tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/african-diaspora-28604/articlesAfrican diaspora – The Conversation2024-01-29T19:11:13Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2219532024-01-29T19:11:13Z2024-01-29T19:11:13ZAfcon 2023: Africa’s diaspora footballers are boosting the continent’s game – but they are also creating challenges<p>The Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) is approaching its conclusion in Ivory Coast and speculation is rife about which team will be the ultimate winner. It could be one of the continent’s footballing heavyweights such as Morocco or Senegal. Alternatively, a relative minnow like Angola or Cape Verde may emerge as the unexpected victor.</p>
<p>Last time out, at the 2021 edition in Algeria, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/feb/06/senegal-egypt-africa-cup-of-nations-final-match-report">Senegal captain</a> Kalidou Koulibaly lifted the trophy. Before that, Algeria’s 2019 triumph in Egypt saw Riyad Mahrez become the victorious captain. Significantly, neither player was born in Africa and there is a distinct possibility that the winning captain of this year’s tournament will also have been born elsewhere.</p>
<p>Of the <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/sports/the-allure-of-the-diaspora-at-afcon-2024-4491490#:%7E:text=2%20hours%20ago-,The%20number%20of%20Diaspora%20players%20in%20the%202024%20AFCON%20is,in%20the%20tournament%20this%20year">630 players</a> who were registered to play by teams competing in the 2023 edition, 200 weren’t born in Africa. The non-African country with the most players at the tournament is France, with 104. Second is Spain with 24, then England with 15. Even players born in Ireland and Saudi Arabia are competing in this year’s tournament. </p>
<p>The Moroccan national team has the largest number of diaspora players. Eighteen of its squad members were born outside of Morocco, with only nine born in the country. Equatorial Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo have 17 and 16 diaspora squad members, respectively.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map of Africa showing the contribution of non-African countries to this year's Afcon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The birthplaces of the African diaspora playing at 2023 Africa Cup of Nations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Widdop</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>The phenomenon seems to be on the rise and has allowed some African teams (and several with very limited footballing history) to rise up the footballing ranks in recent years. But some people argue that diasporas are undermining the progression of African football, principally by engendering a culture of complacency.</p>
<h2>Bolstering their ranks</h2>
<p>The fact that African teams are increasingly relying on players born elsewhere is not a surprise. After all, there’s an <a href="https://football-observatory.com/Inflation-in-the-football-players-transfer-market">intense talent battle</a> taking place in world football. This often involves the <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/international-athletes-world-cup-nationality">naturalisation of individuals</a> who find themselves playing for one national team even though they may already have played for another, and the <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/fifa-world-cup-2022/2022/12/07/every-moroccan-is-moroccan-regraguis-fight-to-include-foreign-born-players-vindicated/">targeted recruitment</a> of players in countries around the world.</p>
<p>However, the case of Africa is particularly distinctive. It’s a reflection of both the continent’s <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2019/02/20/diaspora-diaries-and-football-politics/">colonial past and its global diasporas</a>. </p>
<p>For instance, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/sep/12/leicester-city-riyad-mahrez-father-dream-algeria-world-cup">Mahrez was born</a> in Paris to parents of Algerian and Moroccan origin. The French capital is home to 331,000 Algerians and 254,000 Moroccans. <a href="https://onefootball.com/en/news/chelsea-defender-koulibaly-explains-choosing-senegal-over-france-35927795">Koulibaly</a> was also born in France to parents originally from Senegal. Figures suggest there are more than 100,000 Senegalese in France.</p>
<p>But this is not just a story about France. Nigeria’s <a href="https://dailypost.ng/2023/02/09/no-regrets-choosing-nigeria-over-england-lookman/">Ademola Lookman</a> was born in London, Ghana’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/africa/62549049">Iñaki Williams</a> comes from Bilbao in Spain, and Morocco’s <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2023/01/16/the-political-dimension-of-moroccos-success-in-the-world-cup/#:%7E:text=Similarly%2C%20Sofian%20Amrabat%20is%20known,from%20them%20and%20preferred%20Morocco.">Sofyan Amrabat and Hakim Ziyech</a> are of Dutch origin. </p>
<p>Self-identity and family dynamics are a couple of reasons why players choose to play for teams from the birthplaces of their parents rather than their own. In 2022, Ziyech <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/2022/12/10/hakim-ziyech-a-magician-at-the-heart-of-moroccan-love-story/">explained it thus</a>: “Choosing one’s national team is not done with the brain but with the heart. I have always felt Moroccan even though I was born in the Netherlands. Lots of people will never understand.” </p>
<p>Williams has <a href="https://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/inaki-williams-made-right-choice-ghana-over-spain/blt005c8219a89b044e">spoken</a> of his grandparents’ influence, claiming that a decision is “easier when you see the [Ghanaian] people and your family support you to be a Black Star”. Such instances reveal a multidimensional sense of place. </p>
<p>Yet cynics argue that other such players are simply not good enough to play for the European nations in which they were born or in which they have been naturalised. For instance, former Arsenal starlet <a href="https://www.completesports.com/ex-everton-star-ball-iwobi-not-good-enough-to-play-for-toffees/">Alex Iwobi</a> has gone from being a potential future England star to a sometimes criticised Fulham midfielder and Nigerian international.</p>
<h2>But at what cost?</h2>
<p>Others express concerns about how diasporas are undermining African football. One concern is that bringing talent in from Europe and elsewhere is simply a fast-track strategy to success that is <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2018/09/11/is-africas-football-talent-finally-coming-back-home-football-planet/">eroding the long-term health</a> of football across the continent.</p>
<p>Even so, the approach seems to be working. At the Qatar World Cup in 2022, Morocco became the <a href="https://theconversation.com/morocco-at-the-2022-world-cup-6-forces-behind-a-history-making-performance-196359">first African nation</a> to reach the tournament’s semi-final stage. This has helped the country become the current highest-ranked team in Africa and the 13th-best team worldwide. </p>
<p>Senegal is also in the world’s top 20, while <a href="https://www.3addedminutes.com/international/cape-verde-mauritania-fairytale-afcon-match-stories-behind-it-4493235">Cape Verde’s</a> recent performance shows that even Africa’s traditionally less successful footballing nations can prosper. Cape Verde, a string of ten islands in the Atlantic Ocean with a population smaller than the city of Bristol, just finished top of a tough group, including Egypt and Ghana at the 2023 Afcon.</p>
<p>The likes of former Cameroon goalkeeper <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/sports/article/2022/11/25/world-cup-2022-the-problem-with-african-football-is-the-leaders_6005649_9.html">Joseph-Antoine Bell</a> remain less positive about such achievements. Bell claims that diaspora players make the job of African football’s leaders, managers and coaches too easy, which is engendering a culture of complacency. He also thinks it demotivates players born, brought up and living in Africa.</p>
<p>Though the practice of <a href="https://www.versus.uk.com/articles/diaspora-fc-why-its-time-for-this-generation-to-go-back-to-their-motherlands">diasporic talent recruitment</a> appears to be increasing (the effect of <a href="https://sports-chair.essec.edu/resources/research-reports/sport-and-national-eligibility-criteria-in-the-era-of-globalization">globalisation</a> must also be acknowledged as an influence), there are still some countries that rely more on players born and brought up domestically - Namibia and South Africa are examples of this.</p>
<p>Bell would no doubt approve, having previously called for Africa to develop its own solutions to talent identification and development. The problem is, this takes time, money and patience – precious commodities in football generally, not just in Africa.</p>
<p>Whatever happens when the tournament’s final game is staged at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa-cup-of-nations-showcases-the-continents-finest-footballers-and-chinas-economic-clout-220313">Alassane Ouattara Stadium</a> in Abidjan, it will be a proud moment for and a big celebration of African football. However, the birthplace of the captain who eventually lifts the trophy will probably fuel further debate about the importance of African football’s diasporas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Around one-third of the players that have been called up to the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations were born outside of Africa.Simon Chadwick, Professor of Sport and Geopolitical Economy, SKEMA Business SchoolPaul Widdop, Associate Professor, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2202052024-01-23T13:25:57Z2024-01-23T13:25:57ZHow the word ‘voodoo’ became a racial slur<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570735/original/file-20240122-20-mdblis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C10%2C3607%2C2392&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An engraving from 1992 representing a voodoo rite in Haiti.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-voodoo-in-haiti-in-1992-engraving-representing-a-voodoo-news-photo/113929671?adppopup=true"> Nicolas Jallot/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For decades, it has been common for people to throw around terms like “voodoo politics,” “<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/voodooeconomics.asp">voodoo economics</a>,” “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/rejecting-voodoo-science-in-the-courtroom-1474328199">voodoo science</a>” and “<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voodoo-medicine-time-to-s_b_11474550?ec_carp=6516617630977493781">voodoo medicine</a>” to reference something that they think is ridiculous, idiotic or fraudulent.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096071/">Horror movies</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0793707/">crime shows</a> often tell stories about evil “voodoo doctors” who terrorize their victims with black magic. Even Disney’s first movie with a Black princess, released in 2009, had a “voodoo doctor” as the villain. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, these shows and movies promote myths about voodoo that reinforce more than a century of stereotypes and discrimination. In my 2023 book, “<a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/46772">Voodoo: The History of a Racial Slur</a>,” I argue that voodoo is an extremely problematic term with a deeply racist history. </p>
<p>Most African diaspora religions, which are religions that have roots in Africa, have been mislabeled as voodoo at some point in time. This is especially true of Haitian Vodou – the religion that is most frequently stereotyped by outsiders as “voodoo” in the 21st century.</p>
<h2>Early uses of the term</h2>
<p>The term voodoo traces its roots back to a word in the Fon language in West Africa that means “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Vodou">spirit” or “deity</a>.” The French adopted a version of this term, “vaudou” or “vaudoux,” to refer to African spiritual practices in their colonies in Louisiana and Saint-Domingue – modern-day Haiti. </p>
<p>Later, “vaudou” evolved into “voodoo” in the English-speaking world. It first became a household term in the U.S. in the 1860s and 1870s. When the U.S. public was <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/46772">first introduced</a> to voodoo, it was typically in newspaper articles and other publications that described African American spiritual practices in an exaggerated way, often retelling bizarre or even fabricated stories as if they were common practice. </p>
<p>Most of the time, the authors used these narratives about voodoo to argue that African Americans were unfit for citizenship, voting rights and holding public office because of their so-called superstitions. </p>
<p>In fact, the first time the term was widely used was after the Union forces seized New Orleans during the U.S. Civil War. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197689400.001.0001">Confederate supporters argued</a> that the popularity of voodoo in Union-controlled New Orleans showed the barbarity that Africans would return to if not under the control of white people. </p>
<p>Later, in the 20th century, claims about voodoo were used as one way to justify the U.S. colonization of Caribbean countries with large Black populations. In particular, fabricated <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/McClure_s_Magazine/RZZEAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=voodoo+cuba&pg=PA502&printsec=frontcover">claims that Black Cubans were</a> practicing the ritual murder of children as part of their voodoo practices circulated in the media to support sending forces to the island in the 1900s and 1910s.</p>
<p>Similarly, in the early 20th century, <a href="https://archive.org/details/whereblackrulesw00pric">journalists, travelers and others falsely claimed</a> that U.S. intervention was necessary because Haitians were engaging in cannibalism, human sacrifice and snake worship as part of their voodoo rituals. Historian <a href="https://people.miami.edu/profile/2d45ee761ea7c9776e6f13729f2ebea3">Kate Ramsey</a> writes in her 2011 book, “<a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo10454972.html">The Spirits and the Law: Vodou and Power in Haiti</a>,” that while U.S. Marines were occupying Haiti from 1915 to 1934, they persecuted and prosecuted devotees – arresting the people they found participating in ceremonies and burning their sacred objects. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in the first half of the 20th century, references to voodoo continued to be a way to speak disparagingly about Black populations in the U.S. Even the founders of the <a href="https://ia904601.us.archive.org/19/items/the-voodoo-cult-of-detroit/The%20Voodoo%20Cult%20of%20Detroit.pdf">Nation of Islam</a> were stereotyped as a “voodoo cult” after an alleged member committed a highly publicized murder in 1932.</p>
<p>Allegations that Black Muslims practiced human sacrifice followed the group for decades, long after the person who committed the crime was determined to be legally insane and sent to an asylum. </p>
<h2>Prejudices linger</h2>
<p>This history has left a stain on public perceptions of voodoo that is difficult to wash away. The best example is the treatment of devotees of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-haitian-voodoo-119621">Vodou, a religion in Haiti</a> that can trace many of its beliefs and practices back to West and Central Africa. Vodou centers on honoring the ancestors and venerating spirits known as the Lwa. </p>
<p>Vodou was frequently labeled as “voodoo” in Anglophone newspapers and other literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and devotees were falsely accused of committing atrocities like cannibalism and human sacrifice during their ceremonies. Although Vodou has no ultimate source of evil in its cosmology, it is <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-haitian-voodoo-119621">often denounced</a> as devil worship. These myths have led to discrimination and violence against devotees.</p>
<p>In 2010, some Haitians and some foreigners blamed Vodou, which they often misspelled as “voodoo,” for the tragic earthquake and subsequent cholera outbreak that devastated Haiti. The most famous remarks came from the late <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/01/pat_robertson_blames_haitian_d.html">Pat Robertson</a>, an Evangelical minister and political commentator, who claimed that the earthquake was God’s retribution against Haitians for holding a Vodou ceremony. He described the Vodou ceremony as a pact with the devil to assist in their revolution against the French. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570737/original/file-20240122-19-uv5o5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a wide-brimmed hat holds her hands up as she prays, with some other people in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570737/original/file-20240122-19-uv5o5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570737/original/file-20240122-19-uv5o5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570737/original/file-20240122-19-uv5o5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570737/original/file-20240122-19-uv5o5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570737/original/file-20240122-19-uv5o5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570737/original/file-20240122-19-uv5o5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570737/original/file-20240122-19-uv5o5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">An old woman prays in an earthquake-damaged church in the Ti Ayiti neighborhood Feb. 23, 2010, in Cité Soleil, Haiti, after a Christian mob attacked a Haitian Vodou ceremony for earthquake victims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/just-paces-away-from-where-a-christian-mob-attacked-a-news-photo/96989923?adppopup=true%2A%2A%2A%2A">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Within Haiti, some people <a href="https://haitiantimes.com/2020/01/12/vodou-was-once-blamed-for-the-haiti-earthquake-10-years-later-its-seeing-a-slow-revival/">committed acts of violence</a> against devotees and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934710394443">denied them the emergency aid</a> that was sent to quake victims. Later that year, violence escalated as some Haitians blamed Vodou for the cholera outbreak. In November and December of 2010, lynch mobs <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-12073029">violently killed</a> dozens of Haitian Vodou priests. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, discrimination and the violence perpetrated against Haitian Vodou and <a href="https://www.religiousracism.org/brazil">other African diaspora religious groups</a> often goes <a href="https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-1-64602-103-1.html">unpunished and unnoticed</a>. In fact, a recent survey suggests that a large portion of the U.S. public subscribes to the stereotypes about voodoo that led to these attacks.</p>
<p>With support from the Public Religion Research Institute, my fellow researchers and I <a href="https://www.prri.org/spotlight/discrimination-against-voodoo-and-santeria/">asked 1,000 adults</a> living in the U.S. whether they used the term “voodoo.” Two in 10 respondents, or about 20%, said they had used or heard others use the term at least once a month. The survey found fewer than 1 in 4 considered voodoo to be a religion. </p>
<p>Further, approximately 3 in 10 respondents believed that followers of voodoo were more likely to be involved in criminal activity than the average person, and an astonishing 64% said they believed that followers of voodoo were more likely to practice black magic or witchcraft than the average person. </p>
<p>This survey shows the pervasiveness of these biases that developed to support slavery and imperialism. Therefore, I argue that when someone makes a statement like, “That just sounds like some ‘voodoo’ to me!” they are co-signing the long racist history of the term and promoting the idea that religions from Africa are primitive, evil and barbaric.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220205/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Boaz is a public fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). In this capacity, Dr. Boaz and three other fellows received a microgrant from the PRRI to conduct the survey mentioned in this piece. </span></em></p>Shows, movies and day-to-day language promote myths about voodoo that reinforce more than a century of stereotypes and discrimination, writes a scholar of Africana studies.Danielle N. Boaz, Associate Professor of Africana Studies, University of North Carolina – CharlotteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2140522023-10-06T12:31:25Z2023-10-06T12:31:25Z20 years after the publication of ‘Purple Hibiscus,’ a generation of African writers have followed in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s footsteps<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552193/original/file-20231004-23-3cpw1n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=143%2C229%2C2943%2C1890&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in 2004, shortly after the publication of 'Purple Hibiscus.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nigerian-author-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-poses-while-in-news-photo/56522066?adppopup=true">Ulf Andersen/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Twenty years ago, in October 2003, 26-year-old Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the North American publishing scene with her debut novel,“ <a href="https://www.chimamanda.com/purple-hibiscus/">Purple Hibiscus</a>.” </p>
