric was implying that if there is a chance for modern African states, this should be achieved by unification processes at first – meaning the unification of language, tribe, ethnics, etc. It does not mean that all of these requirement has to be met, but at least some of the unifying acts should be impelled.
It was said that this is what brought big states together and that it is a natural way of achieving a working state. Vision based on similarity as basic stone of state building and control of masses. It is true that we can track this phenomenon in the past when focusing on modern states, it is even true that similar societies tend to band together. What is false is the statement that it is a pillar of progress and modernization. On the contrary. What was useful in past is for worse in these days – modern day states are having big problems with the rise of nationalism that prevent further development in many industries and social areas.
It is a trend to try to invoke a postmodern multicultural societies. And it is for practical reasons – the flow of the cash capital, working human capital, digitalization, technologies and other postmodern pillars of development. One may go maybe too far by stating that if we were to build modern states on the principles of equality and diversity from the begging, these problems would never occur in modern day states. Is it possible? The traditionalist would argue that the creation of states and governments is a narrow process with little space for compromises and diversion. I simply do not believe that. The states we tried Africa to compare with had shared a similar history of development – in these day there were little sources for state creating inspiration. In times of Germany’s unification it was best to imply united principles etc. There was no indications whatsoever that the best way to prosperity is open mind, limited boarders, multiculturalism, pluralism etc. But as we see the world around us today, these principles bring prosperity. The problem lays in security issues tied closely to nationalist tendencies and differences between both the culture and religion.
But it goes back hundreds of years, this hostility. So if we are to give advice to African countries it should not be the advice of promoting nationalism and unification as such. We should encourage African states to deal with the differences and to try to open the minds of citizens to the fact that states are defined by its territory not by some ethnicity aspects. It surely is a social construct – the believe that ethnicity, skin, religion or any other variable would bring chaos and violence. Many societies act as such because they were given this conclusion and it is deepened within them. It is in the end natural to band with similar. But natural does not always means best – it was natural at one point of time for us to kill one another because of fear, but it is decisively better to cooperate with each other. Same goes for societies – it is natural to perceive different culture, ethnicity, and religion as dangerous to our own values. But it is not for the best.
That is why I would recommend different approach in Africa for if it would follow the same course of modern states history, it would only repeat our mistakes of bloodshed, wars and misery. This is, in the end, the up to day state of Africa today.
We should promote the values we gained later. It is not true that one has to learn only by own experiences – the values shared and promoted shape our perceptions and opinions. As children learn not to fight with each other because their parents experienced the bad outcomes of individual fights, we should teach African states to cooperate with each other rather than fight. Same goes for ethnic groups and tribes.
So let choose to promote better ways of development than we did with our own nations and stop to use comparison as sole empirical source and measurement of success.
Let’s believe in Africa as such
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