<p>Since then, Adichie’s literary fame has only grown: She’s published two more novels and a collection of short stories, while <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3umXU_qWc">two of her</a> <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en">TED talks</a> have garnered tens of millions of views. In September 2023, she published her first children’s book – a joyful celebration of mother-daughter love – under the nom de plume <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/742306/mamas-sleeping-scarf-by-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-writing-as-nwa-grace-james-illustrated-by-joelle-avelino/9781774882696">Nwa Grace-James</a>.</p>
<p>But the October 2003 publication of “Purple Hibiscus” didn’t just signal the start of a single author’s brilliant career. It also forged a path for a whole new generation of African novelists who had come to America as immigrants or students and who have been mining that experience in their writing. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Black and white portrait of African man wearing a tweed coat sitting at a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552194/original/file-20231004-19-uk36ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552194/original/file-20231004-19-uk36ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552194/original/file-20231004-19-uk36ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552194/original/file-20231004-19-uk36ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552194/original/file-20231004-19-uk36ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552194/original/file-20231004-19-uk36ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552194/original/file-20231004-19-uk36ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chinua Achebe’s 1958 novel ‘Things Fall Apart’ came perilously close to never seeing a printing press.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-chinua-achebe-nigerian-novelist-poet-and-critic-news-photo/681121124?adppopup=true">Michel Delsol/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The struggles to get published by prior generations of African authors are almost legendary. Thirty years apart, Chinua Achebe and Tsitsi Dangarembga have both described how close their manuscripts of “<a href="https://slate.com/culture/2013/03/things-fall-apart-by-chinua-achebe-was-almost-lost-by-london-typists-the-amazing-story-of-the-handwritten-manuscript.html">Things Fall Apart</a>” (1958) and “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/15/books/tsitsi-dangarembga-this-mournable-body.html">Nervous Conditions</a>” (1988) came to being lost. Achebe’s only copy of the manuscript was a handwritten draft. He sent it to a typing agency in London that nearly dismissed it as a joke. Dangarembga’s manuscript sat unread in the basement of a British publishing house for years. Only when the writer stopped by the offices during a work trip to London did the editors agree to read it.</p>
<p>Through attending American MFA programs, however, Adichie and her contemporaries were able to tap into the networks of agents and found their work snapped up by American publishers.</p>
<p>Writers born in Africa who studied at American universities – Teju Cole, Yaa Gyasi, Uzodinma Iweala, NoViolet Bulawayo and Akwaeke Emezi, to name just a few – have followed in Adichie’s footsteps. </p>
<p>“Purple Hibiscus” has been to these writers what Gabriel García Márquez’s “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/05/one-hundred-years-of-solitude-50-years-later/527118/">One Hundred Years of Solitude</a>” (1967) was to aspiring Latin American writers during the <a href="https://libguides.bc.edu/virtual-book-display/latin-american-literature">Latin American literary boom of the 1960s and 1970s</a>, and what Salman Rushdie’s “<a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/rushdie-children.html">Midnight’s Children</a>” (1981) was to the proliferation of Indian writers in English from the 1980s on.</p>
<p>While it would be reassuring to think that the current surge of African novelists represents a wider American interest in all things African, the success of these novels may also have to do with the fact that so many are actually set in the U.S. </p>
<p>The recurrent theme of immigration to the U.S. gives many of these works direct – and instructive – relevance to U.S. readers. As Black outsiders in the U.S., African immigrants have a particularly acute insight into the way race and racism affect daily life in this country. One of the common features of these novels is the way in which they explore the tension of racial solidarity and mutual misunderstanding between African immigrants and Black Americans.</p>
<p>When I first started teaching African literature, I often had difficulty finding books in print. Now my problem is deciding who to leave out of my syllabus. Here is a very brief list of some of the books that I would consider must-reads.</p>
<h2>1. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “Americanah” (2013)</h2>
<p>As its title suggests, Adichie’s fourth novel, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/878/americanah-by-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie/">Americanah</a>,” is arguably the definitive novel of contemporary African immigration to America.</p>
<p>It tells the story of Ifemelu, a young Nigerian woman overstaying her student visa, and how she negotiates the new Black identity forced on her by the blunt instrument of American race-construction. </p>
<p>In a brilliant metafictional move, Adichie has Ifemelu achieve internet fame by writing a blog dedicated to non-American Blacks: “Dear Non-American Black,” Ifemelu writes, “when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care. So what if you weren’t ‘black’ in your country? You’re in America now.”</p>
<p>Ifemelu’s experience of racism is simultaneously hurtful and baffling to her. On the one hand, her illegal status makes her both psychologically and physically vulnerable. But at times American racism is almost comical; Ifemelu doesn’t understand why an innocent reference to eating watermelon might be misconstrued, for instance, and she is totally bewildered by a shop assistant’s attempt to avoid distinguishing between two shoppers by reference to their skin color. </p>
<h2>2. Yaa Gyasi, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/533857/homegoing-by-yaa-gyasi/">Homegoing</a>” (2016)</h2>
<p>Ghanaian-born Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel takes the form of a series of skillfully interwoven stories set on either side of the Atlantic. </p>
<p>Beginning with two half sisters, Effia and Esi, in the Gold Coast in the middle of the 18th century, the stories trace the two sets of the sisters’ descendants through six subsequent generations in West Africa and the U.S. In the final two stories we meet the young teenager Marjorie, who, as the American-born daughter of Ghanaian parents, struggles to come to terms with her identity as one of Ifemelu’s “Non-American Blacks.” She finds herself ostracized by her Black classmates for “acting white” but is unable to enjoy a normal relationship with a white classmate. One of the only Black teachers at her high school tells her, “You’re here now, and here black is black is black.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Portrait of young Black woman bathed in sunlight." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552195/original/file-20231004-19-k2bynk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552195/original/file-20231004-19-k2bynk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552195/original/file-20231004-19-k2bynk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552195/original/file-20231004-19-k2bynk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552195/original/file-20231004-19-k2bynk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552195/original/file-20231004-19-k2bynk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552195/original/file-20231004-19-k2bynk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yaa Gyasi in 2017, a year after the publication of her debut novel, ‘Homegoing.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/yaa-gyasi-milano-italy-9th-september-2017-news-photo/1129549208?adppopup=true">Leonardo Cendamo/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. NoViolet Bulawayo, “<a href="https://novioletbulawayo.com/books/we-need-new-names/">We Need New Names</a>” (2013)</h2>
<p>When “We Need New Names” appeared, Nigerian novelist Helon Habila accused NoViolet Bulawayo of peddling “poverty-porn” by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/20/need-new-names-bulawayo-review">pandering to American stereotypes of Africa</a>. </p>
<p>However, for Bulawayo’s teenage protagonist Darling, it’s American culture that is dangerously dysfunctional – and personally discombobulating. Darling finds American high school ridiculously easy, is horrified by the laxness of American parenting and is generally unimpressed by the urban blight she sees around her in the city she calls Destroyed, Michigan. </p>
<p>Late in the novel, her mentally ill countryman Tshaka Zulu is shot to death by police when off his meds and ranting in his home language. You might think that such a violent, tragic event would be a major plot driver. Sadly, it seems to exemplify just one more random peril – little different from being hit by a car or struck down by cancer – that many Africans coming to America have to endure.</p>
<h2>4. Uzodinma Iweala, “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/speak-no-evil-uzodinma-iweala?variant=32118044753954">Speak No Evil</a>” (2018)</h2>
<p>Even wealth and class status offer no protection from such perils. </p>
<p>In Uzodinma Iweala’s “Speak No Evil,” the main character, Niru, is the high-achieving son of high-achieving Nigerian parents in supposedly cosmopolitan Washington, D.C. The first three-quarters of the book appear to be exploring Niru’s dilemma: how to come out as gay to his conservative parents. </p>
<p>It turns out that Niru’s gayness – an invisible characteristic, after all – is not the problem; his Blackness is. When he gets in a row outside a bar with his best friend, Meredith – an equally well-off, well-connected, high-flying white female classmate – someone calls the cops. In the space of a paragraph the inevitable has happened: Shots are fired. “You’re safe,” someone says to Meredith. “He can’t hurt you.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Young Black man wearing a black turtleneck and eyeglasses posing in front of a sculpture with waterfalls." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552366/original/file-20231005-15-38rtnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552366/original/file-20231005-15-38rtnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552366/original/file-20231005-15-38rtnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552366/original/file-20231005-15-38rtnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552366/original/file-20231005-15-38rtnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552366/original/file-20231005-15-38rtnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552366/original/file-20231005-15-38rtnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nigerian author Uzodinma Iweala.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nigerian-author-uzodinma-iweala-author-of-the-fiction-novel-news-photo/539982735?adppopup=true">Fairfax Media/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By extraordinary coincidence, Adichie grew up in the very house that Chinua Achebe had lived in on the campus of the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. She, and the other writers of her generation, grew up in the house of fiction that Achebe and his generation established. The writers of that older generation were concerned with the material and cultural despoliation of colonialism. In Achebe’s words, their task was to let their African readers know “<a href="https://www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/achebequ.htm">where the rain began to beat</a>” them. </p>
<p>Today’s African writers demand readers’ attention by letting them know that for African and African-descended people in the U.S., although the winds may have shifted, the storm is far from over.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214052/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Lewis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>African immigrant writers possess particularly acute insights into the way race and racism affect daily life in the US.Simon Lewis, Professor of English, College of CharlestonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2133652023-10-06T00:22:52Z2023-10-06T00:22:52Z‘No safe space in society’: new UN report reveals the extent of systemic racism faced by people of African descent in Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552239/original/file-20231005-16-1flnlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C26%2C5815%2C3844&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A special UN working group this week tabled its first-ever <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5467add2-visit-australia-report-working-group-experts-people-african">report</a> on the experiences of people of African descent in Australia to the <a href="https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1j/k1j104fnsk">United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva</a>. </p>
<p>The report documents what people of African descent living in Australia already know: Australia has a racism problem. </p>
<p>In fact, the UN’s <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/wg-african-descent">Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent</a> said in a press release at the end of their visit that people of African descent in Australia are living “<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/12/australia-people-african-descent-living-under-siege-racism-say-un-experts">under siege of racism</a>”. </p>
<p>The new report says people of African descent experience racism in many key areas of life, including health, education and employment. It also highlighted the use of racialised hate speech in political rhetoric, racial profiling in law enforcement, and the highly racialised nature of Australia’s immigration policies. In one section, the report said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some refugees of African descent expressed surprise that settlement was less of a protection tool, and more of a pathway to prison for their communities, stating, “in Africa, we knew what was killing us.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552238/original/file-20231005-19-9bofx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552238/original/file-20231005-19-9bofx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552238/original/file-20231005-19-9bofx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552238/original/file-20231005-19-9bofx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552238/original/file-20231005-19-9bofx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552238/original/file-20231005-19-9bofx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552238/original/file-20231005-19-9bofx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552238/original/file-20231005-19-9bofx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A new report examines the experiences of people of African descent in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/growing-up-african-in-australia-racism-resilience-and-the-right-to-belong-113121">Growing Up African in Australia: racism, resilience and the right to belong</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What the working group found</h2>
<p>At the invitation of the Australian government, the working group visited Australia for the first time in December last year.</p>
<p>The group’s task was to evaluate the human rights situation of people of African descent living in Australia. It collected information on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance during visits to Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. It also met with various arms of government (including senior officials of the federal government, the Australian Border Force and Australian Federal Police), non-government stakeholders, academics and human rights defenders. </p>
<p>The working group, supported by the <a href="https://www.africanaustralianadvocacy.org.au/">African Australian Advocacy Centre</a>, also facilitated public consultations across Australia where it heard from individuals and community leaders. And it received formal written submissions during and after the visit.</p>
<p>In its report, the UN working group called attention to how the legacies of British colonisation and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-white-australia-policy-74084">White Australia policy</a> still continue to have harmful impacts on Black people of African descent living in contemporary Australia. </p>
<p>In reference to a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-10-03/andrews-under-fire-for-cutting-african-refugee/688430">2007 assertion</a> by then-Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews that African refugees fail to integrate, the report noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This unsupported statement was never retracted nor repaired, even by subsequent governments. It lives on in the minds of people of African descent who see themselves as contributors to Australia and as African-Australian.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The report also observed the politicised association of youth of African descent with “<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-media-are-to-blame-for-racialising-melbournes-african-gang-problem-100761">African gangs</a>” and criminality. It revealed their experiences of being racially profiled and surveilled by law enforcement.</p>
<p>Across Australia, young people also reported experiencing racism and cultural denial at university. <a href="https://theconversation.com/not-a-day-passes-without-thinking-about-race-what-african-migrants-told-us-about-parenting-in-australia-149167">Children</a> reported similar experiences at school, where they are not presented with positive images of themselves. In fact, many reported being ostracised, subjected to racial slurs and bullied by both classmates and teachers. Their complaints often go unaddressed.</p>
<p>One student told the working group about an incident at school when a football labelled with racial and misogynistic slurs was thrown at her and other Black students in maths class. She said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Essentially, we have all seen the slow response. We have seen the staff take little to no relevant action – believe it or not, sometimes they do not play by the rules. We have felt lost. Emotionally bruised.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The working group noted children of African descent often feel there are “no safe spaces” for them to <a href="https://theconversation.com/growing-up-african-in-australia-racism-resilience-and-the-right-to-belong-113121">grow up Black</a> in Australian society.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552425/original/file-20231005-31-pspve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552425/original/file-20231005-31-pspve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552425/original/file-20231005-31-pspve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552425/original/file-20231005-31-pspve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552425/original/file-20231005-31-pspve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552425/original/file-20231005-31-pspve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552425/original/file-20231005-31-pspve2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The working group had numerous recommendations for the Australian government to consider.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scholars <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244017720483">Virginia Mapedzahama and Kwamena Kwansah-Aidoo</a> have previously written about the burden experienced by people of African descent with black skin living in Australia. </p>
<p>Mapedzahama and Kwansah-Aidoo write that the main issue is not people’s dark skin, but rather how it marks them as inferior, problematic and not belonging in a predominantly white space. </p>
<p>This can result in the diversity of Black Africans being flattened and their presence in Australia being seen in negative terms. Australian leaders have a particular responsibility not to contribute to such deficit-based portrayals of people of African descent. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trauma-racism-and-unrealistic-expectations-mean-african-refugees-are-less-likely-to-get-into-australian-unis-121885">Trauma, racism and unrealistic expectations mean African refugees are less likely to get into Australian unis</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Charting a path forward</h2>
<p>The working group’s report makes for difficult reading. </p>
<p>It shows the many compounding ways racism hinders the ability of people of African descents to fully participate in Australian society.</p>
<p>It also draws attention to the fact many felt their experiences of racism had been denied, minimised or ignored.</p>
<p>The report provides 27 recommendations to help guide the Australian government’s future actions to address the working group’s concerns. These include: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>people of African descent should be meaningfully included in all decisions that impact their lives</p></li>
<li><p>narratives that feed a “culture of denial” of anti-Black racism should be confronted</p></li>
<li><p>and that the same care and commitment should be devoted to addressing systemic racism in Australian institutions that the government demonstrated in implementing the White Australia policy historically. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Although Australia has much to do, the UN report acknowledges the work the government has already done to guarantee the human rights of people of African descent. This includes the 2012 establishment of the <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/rights-and-freedoms/parliamentary-joint-committee-human-rights">Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights</a> and the work of the <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au">Australian Human Rights Commission</a>. </p>
<p>The report also welcomed the federal government’s willingness to engage in the process and take action.</p>
<p>Australia now has the opportunity to take on board the report’s recommendations. Doing so will bring us closer to empowering people of African descent to contribute to – and benefit more fully from – Australia’s prosperity.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The author would like to acknowledge and thank Noël Zihabamwe, chairperson of the African Australian Advocacy Centre, for his contributions to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213365/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The author has an ongoing research partnership with the African Australian Advocacy Centre (AAAC). The author is not a AAAC board member and maintains her academic independence. </span></em></p>The UN working group visited Australia for the first time in December last year. Their task was to evaluate the human rights situation of people of African descent living in Australia.Kathleen Openshaw, Lecturer in School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2062142023-06-05T14:24:32Z2023-06-05T14:24:32ZEthiopia’s musicians fled the country after the 1974 revolution - how their culture lives on<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529105/original/file-20230530-15-npdb81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A procession in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">J. Countess/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The overthrow of Ethiopian emperor <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Haile-Selassie-I">Haile Selassie</a> in 1974 led to violent conflict that had a particularly heavy impact on musicians. <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo114656431.html">Sing and Sing On: Sentinel Musicians and the Making of the Ethiopian American Diaspora</a> is the first study of the forced migration of musicians out of the Horn of Africa dating from the revolution. The book traces their struggles and what happened to their rich and diverse music traditions when they settled in the US. Ethnomusicologist Kay Kaufman Shelemay talks about her book.</em></p>
<h2>What happened to cause musicians to leave Ethiopia?</h2>
<p>Musicians were part of a mass <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/ethiopia-origin-refugees-evolving-migration">outflow</a> of people from the Horn of Africa that began as a direct outcome of the Ethiopian revolution. They fled <a href="https://humanityhouse.org/en/rampen-conflicten-ethiopie-burgeroorlog-1974-1991/">due to</a> the overthrow of the government, fear of the revolutionary Marxist military regime, and extreme violence across the country – as well as a civil war with Eritrea. Many refugees were Ethiopian Orthodox Christians from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Amhara">Amhara</a> ethnic group that had historically been close to circles of power.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover featuring a photo of a man in a suit and hat looking out from a train." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528028/original/file-20230524-19-bwnn6i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Oromo musician Ali Birra.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michel Temteme/University of Chicago Press</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The conflict caused bloodshed across a region already destabilised by drought and famine. Waves of refugees crossed into Sudan and Kenya, from where many eventually made their way to destinations around the world. </p>
<p>The revolution had a particularly strong impact on musicians in all genres. They feared imprisonment and forced musical activity by the revolutionary regime. The military junta nationalised urban and rural land, property and businesses. It disbanded most established musical ensembles and imposed strong censorship. This was due, in part, to concern about the power of music to encourage resistance. New, explicitly revolutionary musical groups and organisations were established to support their new programmes.</p>
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<p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-astonishing-life-and-music-of-emahoy-tsegue-maryam-guebrou-the-ethiopian-nun-whos-died-at-99-202853">The astonishing life and music of Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, the Ethiopian nun who's died at 99</a>
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<p>Most musical performances were halted by curfews. Prohibitions against public gatherings rendered musicians unable to earn a living. The highly trained musicians of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church experienced a great loss of prestige along with severe economic pressures. These stemmed from the nationalisation of church resources. </p>
<h2>How did you go about researching their stories?</h2>
<p>I arrived in Ethiopia to carry out research for my doctoral dissertation in ethnomusicology in 1973. As outlined in my <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p064326">memoir</a>, I was able to remain in Addis Ababa during the first two years of the revolution. There I witnessed the violence and the cessation of public musical life. I noticed a growing number of surreptitious departures.</p>
<p>When I returned to the US in early 1976, I encountered the first wave of those refugees. While I had gone to Ethiopia to study its musical life, by 1977, these musicians were now settling in all around me. I began to visit newly founded Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox churches as well as new Ethiopian restaurants and shops. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A main Addis Ababa street leading to the airport, Bole Road, with high-rise buildings and a billboard featuring a restaurant advert showing a woman in Ethiopian robes pouring coffee into rows of cups." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528009/original/file-20230524-22-41at3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A billboard in Addis Ababa advertises an Ethiopian restaurant in the US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kay Kaufman Shelemay</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over decades, I visited many Ethiopian communities across the US, I attended diaspora concerts and collected Ethiopian CDs released in North America, I interviewed musicians about their lives and immigrant experiences. I wanted to document the role of music in new Ethiopian communities in the US. </p>
<h2>What role did musicians play in Ethiopia?</h2>
<p>The powerful role of Ethiopian musicians both at home and abroad has led me to term these individuals “sentinel musicians”. I coined this phrase after repeatedly witnessing the way in which these musicians, past and present, both guarded and guided the communities they were a part of. </p>
<p>The word “sentinel” was also inspired by the bravery of musicians who historically accompanied Ethiopian troops into battle. Emperor Selassie had established the Imperial Bodyguard Orchestra and a jazz band as part of his elite personal militia. </p>
<p>Singers and instrumentalists have long been acknowledged as pivotal figures in Ethiopia. They guided the transmission and performance of cultural traditions in domains from worship to entertainment while offering inspiration and comfort during times of hardship. </p>
<h2>How was this role continued in the diaspora?</h2>
<p>The role of the musician in society is heightened in times of conflict and forced migration, when music and its performance could convey controversial meanings. In Ethiopian languages, there is the practice of employing double meanings in songs, masking the true intent of a text. This practice, termed “wax and gold”, is found in Ethiopian religious and secular poetry, in everyday speech, and in many song lyrics. </p>
<p>The wax is the obvious outer meaning of the words while the gold is the meaning hidden within. The term is borrowed from the “lost wax process” of casting smelted gold in wax moulds. Composers and traditional improvisational singers disguise the meaning of their songs, masking critical or controversial information.</p>
<p>In the diaspora, some sentinel musicians have continued to employ wax and gold, but musicians’ roles have also expanded to incorporate new and different significances.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A band on stage with a man in Ethiopian robes in the centre, an arm raised and a smile on his face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529116/original/file-20230530-5338-p0dr9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ethiopian singer Mahmoud Ahmed performs in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some have quite literally served as “sentinel stars”. They led the way to new locales, established transnational networks and founded new institutions – cultural organisations, churches, restaurants and clubs – undertaking initiatives in community building. Moreover, musicians have offered emotional support and healing to their displaced communities through their music.</p>
<p>All genres of Ethiopian music, from sacred to secular, have had to adapt creatively to their new homes abroad. Some diaspora musicians, like Ethiopian-Canadian singer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/the-Weeknd">Abel Tesfaye</a> (<a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/the-weeknd-changes-name-on-social-media-after-vowing-to-kill-his-alter-ego-3444262#:%7E:text=The%20Weeknd%20has%20changed%20his,kill%22%20his%20alter%2Dego.&text=The%20Canadian%20pop%20star%20rolled,Tesfaye%2C%20instead%20of%20The%20Weeknd.">formerly</a> The Weeknd), have innovated personal styles that have risen to the top of global charts. Throughout the global diaspora, Ethiopian traditional music associated with different ethnic communities actively survives and is performed at events such as weddings and holiday parties. </p>
<p>At the same time, Ethiopian musicians of many different backgrounds both at home and in the diaspora perform international musical styles, ranging from jazz to reggae to rap. These are often inflected by distinctive Ethiopian melodies and rhythms. Some new musical repertories have emerged that are shared by Ethiopians at home and abroad, notably the performance of vernacular hymns that became popular during the revolution. They are sung internationally in Ethiopian churches by choirs of women and girls. </p>
<h2>Why do their stories matter?</h2>
<p>Musicians’ stories shed new light on the plight of refugees and the process of forced migration, providing a fuller understanding of the powerful role of music and musicians within rapidly changing societies. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hachalu-hundessa-charismatic-musician-who-wasnt-afraid-to-champion-ethiopias-oromo-142062">Hachalu Hundessa: charismatic musician who wasn't afraid to champion Ethiopia's Oromo</a>
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<p>Musicians use music and its performance to bring people together and to establish and sustain community values and moral standards. Through their stories and lived experiences, we can appreciate the impact of musical creativity, and the ways it is often deployed against formidable odds.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206214/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kay Kaufman Shelemay received fellowships and grants for the research and publication process for this book from the National Endowment for the Humanities; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; and Harvard University. I held residential fellowships at the Stanford University Humanities Center; the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study and Conference Center; The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study of Harvard University; and the Chair in Modern Culture at the John W. Kluge Center, The Library of Congress.</span></em></p>Musicians established themselves in the US, where they continued to practice their cultural life, which flourished.Kay Kaufman Shelemay, G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2039352023-05-24T05:47:18Z2023-05-24T05:47:18Z60 years of African unity: what’s failed and what’s succeeded<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528198/original/file-20230525-27-v5unbk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie (C) and Ghana's founder and first President Kwame Nkrumah (L) during the formation of the Organisation of African Unity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">STR/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Africa Day this year marks 60 years since the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/organisation-african-unity-oau">founding</a> of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The anniversary begs the question: How much of the vision of the OAU’s founding fathers has been realised 60 years on? What would not be there but for the efforts of the organisation and its successor the <a href="https://au.int/">African Union</a>?</p>
<p>There were two competing visions lobbying at the founding. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s president, in his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KKxpuxpVfc">Africa must Unite</a> speech, argued the pan-African case for continental federalism, for a Union of African States, with one continental diplomatic corps, one department of defence, and a common market.</p>
<p>He was hugely outvoted by other presidents refusing to give up their sovereignty. So the OAU, formed on 25 May 1963, was instead modelled on the Organisation of American States. It was an inter-governmental organisation whose charter pledged it to not interfere in the internal affairs of its member states – even in the event of massacres. This followed the precedents of the UN <a href="https://www.un.org/en/">United Nations</a>, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Arab-League">Arab League</a>, and the <a href="https://usoas.usmission.gov/our-relationship/about-oas/">Organisation of American States</a>, and would soon be followed by the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).</p>
<p>The OAU was committed to decolonisation, including the end of apartheid in South Africa and the settler regime in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). It contributed herculean diplomatic lobbying and sanctions to achieve this. Its <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41394216">Liberation Committee</a>, based in Dar es Salaam (the Tanzanian commercial capital), donated weapons and funds to the insurgencies in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique.</p>
<p>The OAU was a state-centric realisation of pan-Africanism. It launched a variety of continental NGOs, which were allocated to one or other member state to host. Space allows for only one example: it supported the launch of the <a href="https://panafricanwritersassociation.com/">Pan-African Writers’ Association</a>. Ghana pledged to provide it with premises for headquarters.</p>
<p>One development not anticipated when the OAU was founded in 1963 was the subsequent establishment of regional economic communities. There are over a dozen of these. Out of the <a href="https://au.int/en/recs">eight officially recognised</a> by the AU, the most significant are the <a href="https://ecowas.int/">Economic Community of West African States</a> (ECOWAS), the <a href="https://www.sadc.int/">Southern African Development Community </a>(SADC), and the <a href="https://www.eac.int/">East African Community </a> (EAC). These three are each free trade areas and, on paper at least, the ECOWAS and EAC are custom unions. These each provide stepping-stones towards that continental common market that Nkrumah had lobbied for back in 1963.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-union-at-20-a-lot-has-been-achieved-despite-many-flaws-175932">The African Union at 20: a lot has been achieved despite many flaws</a>
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<p>As a political scientist who has <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/j.ctt9qf58g">researched</a> the OAU and AU, I argue that it has performed far better than almost all of its global counterparts, though it has also experienced several shortcomings.</p>
<h2>The hits</h2>
<p>One success of the AU is its growing prestige. After its founding in 2002, Wikipedia did not consider it merited an entry until 2011. But today 50 non-African states <a href="https://www.usau.usmission.gov/our-relationship/policy-history/">accredit ambassadors to the AU</a>. The diaspora demanded inclusion during South African president <a href="https://au.int/en/cpau">Thabo Mbeki’s leadership</a>, and is now formally recognised as the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43526692">“sixth region”</a> of the AU <a href="https://diasporadigitalnews.com/sixth-region-of-africas-official-flag-launched/#:%7E:text=In%202003%2C%20the%20African%20Union,sixth%20region'%20of%20the%20continent.">since 2003</a>. Caribbean nations, members of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Caribbean-Community">CARRICOM</a>, recently started <a href="https://au.int/fr/node/19489">formal links</a> with the AU: these are African-descendant nations, abducted out of Africa during centuries of slave trade.</p>
<p>The AU architecture for peacekeeping and peacemaking has no peer in the Organisation of American States, Arab League, or ASEAN. While most AU organs meet only twice per year, the <a href="https://au.int/en/psc">Peace and Security Council</a> has met twice per month since its founding in 2004.</p>
<p>Dozens of its ad hoc military missions help governments with the suppression of terrorism everywhere from the Sahel to northern Mozambique. Various AU and regional economic community peacekeepers have served in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s numerous civil wars for decades.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Soldiers carry the flags of the African Union and Uganda next to a plane." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Some of the first African Union peacekeepers arrive in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in March 2007.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ali Musa/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>The AU seeks a role in global governance. It tries to negotiate that Africa speaks with one voice in the halls of international organisations. Since some of the most important economic decisions about Africa are made outside the continent, the urgency of this is self-explanatory. The AU has its own embryonic diplomatic corps, with permanent diplomatic missions <a href="https://au.int/en/commission/permanent-mission-european-union-and-acp-brussels-office">in Brussels</a> (to negotiate with the EU), <a href="https://lejournaldelafrique.com/en/african-union-opens-permanent-mission-in-china/?noamp=mobile">Beijing</a>,<a href="https://au.int/en/office/permanent-delegation-league-arab-states-cairo-office"> Cairo</a> (to negotiate with the Arab League) <a href="https://www.africanunion-un.org/">in New York</a> (at the United Nations), and <a href="https://au.int/en/mission-usa">in Washington</a> (to negotiate with the World Bank and IMF).</p>
<p>Kwame Nkrumah appealed for an African common market back in 1963. The <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/treaty-establishing-african-economic-community">1991 Treaty of Abuja</a> proposed an elaborate 34-year schedule to achieve this. The first real step towards such economic integration is the <a href="https://au-afcfta.org/">African Continental Free Trade Area</a> - headed by a South African Secretary-General, <a href="https://au-afcfta.org/secretary-general/">Wamkele Mene</a>. Clearly, this will take at least a decade to substantially achieve. But the prize of <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/international-trade-can-help-africa-grow">“defragmenting Africa”</a>, as the World Bank calls it, will be worth the herculean lobbying and negotiating it will take. The <a href="https://au-afcfta.org/">African Continental Free Trade Area</a> is currently negotiating “rules of origin” and dispute-settling mechanisms as its opening steps.</p>
<p>The AU tries to be norms-making. The <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/treaty-establishing-african-economic-community">1991 Treaty of Abuja</a> must surely be the world’s most ambitious attempt to import lock, stock, and barrel the institutions and norms of the EU into another continent, which was of course only partially successful.</p>
<p>Few AU members have implemented the <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/african-charter-democracy-elections-and-governance">Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Good Governance</a>. But a majority of countries have one by one signed up to the <a href="https://www.aprm-au.org/page-about/">African Peer Review Mechanism</a> which, like the AU, has just celebrated its 20th anniversary. This is part of the peer pressure towards constitutionalism, and against autocrats.</p>
<h2>The misses</h2>
<p>One failure of the AU is in not preventing serial <a href="https://www.idea.int/blog/new-model-coups-d%C3%A9tat-africa-younger-less-violent-more-popular">coups-de-etat</a>. There have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-west-africa-has-had-so-many-coups-and-how-to-prevent-more-176577">more than 200 coups</a> following the era of independence in the 1960s. The obvious reason is that the continental body never sends a military intervention to suppress the putchists, to capture them and bring them to trial for treason. It limits itself to diplomatic pressures against them, such as suspending their membership.</p>
<p>In 2016 the AU launched a campaign to <a href="http://www.peaceau.org/en/article/au-retreat-to-elaborate-a-roadmap-on-practical-steps-to-silence-the-guns-in-africa-by-2020-concludes-in-lusaka-zambia">“silence the guns by 2020”</a>. Unhappily, it <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-african-union-has-failed-to-silence-the-guns-and-some-solutions-139567">proved powerless to prevent</a> both coups and terrorist insurgencies from continuing, so the slogan was repackaged as <a href="https://issafrica.org/pscreport/psc-insights/staying-on-target-to-silence-the-guns-by-2030">“silence the guns by 2030”</a>. It remains to be seen if wars can be suppressed throughout the African continent by 2030.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-unions-conflict-early-warning-system-is-no-more-what-now-183469">The African Union's conflict early warning system is no more. What now?</a>
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<p>Another failure is in getting member states to <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/african-union-set-to-sanction-countries-for-non-payment/1314757">pay their annual dues</a>. Clearly, the current penalties of suspension, which only fully come into effect when a state falls two years behind in payments, is not a deterrent. The AU surely needs to follow the universal practice by banks - that if a customer falls more than two months behind in repaying a mortgage bond, full sanctions are implemented.</p>
<p>The AU often dispatches election observers to countries to monitor voting, and hopefully to deter vote-rigging in its various forms. It has been <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/election-observation-in-africa-put-to-the-test">criticised</a> for reluctance to censure incumbent regimes that tilt the playing field in the electoral contest for power.</p>
<h2>Cornerstone</h2>
<p>In conclusion, the AU compares well with its peers in developing countries such as ASEAN, Organisation of American States, and Arab League. The AU accomplishes more than the <a href="https://thecommonwealth.org/">Commonwealth</a>, or the <a href="https://www.francophonie.org/francophonie-brief-1763">Francophonie</a>. Only the EU is way ahead – because its budget is three orders of magnitude larger than that of the AU.</p>
<p>The AU has put cornerstones in place towards realising the goals of the founders. The end of coups and civil wars; working towards establishing an African common market; and getting Africa to speak with one voice in global governance are worthy goals to persist in pursuing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203935/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is a member of the African National Congress, but writes this article in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>The African Union compares well to other continental unions. It accomplishes more than the Commonwealth or the Francophonie.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2016792023-03-20T13:03:50Z2023-03-20T13:03:50ZUS-China tensions: how Africa can avoid being caught in a new Cold War<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515740/original/file-20230316-24-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) and then U.S Vice President Joe Biden shakes hands in Beijing on December 4, 2013. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lintao Zhang/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>China’s foreign ministry published a 4,000-word analysis entitled <a href="https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjbxw/202302/t20230220_11027664.html">US Hegemony and its Perils</a> on 20 February. It’s an indictment of alleged US foreign interference, intimidation and interventions that began 200 years ago. </p>
<p>This was followed by President Xi Jinping’s <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/07/economy/china-two-sessions-xi-jinping-speech-us-challenges-intl-hnk/index.html">accusation</a> at the Communist Party National Congress in March that the US was pursuing an <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/03/07/china-s-xi-condemns-us-led-suppression-of-china_6018440_4.html">unprecedented</a> global policy to contain and suppress Chinese development. </p>
<p>US official reaction to the Chinese accusations has been muted. But the recent US shooting down of an alleged Chinese spy balloon <a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-government-china-antony-blinken-51e49202f2a0a50541cde059934c4cfb">escalated tensions</a>. There are fears that escalating US-Chinese tensions <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-two-elephants-fight-how-the-global-south-uses-non-alignment-to-avoid-great-power-rivalries-199418">might threaten the independence</a> of African and other nonaligned nations.</p>
<p>This essay seeks to contribute to an overdue debate among Africans about how to avoid being entangled in US-China global rivalry, while maintaining productive partnerships with both nations. It draws on my <a href="https://saiia.org.za/people/john-stremlau/">many years of teaching and research </a>on Africa’s changing international relations. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/africa-can-use-great-power-rivalry-to-its-benefit-here-is-how-172662">Africa can use great power rivalry to its benefit: Here is how</a>
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<p>I hope it will encourage other scholars and policy makers across Africa to assess the hegemony statement in the light of their own interests and values. Finally, this essay is intended to encourage debate about what each topic realistically implies for Africa continent. </p>
<p>The topics in the statement are: </p>
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<li><p>political hegemony – (America) throwing its weight around</p></li>
<li><p>military hegemony – wanton use of force</p></li>
<li><p>economic hegemony – looting and exploitation</p></li>
<li><p>technological hegemony – monopoly and suppression</p></li>
<li><p>cultural hegemony – spreading false narratives.</p></li>
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<p>Although Chinese rhetoric is harsh, the initiatives and interactions of China and the US in Africa under each heading illustrate my general belief that their competition in Africa has been – and can be – both peaceful and productive. </p>
<h2>Political hegemony</h2>
<p>China’s indictment ranges from US efforts at hemispheric domination <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/monroe-doctrine-declared">beginning in the early 19th century</a> to fomenting the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Colour-Revolutions-in-the-Former-Soviet-Republics-Successes-and-Failures/Beachain-Polese/p/book/9780415625470">“colour revolutions”</a> – non-violent protests that overthrew autocratic regimes in the three post-Soviet republics Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.</p>
<p>But, China’s vision of the US glosses over the volatility of US <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/iraq-war-vietnam-syndrome-leaders?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=fatoday&utm_campaign=The%20Strange%20Case%20of%20Iraq%20Syndrome&utm_content=20230315&utm_term=FA%20Today%20-%20112017">domestic politics</a>. Domestic concerns can alter foreign policy, a leader’s ideology, and political and historical circumstances.</p>
<p>Domestically, China too has undergone several political upheavals since the civil war that brought the Communist Party to power in <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/china-in-xis-new-era-the-return-to-personalistic-rule/">1949</a>. If China underestimates US domestic swings, US analysts may exaggerate the global impact of Chinese <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-yuen-yuen-ang.html">internal pressures</a>. During my election work for the Carter Centre in Africa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/jimmy-carter-the-american-president-whose-commitment-to-africa-went-beyond-his-term-200745">from 2006-2015</a>, I was impressed by Chinese and American representatives able to seek common ground and learn from each other. </p>
<p>At higher levels of diplomacy, China and the US have used summits with African leaders to set broad guidelines of cooperation in trade and investment, climate, public health, building infrastructure and other areas. These should help African leaders decide areas of comparative advantage for them, in dealing with the two major powers. The <a href="http://www.focac.org/eng/">Forum on China-Africa Cooperation</a> differs from US initiatives, the most recent being the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/12/15/fact-sheet-u-s-africa-partnership-in-promoting-peace-security-and-democratic-governance/">US-Africa Partnership in Promoting Peace, Security, and Democratic Governance</a>. Neither major power appears to me to harbour hegemonic presumptions, as African leaders test their abilities to be productively nonaligned. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-africa-summit-four-things-african-leaders-should-try-to-get-out-of-it-196429">US-Africa summit: four things African leaders should try to get out of it</a>
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<p>These high-level channels to both superpowers might yield more if African regional economic communities and the African Union made more concerted efforts to develop complementary and cumulative strategies for pressing African priorities. Extending the US <a href="https://agoa.info/about-agoa.html">African Growth and Opportunity Act</a> to ensure favourable access to US markets is one example. Managing debt obligations for China’s important <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-africa-fits-into-chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative-78016">“Belt and Road”</a> investments in African infrastructure is another. </p>
<h2>Military and economic hegemony</h2>
<p>The differences in what Africa had to contend with during the US-Soviet <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War">Cold War</a> and today’s <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-china-relations">US-China rivalry</a> are most pronounced in areas of military and economic hegemony.</p>
<p>Neither China nor the US seem poised to use Africa to test political military resolve, as the US and Soviets did when they fought <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/proxy-wars-during-cold-war-africa/">proxy wars in Angola</a> during the 1970s, for example.</p>
<p>African national and multilateral bodies should lobby China and America to back <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/role-peacekeeping-africa">African-led peace operations</a> within African states.</p>
<p>Globally, economic interdependence between China and the US will remain <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/08/12/the-new-normal-in-us-china-relations-hardening-competition-and-deep-interdependence/">vital</a> for sustained growth and prosperity for both nations. Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping are committed to reviving their domestic economies. They both want greater equality, less corruption, and sustained growth. Neither appears to want or need to foment conflicts in Africa.</p>
<p>African governments rightly pursue support from both China and the US for regional integration and cooperation, such as the <a href="https://au-afcfta.org/">African Continental Free Trade Area</a>. Greater Chinese and US economic engagement in response to African collective appeals could also become a confidence building measure between China and the US. This rarely happened during the Cold War. Back then, the US was aligned with European colonial powers and the apartheid regime in South Africa. The Soviets <a href="https://theconversation.com/history-may-explain-south-africas-refusal-to-condemn-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-178657">backed liberation forces</a>. Today, such polarisation doesn’t exist.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/peace-and-security-in-africa-how-china-can-help-address-weaknesses-156219">Peace and security in Africa: how China can help address weaknesses</a>
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<p>The Chinese statement on US hegemony rightly notes the US is plagued by <a href="https://time.com/guns-in-america/">domestic violence</a> and has a history of failures in military interventions. [<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-use-and-abuse-of-military-force/">US analysts acknowledge</a>] this. </p>
<p>But US domestic resistance to new foreign military adventures <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/new-poll-shows-public-overwhelmingly-opposed-to-endless-us-military-interventions/">became bipartisan and popular for the past decade</a>. </p>
<p>African nations should hold America and China to account for their avowed commitments to respecting core <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter">UN principles</a> of sovereign equality and territorial integrity. Equally, they must hold Russia to account for blatantly violating those principles <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/28/russia-ukraine-biden-eu-when-diplomacy-fails/">by invading Ukraine</a>.</p>
<h2>Technological hegemony</h2>
<p>Benefits and risks of new technologies are <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/events/emerging-technologies-and-the-future-of-work-in-africa/">well known</a>. Communication, data retrieval and collection, and artificial intelligence bring both <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/the-promises-and-perils-of-africas-digital-revolution/">promise and peril</a> that Africa must navigate carefully. This is becoming all the more pressing as progress in artificial intelligence <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/15/how-do-ai-models-like-gpt-4-work-and-how-can-you-start-using-it">accelerates</a>. Neither China nor the US need to be hegemonic in making available technologies that spur Africa’s development. </p>
<p>More issues of contention need to be resolved with the help of scientists and scholars from China, US, and Africa. The availability of Huawei 5G is a <a>particularly contentious issue</a>. Perhaps interested scientists and members of the <a href="https://arua.org.za/about/#:%7E:text=The%20African%20Research%20Universities%20Alliance%20(ARUA)%20was%20inaugurated%20in%20Dakar,but%20with%20a%20common%20vision">African Research Universities Alliance</a> could work with their Chinese and US counterparts to establish guidelines and mediation capabilities. </p>
<h2>Cultural hegemony</h2>
<p>US crimes against Africans began in earnest in <a href="https://time.com/5653369/august-1619-jamestown-history/">1619</a> with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-west-is-morally-bound-to-offer-reparations-for-slavery-153544">trans-Atlantic slave trade</a>. Its sediments persist <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/">today</a>. </p>
<p>But? The African diaspora has become a <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/why-are-blacks-democrats">key political constituency</a> of the Democratic Party. It is a fast growing <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/#:%7E:text=In%202021%2C%20there%20were%20an,Black%20Americans%20are%20div">demographic</a>. In music, sports, arts, these Americans are invaluable conveyors of <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/africasource/africa-is-americas-greatest-geopolitical-opportunity-does-the-us-know-it/">soft power in Africa</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-china-us-rivalry-is-not-a-new-cold-war-it-is-way-more-complex-and-could-last-much-longer-144912">The China-US rivalry is not a new Cold War. It is way more complex and could last much longer</a>
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<p>China does not have similar ties with Africa. But, it has recently become more active culturally across the continent, as evident in its network of <a href="http://www.news.cn/english/2021-11/26/c_1310334064.htm#:%7E:text=61%20Confucius%20Institutes%2C%2048%20Confucius%20Classrooms%20established%20in%20Africa%3A%20white%20paper,-Source%3A%20Xinhua%7C%202021">Confucius Institutes</a>. China has also become the biggest donor of <a href="https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=2020112410303875">foreign scholarships</a>, enabling future African leaders to study in China. Graduates enrich African universities and, interacting with graduates of US institutions of higher education, represent potential channels to explore options for three way, useful collaboration in their fields of applied research. </p>
<h2>Looking forward</h2>
<p>This essay reflects my belief in the value and prospects for greater African agency in response to rising tensions between China and America. I have used China’s indictment of alleged US hegemony only to debunk fear of Africa becoming a pawn in another Cold War. There is no evidence I have seen to suggest that will happen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John J Stremlau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are fears that escalating US-Chinese tensions could threaten the independence of African and other nonaligned nations.John J Stremlau, Honorary Professor of International Relations, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2004882023-02-23T16:53:10Z2023-02-23T16:53:10ZNigeria elections: the surprising influence of Afrobeats music on politics<p>In the run-up to <a href="https://theconversation.com/presidential-elections-in-nigeria-alarm-over-violence-and-security-likely-to-drive-vote-199743">Nigeria’s February 2023 elections</a>, the <a href="https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2022/11/20/open-letter-to-nigerian-youth/">country’s younger generation has mobilised to demand change</a> and redefine the political landscape – and music has been pivotal.</p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.thecable.ng/nigerian-youths-and-the-evolving-political-dynamics-of-the-2023-elections">being dismissed</a> by several political commentators, Nigeria’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61865502">younger generations have shifted</a> the former two-party liberal electoral democratic competition between the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) and the prominent People’s Democratic Party (PDP). This is due to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61865502">their overwhelming support</a> for Labour Party candidate, <a href="https://theconversation.com/peter-obi-could-be-the-force-that-topples-nigerias-two-main-political-parties-199758">Peter Obi</a>.</p>
<p>The use of music in campaigning for these elections shows the influence of this generation. Political candidates now routinely release videos showing them dancing to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00020184.2020.1750349?casa_token=XxK1X-mf5DEAAAAA%3A435fjcxn9FNhjErAB3RB7eGFs6MwZN2J_R-Y4AMx3fgHxn78h6elp2nHZyS3_-ffgk-eL_IOKNkC-Q">Afrobeats music</a>. </p>
<p>The Afrobeats genre encompasses contemporary music styles from Nigeria (and Ghana) with <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00020184.2020.1750349?casa_token=XxK1X-mf5DEAAAAA%3A435fjcxn9FNhjErAB3RB7eGFs6MwZN2J_R-Y4AMx3fgHxn78h6elp2nHZyS3_-ffgk-eL_IOKNkC-Q">a distinct use</a> of Nigerian languages and percussive beats. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">APC candidate Bola Tinubu dances to Buga by Kizz Daniel and Tekno.</span></figcaption>
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<p>APC candidate Bola Tinubu’s song of choice was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLF90M96m2Q">Buga by Kizz Daniel and Tekno</a>, with its accompanying choreography and references to hard work. </p>
<p>PDP candidate Atiku Abubakar revealed his five-step recovery plan with a <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2022/10/video-atiku-unveils-5-star-recovery-plans-as-he-dances-to-davidos-stand-strong/">choreographed video</a> to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyR6Sd2-afI">Davido’s Stand Strong</a>, which references devotion and consistency. It’s his sixth time standing for president.</p>
<p>Though some politicians are <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=dancing+senator&rlz=1C1GCEA_enGB897GB897&oq=dancing+senator&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i512l4j0i22i30j0i10i22i30i625j0i22i30l3.3015j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f22ef77f,vid:zcZWxs0SmzU">criticised</a> when their enthusiasm on the dance floor contrasts with their performance, this pattern of <a href="https://punchng.com/adeleke-and-the-modern-nigerian-tragedy/">dance as diplomacy</a> shows new ways they are making connections with the electorate.</p>
<h2>A genre on the rise</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/afrobeats-in-2022-global-mobility-election-songs-placemaking-albums-and-tems-195987">Afrobeats’s popularity</a> is a story of African creative and economic production, intended for African creative and economic consumption. The genre’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/dec/01/davido-nigerian-pop-star-fem-end-sars">focus on authenticity</a> has resonated with <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/afrobeats-global-rise-1282575/">Nigerian, African and global markets</a>.</p>
<p>The success of Afrobeats, alongside the wider creative economy, saw Nigeria become <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/datablog/2014/apr/07/nigeria-becomes-africa-largest-economy-get-data">Africa’s largest economy</a> in 2014. In their 2022 trade report, the <a href="https://media.afreximbank.com/afrexim/AFRICA-TRADE-REPORT-2022.pdf">AfriExim Bank</a> discussed the music industry’s wider success in Africa, particularly through its use of digital technology. The report also highlighted music’s power to create and disseminate knowledge in ways that address the damage done by colonial systems and structures.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Sexual abuse is a theme in Tiwa Savage and Asake’s Loaded.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Afrobeats shows how African creative endeavours can succeed by centring African people in their choice of language, themes and imagery. It shows <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_Political_Economy_of_Africa.html?id=ctW1AAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">what can be possible</a> when African needs are prioritised. Questions remain, however, about the extent to which the benefits are retained within African economies.</p>
<p>Afrobeats music creates solidarity among people of African descent through a sense of a shared global African identity. This success has been underpinned by music and video production <a href="https://republic.com.ng/october-november-2022/contemporary-african-music/">collaborations across global African communities.</a></p>
<p>The ingenuity in Afrobeats is astounding. Poetic lyrics draw on the wealth of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00020184.2020.1750349?casa_token=XxK1X-mf5DEAAAAA%3A435fjcxn9FNhjErAB3RB7eGFs6MwZN2J_R-Y4AMx3fgHxn78h6elp2nHZyS3_-ffgk-eL_IOKNkC-Q">Nigeria’s languages</a> (including pidgin English) to challenge issues such as socioeconomic exploitation (as in Tekno’s 2020 track, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3-ONEJy8kA">Sudden</a>) and sexual abuse (as in Tiwa Savage and Asake’s 2023 track, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgeTnpTkzI0">Loaded</a>). The music blends contemporary sounds and Nigerian instruments, such as the Oja flute (as in Omah Lay’s 2022 track, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6eE3c70hgg">Soso</a>).</p>
<h2>Afrobeats represents hope</h2>
<p>Afrobeats offers an opportunity to tune in to visions of hope from younger generations. The genre’s stars often reference the recognisable aesthetics of the period following Nigeria’s independence, between the 1960s and 1970s. In doing so, they are connecting their music to a period of transition and liberation after colonisation.</p>
<p>Consider Wizkid and Tem’s platinum single, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jipQpjUA_o8">Essence</a> (2022), with the box TV, standing and ceiling fans and stone wall. Rema’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQLsdm1ZYAw">Calm Down</a> (2022) also echoes this aesthetic with its wooden framed sofa and beaded curtains. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Tiwa Savage’s 49-99.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In her 2021 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S53BdCfsjw">NPR Tiny Desk performance, Tiwa Savage</a> is at the Jazzhole in Ikoyi, Lagos, surrounded by books and LPs. Her 2020 video for 49-99 samples the “<a href="https://www.amplifyafrica.org/fela-kuti-the-father-of-afrobeat/">father of Afrobeat”</a> musician Fela Kuti.</p>
<p>In the Nigerian diaspora, British rapper Little Simz and Obongjayar’s video for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvY31eN3gtE">Point and Kill</a> (2022) features a terracotta bordered veranda, vintage film posters, afros, moustaches and sideburns, woven mats and references to Fela Kuti’s sound.</p>
<p>What are these images calling for? There is joy and beauty in their fluidity. In its innovation, Afrobeats still calls back to the past. Post-independence times were <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1542316620969660">complex</a> and contradictory but offered different ways to change than <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056244.2014.952275">the despondence</a> that has tended to define Nigeria <a href="https://www.rrojasdatabank.info/Mkandawireafrica.pdf">and wider Africa</a> since. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tvY31eN3gtE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The video for Little Simz’s Point And Kill featuring Obongjayar.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These included <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2022/sep/30/marilyn-nances-images-of-festac-77-in-lagos">pan African visions of blackness</a> and challenging imperial powers to support <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311983.2020.1846256">the anti-apartheid struggle</a>.</p>
<p>Tiwa Savage and Naira Marley exemplify how the younger generation intends to hold truth to power in their 2021 anti-political class anthem, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7rcfEboa7g">Ole</a>. The song satirises the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlwhcWs2nLs">botched 2021 National Assembly investigation</a> into allegations of misappropriation in the Niger Delta Development Commission and suggestions of complicity by members of the National Assembly.</p>
<p>With their ingenuity and agency, innovators like these have picked through the rubble that has been allowed to define Nigeria and found abundance. I doubt they will let it go. </p>
<p>As politicians attempt to connect with the largest constituency in the largest black country on earth, they would do well to recognise that dancing will not quite suffice. Whoever wins the 2023 elections takes these voices for granted at their own risk.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200488/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eka Ikpe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People’s Democratic Party candidate Atiku Abubakar released a choreographed video to Davido’s Stand Strong, which references devotion. It’s his sixth time standing for president.Eka Ikpe, Reader, Development Economics in Africa and Director, African Leadership Centre, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1924512022-10-18T15:30:41Z2022-10-18T15:30:41ZWhy migrants bring gifts from abroad. A sense of obligation and a fear of social backlash<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489749/original/file-20221014-15-enfq3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">African migrants feel obliged to bring back home consumer goods as gifts. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/june-2022-hamburg-numerous-suitcases-are-stored-in-the-news-photo/1241498837?phrase=traveling%20suitcase&adppopup=true">Jonas Walzberg/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>An <a href="https://worldmigrationreport.iom.int/wmr-2022-interactive/">estimated 281 million</a> migrants span the globe. The remittances they send home get a lot of attention from policymakers and development agencies like the World Bank due to their <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/peoplemove/remittances-increase-gdp-potential-differential-impacts-across-countries">positive impacts</a> on developing economies. This is because the movement of money is – for the most part – quantifiable, as much of it goes through formal banking channels. Migrants from developing countries, for instance, <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/labormarkets/brief/migration-and-remittances">sent about US$605 billion</a> home in 2021. </p>
<p>But there’s also an entire ecosystem that’s not measured and not monitored: gift-giving. </p>
<p>Many migrants bring gifts from abroad for their relations when returning to their home country. We examined this practice in a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucac028/6623441?guestAccessKey=b28d00c9-8d77-460f-b935-347b3b7d8112">study</a> of Ghanaian migrants living in Australia and the US as well as people in Ghana who have relations living abroad. </p>
<p>Gift-giving is common among migrants from other countries in the global south too. </p>
<p>We found that when migrants return to Ghana many bring consumer goods in their suitcases as gifts for their relations. Migrants feel obliged to bring these gifts because their family and friends in Ghana expect them. Migrants fear a social backlash if they fail to bring them. </p>
<p>One major implication of our findings is that these gifts may do the opposite of what remittances do. As imports, they may have unintended negative consequences for the local economy. </p>
<h2>What gifts do migrants bring and why?</h2>
<p>We interviewed 47 Ghanaian migrants living in Australia and the US as well as people in Ghana who have relations living abroad. Some migrants also allowed us to do a “video ethnography” of their suitcases full of gifts just days before they went to visit Ghana. We took videos and photos of the gifts as they explained each gift item, who they were going to give the gift to, and why. </p>
<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucac028/6623441?guestAccessKey=b28d00c9-8d77-460f-b935-347b3b7d8112">In the suitcases of people travelling from Australia and the US back to Ghana</a> we found an array of gifts, including clothes, shoes, bags, perfumes, makeup, accessories, phones, computers, food items and medicine.</p>
<p>The most common explanation for bringing these gifts is that it is an obligation. Gifts go to extended family, friends, friends of the family, and even “big people” from whom migrants will need help to ease the transition back home.</p>
<p>We were told that family and friends back home expected – and sometimes even demanded – these gifts. </p>
<p>One migrant in the US noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I can’t just go back home (to Ghana) without buying anything for them; it will be suicidal on my part, because the looks I’m going to get and probably the utterances, I wouldn’t even like it. So, I don’t have a choice; I have to.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our participants who lived in Ghana confirmed that they had these expectations. One of them commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You can’t come just like that (empty-handed) when you are coming home (to Ghana) from abroad. You have travelled to the white man’s land so you must bring something home from there.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The obligation to bring gifts is well known and understood. </p>
<p>Two related beliefs account for this obligation.</p>
<p>The first is that life abroad is better than in Ghana. The migrant is perceived to be economically better off than someone living in Ghana. Other research has also found that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1466138113480575?casa_token=GPCLdC8iJjAAAAAA%3AMbzI1C6Zhp3oHnoH_y_0w3pAv0fBi-FgU0oeLxrZjUEiErSPqCiyn4lyTPwsW0eWUf-pTzd0WqX5KQ">migrants enjoy higher status in Ghana</a>. Thus, they are believed to be able to afford gifts.</p>
<p>The second belief is that things from abroad are of better quality than things made in or imported into Ghana. Thus, the visiting migrant is a trusted carrier of good quality products from abroad. </p>
<p>Even when they are unable to visit Ghana themselves, migrants frequently send gifts for family and friends via other migrants who are visiting Ghana.</p>
<p>Taken together, these beliefs confer an obligation to bring gifts. Some migrants we interviewed embraced this obligation as a way to support and delight their families. For others, the gifts were a way to show gratitude to people who had contributed to their upbringing and their ability to migrate abroad. </p>
<p>All migrants, however, admitted the fear of social backlash if they failed to bring the gifts.</p>
<h2>The consequences of the gifts</h2>
<p>We conclude that this gift giving has wider implications. </p>
<p>Firstly, we argue that it plays a different role than remittances. When migrants send monetary remittances, they take money from the developed country and send it to help development back home. Gifts do the opposite – the money to acquire them is spent in the developed economy. Then, they travel to Ghana as “hidden imports” that are neither taxed, nor accounted for. </p>
<p>The gifts also encourage the belief that what is from abroad – specifically from the “white man’s country” – is better than what is made locally. This reinforces the desire for foreign things and a desire to migrate to these foreign countries.</p>
<p>The implications are not positive for migrants’ home economies.</p>
<h2>Taming the shrew</h2>
<p>Attempts to control migrant gifting practices would be difficult and counterproductive, however.</p>
<p>They have important social implications for the relationship between migrants and their families. Customs regulations on gift items beyond a certain value can be easily evaded by presenting them as personal items and not gifts. </p>
<p>Rather, we should accept these practices and encourage migrants to report the value of gifts without taxation or punishment. This information could help policy makers to account for the gifts as imports, and to design policies that address the effect on the local economy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192451/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuelson Appau receives funding from Plan International. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Crockett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Gifts that migrants bring back home deny recipient countries taxes and reinforce the belief that local items are inferior.Samuelson Appau, Assistant Professor, Melbourne Business SchoolDavid Crockett, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Illinois ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1877052022-08-11T14:53:46Z2022-08-11T14:53:46ZNot yet uhuru: the African Union has had a few successes but remains weak<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477122/original/file-20220802-19-k8vu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Delegates at the African Union Summit held in Malabo, Capital of Equatorial Guinea, on 27 May 2022 to address worsening humanitarian crises in Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The African Union (AU) was born in the South African port city of Durban <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/september-2002/african-union-launched">in 2002</a>. Under its first chair,<a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki-mr-0">Thabo Mbeki</a>, African leaders seemed determined to abandon the grandiose plans of its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The OAU had been established <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/organisation-african-unity-oau">in 1963</a> to promote African unity and liberation. Other aims included: to protect the territorial integrity of its member states, promote non-alignment, and advance the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/7759-file-oau_charter_1963.pdf">peaceful settlement of disputes</a>.</p>
<p>The African Union, for its part, <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34873-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf">was established</a> to achieve an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa which would be led by its own citizens and play a dynamic role in global politics. Unlike the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/7759-file-oau_charter_1963.pdf">OAU Charter</a>, the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34873-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf">AU’s Constitutive Act of 2000</a> allowed for interference in the internal affairs of its members to stem instability, halt egregious human rights abuses and sanction military coups d’état.</p>
<p>Military regimes in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2005/2/25/togo-suspended-from-au">Togo</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mauritania-coup-idUSL855802420080809">Mauritania</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/20/african-union-suspends-madagascar">Madagascar</a>, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20100219-african-union-suspends-niger-thousands-celebrate-coup">Niger</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-protests-africa-idUSBRE9640EP20130705">Egypt</a>, <a href="https://au.int/en/articles/sudan-suspended-african-union#:%7E:text=On%20the%206th%20of%20June,exit%20from%20its%20current%20crisis.">Sudan</a>, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/african-union-suspends-guinea-after-military-coup/a-59144311">Guinea</a>, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2012/4/17/guinea-bissau-suspended-from-african-union">Guinea-Bissau</a>, <a href="https://au.int/en/articles/african-union-suspends-mali-participation-all-activities">Mali</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/african-union-suspends-burkina-faso-after-military-coup-2022-01-31/">Burkina Faso</a> were thus suspended from the AU. The continental body launched praiseworthy military stabilisation missions into <a href="https://issafrica.org/chapter-4-the-african-union-mission-in-burundi">Burundi</a> (2003), <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20201231-un-african-union-peacekeeping-mission-in-sudan-s-darfur-ends">Darfur</a> (2007) and <a href="https://effectivepeaceops.net/publication/amisom/">Somalia</a> (2007). However despite this progress, autocrats continued to rig electoral outcomes. </p>
<p>As the AU <a href="https://au.int/en/overview">turned 20 in July 2022</a>, it had achieved a few successes. But it remains a weak organisation embarking on sporadic bouts of illusory reforms. This is due to financial and capacity constraints. And too much decision-making power resides with its omnipotent heads of state which has denied the organisation the ability to take decisions, and act more effectively on behalf of its members.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-unions-conflict-early-warning-system-is-no-more-what-now-183469">The African Union's conflict early warning system is no more. What now?</a>
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<h2>Institutional sclerosis</h2>
<p>The Addis Ababa-based <a href="https://au.int/en/commission">AU Commission</a> – its implementing arm – is led by an <a href="https://au.int/en/assembly">Assembly of Heads of State</a>, with an Executive Council of foreign ministers and a Permanent Representatives Committee of ambassadors. The ambassadors work with specialised development, governance, parliamentary and judicial organs. The AU Commission has, however, struggled to establish its independence to take initiatives on behalf of its 55 member states in fulfilment of its mandate. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/RO%20Audit%20of%20the%20AU.pdf">2007 audit report</a> led by the Nigerian scholar-technocrat <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/pan-africanism/tribute-my-mentor-professor-adebayo-adedeji">Adebayo Adedeji</a> revealed how the AU Commission headed by <a href="https://www.africaunionfoundation.org/professor-alpha-oumar-konare/">Malian Alpha Konaré</a> (2003-2008) misunderstood its mandates and authority levels, and failed to coordinate overlapping tasks. Some of these problems still persist.</p>
<p>Under the French-influenced Gabonese <a href="http://jeanping.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/CV-Jean-Ping-VGB.pdf">Jean Ping</a> (2008-2012), the commission’s annual budget had reached <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2011/01/27/short-of-cash-and-teeth">$260 million by 2011</a>. Only 40% of this sum was actually paid by members. The European Union, China and the United States mostly funded the rest. This posed the risk that AU institutional priorities could be set by its donors.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://au.int/en/assembly">AU Assembly</a> of heads of state has often failed to adhere to the principle of subsidiarity: taking decisions at the lowest practical level, as the European Union – the world’s only genuinely supranational regional organisation – does. </p>
<p>The AU also conducts most of its business through unanimity, making it difficult to reach quick decisions.</p>
<p>While the AU Commission has some impressive staff, it also has much “dead wood” inherited from the OAU era. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/african-union-needs-a-more-robust-response-to-conflict-in-cameroon-132449">African Union needs a more robust response to conflict in Cameroon</a>
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<p>The AU’s 2003 plan to set up an <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/en/page/82-african-standby-force-asf-amani-africa-1">African Standby Force</a> by 2010 was <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/joint/diplomacy-a-peace/african-union-says-progressing-to-military-force-by-end-2015/">postponed until 2015</a>. In December 2020, the organisation simply declared the force to be fully operational, despite the fantasy involved in such a statement. The deadline for “Silencing the Guns” (ending armed conflicts) <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311886.2021.1995222#:%7E:text=The%20Africa%20Union's%20Agenda%202063,all%20illegal%20weapons%20in%20Africa.">by 2020</a>“ was casually pushed back a decade.</p>
<h2>Illusory reforms</h2>
<p>As chair of the AU Commission (2012-2016), former South African foreign minister <a href="https://www.africaunionfoundation.org/dr-nkosazana-dlamini-zuma/">Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma </a> complained that over 97% of the continental body’s programmes were <a href="https://www.hiiraan.com/news4/2012/Dec/27467/budget_challenge_for_dlamini_zuma_at_au.aspx">funded by external donors</a>. In 2013, $155 million of the $278 million annual budget (56%) was still <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/6158/african-union-its-never-too-late-to-avoid-war-dlamini-zuma/">provided by foreign partners</a>. But Dlamini-Zuma failed to reduce this dependence during her four-year tenure. AU leaders refused to back efforts to find alternative sources of funding, such as customs duties and <a href="https://archives.au.int/bitstream/handle/123456789/885/Assembly%20AU%2018%20%28XIX%29%20_E.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">taxes on flights and hotel stays</a>. </p>
<p>Among the more quixotic ideas of the Dlamini-Zuma-driven 50-year development vision, <a href="https://au.int/en/agenda2063/overview">"Agenda 2063”</a> includes increasing intra-African trade from 12% to 50% by 2045, ending armed conflicts by 2020 ](https://au.int/en/flagships/silencing-guns-2020) and eradicating poverty in two decades.</p>
<p>Under the Francophile Chadian chair, <a href="https://au.int/en/biography-he-moussa-faki-mahamat">Moussa Faki Mahamat</a>, since 2017, the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34915-file-report-20institutional20reform20of20the20au-2.pdf">report</a> chaired by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Kagame">Rwandan president Paul Kagame</a> on reforming the AU seemed rushed and lacked substance, and its laundry list of recommendations on institutional reforms were on a level of vacuity as to be of no real utility. </p>
<p>These were physicians proposing half-baked cures to ills that had not been properly diagnosed. All the 2017 report’s “key findings” had been more coherently outlined in <a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/RO%20Audit%20of%20the%20AU.pdf">Adedeji’s report</a> a decade earlier, the recommendations of which still have not been implemented. </p>
<p>Another disappointment has been the 2018 <a href="https://au.int/en/cfta">African Continental Free Trade Area</a> which seeks to facilitate trade, build infrastructure, establish a common market and ensure the free movement of people. But outside West and Eastern Africa, the free movement of people <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/africa-intracontinental-free-movement">remains a pipe dream</a>.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/successes-of-african-human-rights-court-undermined-by-resistance-from-states-166454">Successes of African Human Rights Court undermined by resistance from states</a>
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<p>Most African governments are security-obsessed and hostile to intra-African migration. There is also a lack of convergence of African economies. Many compete to export raw materials rather than exchange diverse goods.</p>
<p>Road, rail, and port infrastructure remains poor. Rules of origin – which define where goods are made – are often restrictive, and non-tariff barriers are widespread. If integration has not worked at the national and sub-regional levels, transferring all these problems to the continental level will certainly not integrate Africa. </p>
<h2>Need for realism</h2>
<p>The 15-member <a href="https://au.int/en/psc">AU Peace and Security Council</a> has contributed substantively to peacemaking efforts across Africa, and coordinated closely with the United Nations.</p>
<p>But other AU organs have performed less well. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nepad.org/publication/nepad-brief">New Partnership for Africa’s Development</a> clearly lacks the resources and capacity as a development agency to uplift the continent. The <a href="https://au.int/en/aprm#:%7E:text=APRM%20is%20a%20voluntary%20arrangement,economic%20growth%20and%20sustainable%20development">African Peer Review Mechanism</a>, which identifies governance challenges in 41 countries, is toothless.</p>
<p>The Pan-African Parliament remains a <a href="https://theconversation.com/toothless-pan-african-parliament-could-have-meaningful-powers-heres-how-87449">“talking shop”</a>. The <a href="https://au.int/en/about/ecosocc">Economic, Social and Cultural Council</a> has failed to provide genuine civil society participation in the AU’s institutions. The idea of the African Diaspora in the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe as a <a href="http://www.west-africa-brief.org/content/en/six-regions-african-union">sixth African sub-region</a>, along with the five continental ones, is largely devoid of substance.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/toothless-pan-african-parliament-could-have-meaningful-powers-heres-how-87449">Toothless Pan-African Parliament could have meaningful powers. Here's how</a>
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<p>The AU must thus adopt more realistic and less illusory mandates. Its approach should be based on an accurate assessment of financial and logistical realities. </p>
<p>More positively, AU members had contributed <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20220630/african-union-peace-fund-board-trustees-convene-meeting-review-progress">$295 million</a> to their <a href="https://issafrica.org/pscreport/psc-insights/peace-fund-lies-dormant-as-member-states-discuss-its-use">revised Peace Fund</a> by June 2022, complementing a <a href="https://africacenter.org/spotlight/african-union-20-much-accomplished-more-challenges-ahead/">$650 million 2022 budget </a>. African leaders must now strengthen the institutions they have created.</p>
<p>They must also establish one effective economic body in each sub-region that can promote socio-economic development and provide jobs for the continent’s youthful population.</p>
<p>The AU’s first two decades have largely represented a magical, mystical world of unfulfilled expectations. This is not yet uhuru (freedom).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187705/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adekeye Adebajo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The AU’s first two decades have largely represented a magical, mystical world of unfulfilled expectations.Adekeye Adebajo, Professor and Senior research fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1855042022-06-23T20:09:26Z2022-06-23T20:09:26ZHow young Black African Australians use social media to challenge anti-Black narratives and reclaim racial dignity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469966/original/file-20220621-18-4g1i30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C7951%2C5285&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For Black African young people in Australia, social media can be especially fraught – a place they witness footage of anti-Black violence, contend with an “othering” gaze and encounter racist trolling, posts or comments.</p>
<p>Despite these challenges, social media can offer Black African young people in Australia safe spaces to engage in positive expressions of afro-Blackness, as our new study shows. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ajs4.224">study</a>, published today in the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/18394655">Australian Journal of Social Issues</a>, was an ethnographic study of the social media activity of 15 young people (16–25) who self-identify as African and live in Australia. </p>
<p>Participants consented to being followed and/or “friended” on social media so as to observe their online practises over a six month period. They were also interviewed about their experiences on social media.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ajs4.224">Our study</a> reveals how these young people are using social media to challenge anti-Black narratives and reclaim some of their racial dignity.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/battlegrounds-highly-skilled-black-african-professionals-on-racial-microaggressions-at-work-149169">Battlegrounds: highly skilled Black African professionals on racial microaggressions at work</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Racial dignity and anti-Black racism</h2>
<p>One of us (Gatwiri) has defined <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JME-11-2021-0205/full/html">racial dignity</a> as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the immutable, unconditional worth of Blac/k people as human beings. To be racially dignified is to be seen through a humanised lens, and to be afforded basic respect, compassion and recognition in interpersonal and systemic contexts.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Anti-Black racism is a unique form of racism especially directed towards dark skinned Black people. </p>
<p>Research on <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244017720483">blackness</a> argues there is something particular and specific about the visibility of <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Q8ZuDQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Black+Bodies,+White+Gazes+-+Rowman+%26+Littlefield&ots=grKfUiyFe4&sig=ERpK8J66munyZZpNURuzIuUL1Ug&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Black%20Bodies%2C%20White%20Gazes%20-%20Rowman%20%26%20Littlefield&f=false">Black bodies</a> that triggers the imagination of white Australia. They are “read” as too un-assimilable, too different, too foreign, too dangerous, too visible, <em>too everything</em>.</p>
<p>Zuberi (age 25) also highlighted how anti-Blackness produces hyper-criminalisation of Black people. This results in over-policing by the community and the criminal justice system. He reflected on one example:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We were walking back to the train station, and we were topping up our Myki. And there were two inspectors, standing a few metres from us, on the side. And this was probably about 9pm, a bit late. and they were like “Those people are always up to no good.” And then my cousin’s like, “What? What do you mean?” Like he got very angry and I think in those kinds of moments you kind of question […] you question a lot of stuff.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Real world experiences of anti-Black racism can inform the way young African Australians experience social media and participate in racial discourse online.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470453/original/file-20220623-52323-zbzr0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470453/original/file-20220623-52323-zbzr0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470453/original/file-20220623-52323-zbzr0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470453/original/file-20220623-52323-zbzr0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470453/original/file-20220623-52323-zbzr0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470453/original/file-20220623-52323-zbzr0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470453/original/file-20220623-52323-zbzr0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470453/original/file-20220623-52323-zbzr0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many use social media functions – such as block, delete, mute and unfollow – to effectively bypass racism online.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our other <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/01634437221089246">journal article</a> from this study reported how Black African Australians used social media to spotlight and engage in positive expression of afro-Blackness. But they were also terrified of making white people uncomfortable, which could invite racial trolling or racial abuse online.</p>
<p>King (age 18) reflected on his attempts to separate himself from the “African gangs” label often attached to young Black African people in Australia. This informed the design of his online avatar and profile photo, curated to evoke a “friendly” persona: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>People sometimes they just look at your profile and they think you’re a bad person or a bad influence based on your picture. They’ll assume that you’re like other Black people they’ve seen in their life, they’ll assume you’re the same person.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When confronted with racist content on their newsfeed, most participants made deliberate choices to stay away from the comments section, colloquially considered a “cesspool of hatred”. Zuberi <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ajs4.224">explained</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You do see things on social media but I try to not get involved with it as much […] And for that reason, I choose not to look at the comments.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Creating online boundaries and communities</h2>
<p>The young people in our study reported digital spaces were safer than physical, offline settings in the white-majority Australian context. </p>
<p>Many used social media functions – such as block, delete, mute and unfollow – to effectively <em>bypass</em> racism online. They also used the “close friends” and “private stories” features to share their racial experiences.</p>
<p>This allowed people to engage in the kind of self-representation they chose – including posting pictures of themselves or discussing their experiences – within a “safe digital space”. </p>
<p>Social media was also particularly useful in connecting Black African youth who are geographically separated from each other. Many reflected how useful these connections are, often noting they were the “only Black kid” in their school or neighbourhood. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470454/original/file-20220623-51080-yjaqlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470454/original/file-20220623-51080-yjaqlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470454/original/file-20220623-51080-yjaqlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470454/original/file-20220623-51080-yjaqlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470454/original/file-20220623-51080-yjaqlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470454/original/file-20220623-51080-yjaqlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470454/original/file-20220623-51080-yjaqlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470454/original/file-20220623-51080-yjaqlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Social media was also particularly useful in connecting Black African youth who are geographically separated from each other.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Social media therefore became a place where participants sought out connections that dignified and validated their experiences.</p>
<p>Nya (age 18) told us these communities helped her to form a positive sense of identity as a young Black woman in Australia: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve created a communal space on every single platform which has made me feel comfortable with myself […] I feel like I belong to the wider Black diaspora […] I actually didn’t grow up with Sudanese people, I grew up in (location removed for privacy) which is very white. So yeah, I created a community and I have connections and I like it.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Fear of racial trolling persists</h2>
<p>Human rights lawyer <a href="https://ethniccouncilshepparton.com.au/?p=6111">Nyadol Nyuon</a>, has said racial trolling is provoked by the belief that discussions about racism are a lack of gratitude “for the hand that fed you.” </p>
<p>Participants in our study also expressed awareness about the types of content they could and could not post, demonstrating how the fear of offending white people in digital spaces continued to shape their online practices.</p>
<p>As Mark (age 25) <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ajs4.224">said</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I try to be quite careful in digital spaces because anything to do with race, you never know who is going to use that against you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Using certain social media features allowed our participants to bypass traditional media and instead engage in self-presentations of their own making. This way, they were able to reclaim aspects of their racial dignity by developing positive pro-Black narratives online. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-power-of-no-simone-biles-naomi-osaka-and-black-womens-resistance-165318">The power of no: Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka and Black women's resistance</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185504/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This story is part of The Conversation's Breaking the Cycle series, which is about escaping cycles of disadvantage. It is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Moran does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Social media can offer Black African young people in Australia safe spaces to engage in positive expressions of afro-Blackness.Kathomi Gatwiri PhD, Senior lecturer, Southern Cross UniversityClaire Moran, PhD Candidate, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1783992022-05-20T12:55:16Z2022-05-20T12:55:16ZThe Martinican bèlè dance – a celebration of land, spirit and liberation<p>On May 22 each year, when the eastern Caribbean island of Martinique observes <a href="https://www.martinique.org/22-mai-1848-histoire-culture-et-memoire">Emancipation Day</a>, drums beat from sunrise until the break of dawn the next day.</p>
<p>Participants at open-air, starlit gatherings dance, sing, play drums and feast for ancestors who fought to break the chains of bondage. The uprising that eventually led to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316181669.005">the abolition of slavery</a> on the island in 1848 was sparked by the arrest of Romain, an enslaved man who refused to comply with his master’s ban on beating drums.</p>
<p>Today, drums are still a symbol of rebellion and freedom. The traditional dances that span the island each May 22, at performances called “swaré bèlè,” are filled with an electrifying aura of reverence and honor.</p>
<p>But the bèlè is not only a genre of ancestral Afro-Caribbean drum-dance practices. Rather, it is “an mannyè viv:” a lifestyle and worldview through which many people <a href="https://doi.org/10.2979/meridians.16.2.10">find healing and empowerment</a> for themselves and their communities.</p>
<p>My first encounter with bèlè occurred when I was a graduate student <a href="https://facultydiversity.umbc.edu/camee-maddox-wingfield/">in anthropology</a>, conducting fieldwork in Martinique. As a former dancer, I was drawn to how bèlè drummers, dancers and singers experience spiritual and cultural freedom. Performers tell me their participation feels transformative, sacred and otherworldly.</p>
<h2>Bèlè linò</h2>
<p>Martinique is <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/w/wsfh/0642292.0034.018/--citizenship-and-assimilation-in-postwar-martinique?rgn=main;view=fulltext">an overseas region of France</a> in the Lesser Antilles islands. Most of the 400,000 people living there are descended from Africans brought to the islands by the slave trade, whose traditions have left a deep imprint on Martinican culture.</p>
<p>Centuries of history have given bèlè a complex set of symbols, only understood by those deeply immersed in the practice.</p>
<p>Swaré bèlè gatherings typically begin with a few matches of “ladja/danmyé,” a martial art tradition between two combatants in the center of a circle, which warms up the energy of the space as guests are arriving.</p>
<p>The remainder of the event involves an improvised rotation of performers playing and dancing sets from the “bèlè linò” repertoire. These square dances use <a href="https://doi.org/10.5406/blacmusiresej.30.2.0215">the quadrille configuration</a>, with four pairs of female and male dancers. After the opening sequences, each pair takes turns dancing in a playful exchange in the center of the circle, then dances toward the drummers to salute them.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1xcfh4">Bèlè traditions</a> use the “tanbou,” a goat-skinned conical drum. There is also the “tibwa”: two wooden sticks beaten on the side of the drum with a steady tempo.</p>
<p>The ensemble of dancers, drummers and singers is normally encircled by a crowd of spectators who clap their hands, sway their bodies and join in the song’s refrain. </p>
<p>All dancers master the base repertoire. Yet the order and style of interactions between partners is improvised – making it remarkable that the drummers can match their rhythm to the dancers’ intricate footwork.</p>
<p>In the playful, flirtatious and at times competitive game of certain bèlè styles, the woman is the object of her male partner’s pursuit, and she ultimately decides if she will welcome his affections. This aspect of bèlè performance, whereby women are admired and praised for their sensual dance prowess, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2979/meridians.16.2.10">brings female performers a sense of affirmation</a>.</p>
<h2>Repressed, then embraced</h2>
<p>Martinique has been under French control since 1635. Even during the post-colonial era, many Black Martinican folk traditions <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/can.1997.12.1.3">faced repression</a>, as leaders imposed mainland French culture on the population. For example, bèlè practices were often denigrated as “bagay vyé nèg,” “bagay djab” and “bagay ki ja pasé”: primitive, indecent and outdated, in the Martinican Creole language. To many in the church, traditional drumming and dance symbolized heathenism. In a country where the vast majority of people belong to the church, it was difficult for devout Catholics to support bèlè.</p>
<p>Many practitioners see bèlè as a dance of the earth that reinforces human connections with the land, divine spirits and ideals of freedom. Touted as a fertility ritual for both humans and the land, the dance reflects sensuality between partners. Other symbolism suggests <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478013112-010">sacred connections</a> with the soil, vegetation and water on which Martinicans’ enslaved ancestors labored and survived. Many dance movements represent agricultural labor.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A woman in a bright floral outfit does a traditional dance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The history of folk dances in Martinique stretches back centuries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/danse-folklorique-martinique-news-photo/945918434?adppopup=true">Sylvain Grandadam/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the 1980s, student activists and youth groups led initiatives to revive traditions that had nearly dissolved as a result of French pressure to assimilate. Today an ever-growing community <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203493052-19/musical-revivals-social-movements-contemporary-martinique-ideology-identity-ambivalence">has embraced bèlè</a> as they challenge the legacy of colonialism and racism in Martinique.</p>
<p>Bèlè performance is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478013112-010">increasingly visible</a> in the Catholic Church. “Bèlè légliz” or “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo80O6pw0CY">church bèlè</a>” fuses the liturgy with references to Martinicans’ African and diasporic heritage.</p>
<p>Some bèlè activists weave in symbols of ancestor reverence and land stewardship, which are also found in Caribbean religious traditions such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-haitian-voodoo-119621">Haitian Vodou</a>, Cuban Santería, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/09/16/216890587/brazilian-believers-of-hidden-religion-step-out-of-shadows">Brazilian Candomblé</a> and <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.18574/9780814728253-010/html?lang=en">Quimbois</a>, Martinique’s tradition of folk healing. </p>
<p>An increasing number of practitioners assert that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478013112-010">bèlè is a “secular spirituality</a>,” viewing it as a form of social healing from subjugation. Many of the people I have interviewed speak about bèlè as an “otherworldly” experience with unique energy that helps them cope with their society’s shadows of colonialism and slavery, and the post-colonial transition.</p>
<h2>Solidarity and hope</h2>
<p>The bèlè drum and its associated dances have become the rallying cry around which many bèlè cultural activists organize daily life, such as by <a href="https://www.am4.fr/aprann-danmy%C3%A9-kalennda-b%C3%A8l%C3%A8/">teaching classes</a> and participating in mutual aid projects.</p>
<p>Swaré bèlè gatherings are often associated with community, and have become key opportunities for attendees to express cultural pride, political solidarity and hopes for change. These events often pay homage to historical figures who made contributions to struggles for Black liberation, such as poet and politician <a href="https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/blogs/books/remembering-life-legacy-aime-cesaire">Aimé Césaire</a> and philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frantz-fanon/">Frantz Fanon</a>.</p>
<p>Over the last 13 years, my research has probed how traditional dance expresses resistance, emotions, spirituality and even feelings of transcendence. I have also explored how bèlè complicates black-and-white ideas about what is “sacred” versus what is “secular.”</p>
<p>Bèlè dances on the line between the two, reflecting the complex legacy of colonialism that continues to shape life in the Caribbean.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178399/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>For this research, Camee Maddox-Wingfield received funding from the Institute of International Education (Mellon Foundation Graduate Fellowship for International Study), a grant from the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund (a Program of the Reed Foundation), and UMBC's Center for Social Science Scholarship Summer Faculty Fellowship.</span></em></p>After years of marginalization, the bèlè dance has been embraced by a growing community who see it as a form of social and spiritual healing.Camee Maddox-Wingfield, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Anthropology, and Public Health, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1788292022-03-17T14:16:10Z2022-03-17T14:16:10ZSouth African universities are training their gaze on the United States. Why it matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452227/original/file-20220315-25-738lwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">US President Joe Biden's policy of reengagement with Africa necessitates a more nuanced understanding of America.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> EPA-EFE/Shawn Thew </span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Three academic institutions in Africa have established units dedicated to the study of the United States. They are University of the Witwatersrand’s <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/general-news/2018/2018-03/new-african-centre-to-study-the-us.html#:%7E:text=A%20new%20Centre%20at%20Wits,applied%20knowledge%20for%20different%20sectors.">African Centre for the Study of the United States</a>, the <a href="http://www.alcrabat.org/en/index.html">American Language Centre in Morocco </a>, and most recently, the <a href="https://www.up.ac.za/news/post_3052883-university-of-pretoria-african-centre-for-the-study-of-the-united-states-turns-its-critical-gaze-on-the-super-power">University of Pretoria’s African Centre for the Study of the United States</a>. University of Pretoria Principal Tawana Kupe and Christopher Isike, the new Centre’s Director, explain why Africans need a better understanding of America.</em></p>
<h2>The rationale</h2>
<p>Top universities around the world have research centres and think tanks dedicated to the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary study of other countries or regions. The broad purpose is to understand the historical, social, political, economic, and cultural development of the countries and their people.</p>
<p>It is not only a worthwhile venture for knowledge’s sake. It’s also helpful in formulating domestic and foreign policies to further the interests of their nations. This way, the universities justify their mandates – as both citadels of learning and as influencers of global politics and international relations. </p>
<p>Many universities in Europe, North America and Asia have dedicated centres that study Africa. The continent has recently started returning the favour. In South Africa for example, Stellenbosch University has the <a href="http://www0.sun.ac.za/ccs/">Centre for Chinese Studies</a>, and there is the University of Johannesburg <a href="https://www.cacs.org.za/about/">Centre for China-Africa Studies</a>. </p>
<p>The University of Pretoria’s humanities department has also approved the establishment of a centre for Asian Studies, which is awaiting senate approval. Relatedly, several universities in South Africa have centres that study European and Asian languages as part of the broader purpose of understanding other societies. </p>
<p>The establishment of an <a href="https://www.up.ac.za/news/post_3052883-university-of-pretoria-african-centre-for-the-study-of-the-united-states-turns-its-critical-gaze-on-the-super-power">African Centre for the Study of the United States at the University of Pretoria</a> should be seen against this background. It aims to contribute to overcoming Africa’s knowledge deficit in its relations with the US.</p>
<p>The new unit seeks to create knowledge and train experts that African countries need in their <a href="https://www.africaportal.org/features/returning-gaze-why-we-need-more-african-think-tanks-study-united-states/">embassies, foreign ministries, corporates and academia</a> to influence the formulation of domestic and foreign policies that further the interests of African states. The same applies to Africa’s media and civil society. </p>
<h2>Importance of Africa studying the US</h2>
<p>The US has been studying Africa for 74 years. It has <a href="https://www.up.ac.za/news/post_3052883-university-of-pretoria-african-centre-for-the-study-of-the-united-states-turns-its-critical-gaze-on-the-super-power">over 150 degree programmes on African Studies</a>, and <a href="https://www.africaportal.org/features/returning-gaze-why-we-need-more-african-think-tanks-study-united-states/">about 40 centres for African studies</a>. Africa has only three looking the other way. </p>
<p>This mismatch in knowledge production means the continent relates to the US from a position of disadvantage. For example, African states and the continent as a bloc do not have a defined policy towards the US. On the other hand, US policy towards Africa is shaped by knowledge from its several research think tanks on Africa. </p>
<p>Without a clear African policy towards the US that is based on evidence, the continent is unable to leverage opportunities from bilateral and multilateral relations with the superpower. The <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/longer-term-impact-african-growth-and-opportunity-act">Africa Growth and Opportunity Act</a> is a good example.</p>
<p>So, what other factors account for why it is important for Africans to study the US nation and society?</p>
<p>Africa needs to understand the US to inform its thinking, actions and interactions with the global superpower. This includes political relations to economic and trade relations, cultural intersections and exchanges. </p>
<p>Given its superpower status and its economic and military interests in Africa, the US has been an important actor in Africa’s present and future. It also has important cultural connections to the continent through the African diaspora, and its African-American population.</p>
<p>In general, the African diaspora remains largely untapped by the continent in its quest for global influence and agency. That’s because it has not studied its diaspora in the US and elsewhere as much as it should. </p>
<p>The Biden Administration’s policy is to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-africa-policy-biden-administration/2021/11/19/cc11c95c-4933-11ec-95dc-5f2a96e00fa3_story.html">engage African countries as equal partners</a>. This represents a shift in US policy towards Africa, which was mainly driven by Cold War imperatives and competition with China, to mutually a beneficial partnership.</p>
<p>The US ranks second after China in terms of <a href="https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/markets/china-ranks-ahead-of-america-as-the-largest-investor-in-africa-since-2010/62532rh">job creation in Africa</a>. </p>
<p>At $50 billion, the US was the <a href="https://unctad.org/news/foreign-direct-investment-africa-defies-global-slump-rises-11">third largest investor in Africa</a> after France ($64 billion) and the Netherlands ($63 billion), in 2017. The UK and China trailed behind the US. Each invested $43 billion in 2017. </p>
<p>Besides trade and investments, the US also has a huge technological and cultural impact in Africa. It also has <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-foreign-countries-are-scrambling-to-set-up-bases-in-africa-146032">more military bases in Africa</a> than any other nation. </p>
<p>In terms of political systems, there are more liberal democracies than autocracies on the continent. This makes the US an interesting case study on democracy for Africa. This is especially so with the US predicted to become a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/03/us-rightwing-dictatorship-2030-trump-canada">right-wing dictatorship in 2030</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, American health system benefits from one of Africa’s most underrated exports annually – brain power. A whopping 23% of its physicians <a href="https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1478-4491-2-17">were trained in Africa</a>. Between 2004 and 2013 there was a 40% increase in the <a href="https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2013/09/18/brain-drain/">migration of African physicians to the US</a>. </p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Africa, thherefore, needs more institutions that cast a penetrative gaze on the US. These should create the relevant knowledge for formulating evidence-based domestic and foreign policies that serve it best interests in engagements with the global superpower.</p>
<p>Obtaining a critical analytical understanding of the US – and other nations – is vital for developing pan-Africanist agency, and common positions in its dealings with the rest of the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178829/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US has about 40 centres that focus on African studies. Africa has only three looking the other way.Tawana Kupe, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University, University of PretoriaChristopher Isike, Professor of African Politics and International Relations, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1632832021-06-23T13:57:12Z2021-06-23T13:57:12ZMzilikazi Khumalo: iconic composer who defied apartheid odds to leave a rich legacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407928/original/file-20210623-13-19zdkz6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The late Professor Mzilikazi Khumalo helped create the new South African National Anthem, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bongiwe Mchunu/ANA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Professor James Steven Mzilikazi Khumalo (1932-2021), who has <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2021-06-22-choral-music-icon-prof-mzilikazi-khumalo-dies-day-after-his-89th-birthday/">died at at the age of 89</a>, had a distinguished career as a linguist, which complemented a stellar career in music.</p>
<p>He was the leading composer and director of choral music to emerge from South Africa. His opera, Princess Magogo, was the first by a black South African. Today he is among the most widely performed of all South African composers. </p>
<p>He achieved international recognition for performances of his major works <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/07/arts/opera-review-varied-cultures-entwine-around-a-zulu-princess.html">in Europe and the US</a>. This is especially remarkable considering he had no formal qualifications in music, and composed entirely in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/tonic-solfa">tonic sol-fa</a> rather than <a href="http://openmusictheory.com/basicNotation.html">staff notation</a>.</p>
<p>Khumalo worked to publish and popularise dual notation, which combined the <em>do-re-mi</em> of tonic solfa with the score based notations used by art music composers. This transformed the choral sphere. For decades composers and choirs had relied almost entirely on tonic solfa. </p>
<p>His innovations in notation also opened up new vistas for choral works in African idioms and languages. This enabled choral musicians to work seamlessly with orchestras and opera companies. His expertise in African tone systems lent considerable authority to his innovations in notation.</p>
<p>Khumalo collaborated with important conductors, composers, librettists and companies to stage genre-defining works. Librettist and fellow linguist, Professor Themba Msimang, was his principal artistic collaborator on the epic “uShaka kaSenzangakhona” (1981/1996), and the opera “Princess Magogo” (2002). He arranged the song cycle “Haya Mntwan’ Omkhulu” (1999) with fellow composer Professor Peter Klatzow.</p>
<p>These works were performed to acclaim – including at the Ravinia Festival, Kennedy Centre, and many other venues across the globe.</p>
<h2>Entry into academia</h2>
<p>Khumalo spent most of his career teaching, first in schools, and then at the University of the Witwatersrand. </p>
<p>In the 1980s – with apartheid still at its height and South Africa in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/13/world/state-of-emergency-imposed-throughout-south-africa-more-than-1000-rounded-up.html">state of emergency</a> – he became the first black <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/graduations/2015/honorary-doctorate-for-james-khumalo.html">professor of African languages</a> at the university. He was also its first black head of the department of African languages. </p>
<p>These achievements are extraordinary considering the obstacles he faced. In the 1950s, he was unable to study at South Africa’s major universities owing to the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00358536008452233?journalCode=ctrt20">racial segregation under apartheid</a>.</p>
<p>Khumalo studied first for a teacher’s diploma through the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/national-heritage-site-in-ruins-20171118">Bantu Normal College</a> in Pretoria in 1954, before taking his Bachelor of Arts degree through the University of South Africa (UNISA) in 1956. He later achieved the Bachelor of Arts Honours by correspondence, also through UNISA, in 1972.</p>
<p>Khumalo’s appointment at the University of the Witwatersrand was initially as a language tutor. At the time most black scholars were not recognised as lecturers at the country’s white universities. Instead, they were handed tutoring or assistant roles. He persisted with his studies in African languages and linguistics, achieving a landmark and highly sophisticated theoretical treatise on Zulu tonology – the study of linguistic tone and pitch – for his Masters degree.</p>
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<p>His doctoral studies were in phonology, a sub-field of linguistics devoted to the systematic analysis of speech sounds. This work included an important collaboration with Charles Kisseberth, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois, US.</p>
<h2>Languages and music</h2>
<p>Khumalo received the Via Afrika Prize for Linguistic Studies for his article <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02572117.1989.10586780"><em>Leftward Ho! In Zulu Tonology</em></a> published in the South African Journal of African Languages (1990). His outspoken criticism of the colonial nature of linguistic studies in South Africa, and abroad, is captured in published papers that speak to the rising <a href="http://www.historicalstudies.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_tool/images/149/Decolonizing%20the%20university%20New%20Directions%20-%20Achille%20Joseph%20Mbembe.pdf">decolonial</a> movement in academia. </p>
<p>Indigenous language speakers in South Africa were underrepresented in the study of African languages before Khumalo’s time. It was through his efforts as teacher and mentor that the discipline began to transform.</p>
<p>Khumalo’s contributions to choral music are exemplified in his work with school, church, and community choirs, and especially through the Salvation Army. He toured the US, Europe and the Caribbean. He also established important cultural ties with the African diaspora during apartheid. </p>
<p>He was also pivotal in establishing the <em><a href="https://africlassical.blogspot.com/2007/10/sowetan-nation-building-massed-choir.html">Sowetan Nation Building Massed Choir Festival</a></em> which he co-directed with <a href="https://www.odunion.com/news/archives-history/663/663-Two-New-National-Anthems-Reminiscence-4-by-Richard-Cock">Maestro Richard Cock</a> from its inception. This annual event was organised by the <em>Sowetan</em> newspaper, in collaboration with <a href="https://www.transnet.net/Pages/Home.aspx">Transnet</a>, the transport utility. It was televised by the South African Broadcasting Corporation. It attracted thousands of participants and audiences each year.</p>
<p>It became one of the premiere events for young singers and soloists, many of whom went on to achieve success both locally and abroad.</p>
<p>It was in this context that Khumalo and Cock first pioneered the innovative system of dual notation (tonic solfa with staff notation) that has become a staple in South Africa.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407945/original/file-20210623-27-exu4v3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407945/original/file-20210623-27-exu4v3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407945/original/file-20210623-27-exu4v3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407945/original/file-20210623-27-exu4v3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407945/original/file-20210623-27-exu4v3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407945/original/file-20210623-27-exu4v3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407945/original/file-20210623-27-exu4v3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Professor Mzilikazi Khumalo conducts at a Massed Choir Festival in Johannesburg, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Mogaki/Sowetan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Khumalo furthered this project at the <a href="https://samro.org.za/">Southern African Music Rights Organisation</a>) where he served as vice-chairperson following his retirement from the university in 1997. In his role as a trustee of the <a href="http://www.samrofoundation.org.za/">organisation’s foundation</a>, he promoted African art and choral music through commissions. This meant that deserving young and established composers were granted the opportunities and financial resources to dedicate themselves to the creation of new works. </p>
<p>He also pioneered the publication of three volumes of <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/4adf58e88cd2e730a407f28eb0468c05/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2029870"><em>South Africa Sings</em></a>, profiling the works of South Africa’s black choral composers in popular publications.</p>
<h2>Accolades</h2>
<p>Khumalo’s contributions to choral music were recognised by former arts and culture minister <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/dr-ben-ngubane-born">Ben Ngubane</a>, who appointed him chair of the national anthem committee for South Africa in 1995. Khumalo was instrumental in advocating for <em><a href="https://www.gov.za/about-sa/national-symbols/national-anthem">Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika</a></em> as the basis for a new anthem for the country. It was his idea to join the new and old anthems for purposes of reconciliation. </p>
<p>In 1999, he was awarded the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/order-star-south-africa">Order of the Star</a> by President Nelson Mandela in recognition of his contributions to the nation.</p>
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<p>Khumalo’s achievements in and out of academia – as musician, public intellectual, linguist, and administrator – were recognised with honorary degrees from five South African universities. He also received a <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/graduations/2015/honorary-doctorate-for-james-khumalo.html">Lifetime Achievement Literary Award</a> from MNET in 2007. He was Professor Emeritus of African Languages at Wits University at the time of death. </p>
<p>The fact that he achieved all of this against the odds is testament to his brilliantly original mind, and to the qualities of discipline, determination, and leadership that define his legacy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163283/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Pooley receives funding from the University of Michigan for his work on Professor Mzilikazi Khumalo's intellectual legacy.</span></em></p>Mzilikazi Khumalo was a brilliant linguist with a stellar career in music. These achievements are extraordinary considering the obstacles he faced throughout his career.Thomas Pooley, Associate Professor and Chair of Department: Art and Music, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1491672020-11-08T19:05:13Z2020-11-08T19:05:13ZNot a day passes without thinking about race: what African migrants told us about parenting in Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367409/original/file-20201104-19-hqztht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C5982%2C3988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Race informs how Black parents raise their children in Australia. Our <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cfs.12799">study</a>, published in the journal Child and Family Social Work, found it complicates parenting in ways that non-Black parents might not have to consider. </p>
<p>We interviewed 27 highly skilled professional African migrants from eight different Sub-Saharan African countries about their experiences of employment, belonging and parenting in Australia. Parents of Black African children told us they had to consider how race affected the identity, perception, opportunities and well-being of their children. </p>
<p>One parent, who overheard her daughter telling her (white) friends about her experiences as a Black teenager, reflected:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This week I heard her tell one of her friends; there is no one day that passes without her thinking about this (race). Yeah, and her friends were really, really […] shocked. They said they do not have to think about it. Then, she said, ‘Every day when I get on to the bus, you know, I think about who I am and if somebody is going to say something, when I am on the streets, you know, I think about what will somebody think or say or do.’</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367612/original/file-20201104-21-1fkxo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of children run around at school." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367612/original/file-20201104-21-1fkxo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367612/original/file-20201104-21-1fkxo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367612/original/file-20201104-21-1fkxo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367612/original/file-20201104-21-1fkxo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367612/original/file-20201104-21-1fkxo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367612/original/file-20201104-21-1fkxo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367612/original/file-20201104-21-1fkxo8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parents of Black African children report having to consider how race affected the identity, perception, opportunities and well-being of their children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/growing-up-african-in-australia-racism-resilience-and-the-right-to-belong-113121">Growing Up African in Australia: racism, resilience and the right to belong</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Parenting is complicated by race</h2>
<p>Many parents said they were unprepared for the extent to which race would become a defining marker of their parenting process in Australia. </p>
<p>One parent noted school was especially difficult for his children. He described instances in which his son had been called “a nigger” and threatened with violence, as well as fighting for his daughter’s rights to wear her afro-natural hair in school.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It put a lot of pressure on them and on me as a parent to explain without creating differences between them and the white kids […] We create a lot of explanations and conversations around who they are.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Parents of Black men and boys, in particular, reported feeling more concerned about the stereotype of black masculinity and how much more likely their sons were to be criminalised or <a href="https://www.policeaccountability.org.au/issues-and-cases/racial-profiling/">profiled by police</a>.</p>
<p>One parent said she constantly reminds her son that, because he is a young African male, he must </p>
<blockquote>
<p>…always be conscious wherever he goes or wherever he is.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some parents reported feeling overwhelmed and unprepared to support their children to deal with racial slurs, <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/02/microaggression">micro-aggressions</a> (such as racial “jokes”, comments and “nicknames”) and racial exotification (such as hair-touching, invasive questions about their bodies or being described as “exotic”). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367401/original/file-20201104-23-1s2yf9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A parent and child cuddle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367401/original/file-20201104-23-1s2yf9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367401/original/file-20201104-23-1s2yf9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367401/original/file-20201104-23-1s2yf9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367401/original/file-20201104-23-1s2yf9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367401/original/file-20201104-23-1s2yf9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367401/original/file-20201104-23-1s2yf9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367401/original/file-20201104-23-1s2yf9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parents of Black men and boys, in particular, reported feeling more concerned about the stereotype of black masculinity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Teaching Black children about racial dignity</h2>
<p>Participants reported a significant aspect of parenting involved teaching their children about their blackness and self-worth.</p>
<p>Because blackness is often inferiorised in white-dominant contexts, many told us they felt if their children weren’t taught about racial dignity and self-worth, they would grow up internalising feelings of inferiority. </p>
<p>One parent explained how, for her two children:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have conversations about what they look like, how they are different to other people, and people may want to point out those differences. [We teach them] being different does not mean being inferior or anything like that […] we talk to them to be confident about who they are and to be proud about where they have come from and their African heritage.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another parent reflected:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have had instances […] where he has sort of alluded to the fact that somebody told him, ‘You are Black, you are not like us’. And we have taken that up very quickly with the school authorities (but) we have (also) tried to tell him in a soft way […] being African doesn’t make him inferior.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘Having the talk’ and affirming children’s experiences</h2>
<p>Most parents in this study considered that explicitly teaching their children about race was necessary while growing up in Australia. </p>
<p>This involved “<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/article-black-parents-having-the-talk-with-younger-kids-to-prepare-them-for/">having the talk</a>” and explaining to children about why their skin colour was different — preparing them to live in a world where their blackness was sometimes going to be a hindrance and how deal with such instances, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrqufuL6eD8">interactions with police</a>. </p>
<p>This process of teaching children about race and racism while also sharing positive cultural knowledge, concepts racial dignity and resilience is called <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16953684/">racial socialisation</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367405/original/file-20201104-13-xj3r2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A parent and child walk to school." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367405/original/file-20201104-13-xj3r2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367405/original/file-20201104-13-xj3r2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367405/original/file-20201104-13-xj3r2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367405/original/file-20201104-13-xj3r2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367405/original/file-20201104-13-xj3r2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367405/original/file-20201104-13-xj3r2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367405/original/file-20201104-13-xj3r2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most parents in this study reported explicitly teaching their children about race and racism was necessary while growing up in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, despite the efforts to instil a sense of pride about their African heritage in their children, many parents also encouraged their children to “curate or minimise” their blackness and/or Africanness in an effort to reduce their experiences of racism or racial profiling. </p>
<p>Others told us they pushed their children “to be exemplary”; that they <em>had</em> to be great representatives of the African/Black communities. </p>
<p>For the children, these expectations from family can lead to their blackness being worn as a “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244017720483">burden</a>”. Parents, however, saw it as a necessary form of racial socialisation that prepares their children to <a href="https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.13461?casa_token=9mOVlkg_Ry8AAAAA%3ASl7ezA1JYR9g4nqfT1i9OQMPW8J10noYs6PMptZj-AN-9r1Z8TI7RztSyVfPhFeGhuuOC-iRgqj03eZ-">face racial discrimination</a> with greater resilience.</p>
<h2>‘Colour-blind parenting’</h2>
<p>A minority of parents interviewed believed their children “<a href="https://www.todaysparent.com/kids/preschool/no-kids-are-not-colourblind/">do not see colour</a>” and tried their best “not to make race an issue”. One parent, for example, said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We always taught our children race is not an issue, we are all the same, so it was easy for them to fit in.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another parent said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…when it comes to my children, they do not really have that idea of […] ‘I am a certain colour’ […] we’ve not had that conversation because there has been no reason to. We are people, we are not ‘coloured’ people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/03/30/the-danger-of-teaching-children-to-be-colorblind/">colour-blind parenting</a>” aligns with mainstream Australian ideas that people “are all the same”, and that racism is not a significant issue in contemporary multicultural Australia. </p>
<p>While well-intentioned, such an approach might make it harder for children to discuss potential experiences of “racial otherness” with their parents.</p>
<h2>Where to from here?</h2>
<p>Media representations of African migrant families often depict irreconcilable cultural clashes after relocation. But our interviewees were able to successfully adapt and change their parenting behaviour and attitudes after migrating, which improved family dynamics.</p>
<p>If you’re a parent, talk with your children about race and racism, and its effects. It is important Black children know that they are not imagining their racialised experiences.</p>
<p>Think about ways you can introduce these concepts to your children. Young children can understand complex concepts when discussed in age-appropriate terms — and through humour. </p>
<p>Children’s books such as Sharee Miller’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/38929947-don-t-touch-my-hair">Don’t touch my hair!</a>, for example, help introduce the importance of setting — and respecting — personal boundaries. </p>
<p>We also summarised some tips on how to raise racially conscious children in an SBS video <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/voices/culture/article/2020/06/21/how-raise-racially-conscious-children">here</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-politics-of-black-hair-an-australian-perspective-93270">The politics of black hair: an Australian perspective</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Witnessing their children’s experiences of racism was particularly difficult, parents reported.Kathomi Gatwiri PhD, Senior lecturer, Southern Cross UniversityLeticia Anderson, Lecturer in Humanities, Southern Cross UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1370162020-09-13T07:37:03Z2020-09-13T07:37:03ZBlack Lives Matter but slavery isn’t our only narrative<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353709/original/file-20200819-42970-1ayov5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Slave memorial in Zanzibar.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eye Ubiquitous/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Our historical understanding of Blackness is most commonly shaped by the story of the Atlantic slave trade – the forced movement of Africans to the West, in particular to the Americas. But this is a linear narrative that is dominated by American voices. It’s not just potentially exclusory; it doesn’t adequately take into account the diversity of black people worldwide. The same is true of <a href="https://www.contemporaryand.com/magazines/the-forgotten-social-history-of-international-blackness/">Blackness</a> studies, which continue to be dominated by and serve the interests of Western scholarship. Aretha Phiri asks Michelle M. Wright, professor and author of <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/becoming-black/?viewby=title">Becoming Black</a>: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora, about her work in disrupting the slavery narrative.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Aretha Phiri:</strong> To start with a recent development, the Black Lives Matter <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com">movement</a> appears to have gained global momentum. And yet its impact seems to be mainly in the global North. Does this suggest that black people’s experience of race and racism is not universal? </p>
<p><strong>Michelle M. Wright:</strong> The fight for freedom is important, but it really has to include everybody. This requires some radical rethinking. We have to ask who gets to access contemporary spaces. Who has the time (and money) to join in the fight according to the times and places set by the leaders? Who speaks the language we have chosen to communicate in, and who is left out? Black folks are astonishingly diverse in their cultures, histories, languages, religions, so no single definition of Blackness is going to fit everyone. When we fail to consider this, we effectively leave many Black people out of the conversation.</p>
<p><strong>Aretha Phiri:</strong> Slavery’s afterlife is central to Black Lives Matter’s important call for racial and structural justice and equality. Yet, in your <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1548-7466.2010.01072.x">paper</a>, Black in Time: Diaspora, Diversity and Identity, you trouble the dominance of a corresponding “Middle Passage” epistemology as racially reductive. What is broadly meant by “Middle Passage” thinking and how is it disseminated by US-based scholars?</p>
<p><strong>Michelle M. Wright:</strong> In most US (and European) academic conversations, the “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Middle-Passage-slave-trade">Middle Passage</a>” – also known as the Atlantic slave trade – is used interchangeably with the African “<a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/anthropology-and-archaeology/human-evolution/african-diaspora">diaspora</a>” – the dispersal of Black and African people from their “original”, typically (West) African locales to North America. This linear mapping is not just convenient, it is false. Ninety-five percent of enslaved Africans were transported to South America and the Caribbean, not the US; not to mention the millions of slaves who were transported east to places like Turkey and India. Reinforced by a linear timeline which is understood to “progressively” track history, this mapping further distorts history in service to the West. That is, because (West) Africa is the starting point, the tendency is to view it as embedded in “the past” and the West as aligned with “the future”. </p>
<p>In my <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Physics_of_Blackness.html?id=0Za4oAEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">book</a>, <em>Physics of Blackness: Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology</em>, I call this particular mapping of Blackness the “Middle Passage epistemology”. It’s a specific form of knowledge or way of knowing (the world) that is oriented to the West, specifically to America. This is problematic not just because it hierarchises or “ranks” Blackness, but also because (transatlantic) scholarship on Black African diaspora is often imagined through historical and cultural parameters in which “Middle Passage Blackness” is the norm, often the only representation of Blackness. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355831/original/file-20200901-24-1pti2kf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sculpture of a woman protester rests in a waste skip, her fist in the air." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355831/original/file-20200901-24-1pti2kf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355831/original/file-20200901-24-1pti2kf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355831/original/file-20200901-24-1pti2kf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355831/original/file-20200901-24-1pti2kf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355831/original/file-20200901-24-1pti2kf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355831/original/file-20200901-24-1pti2kf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355831/original/file-20200901-24-1pti2kf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A statue of a Black Lives Matter protester in Bristol was put in the place of a statue of a slave trader - and then removed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Aretha Phiri:</strong> Building on your observation, I am struck by the continued influence in South African universities of Paul Gilroy’s seminal text <em>The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness</em> in particular and US-based <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/b/black-atlantic">Black Atlantic</a> studies in general. Where these foreground the global influences and contributions of Black peoples, they also unfortunately disseminate “Middle Passage” thinking which situates Africa in the past. What are the other challenges presented here?</p>
<p><strong>Michelle M. Wright:</strong> Not only is what is typically represented in Black Atlantic scholarship narrow, it is almost always heterosexual and masculinist. It struggles to imagine race and racism outside of the threat of emasculation and racial futures and racial pasts outside of a heteropatriarchal norm. </p>
<p>Most recently, the famous <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html">1619 Project</a> in The <em>New York Times</em> aimed at documenting the impact of slavery on the US. But it focuses almost exclusively on Black men in African American history, eliding the achievements of women and queer folks. This leads to the assumption that it is heterosexual Black men who played the major contributory roles. But our earliest <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/abolitionism-European-and-American-social-movement">abolitionist</a> movements were started by Black women, our first Presidential candidate was a Black woman, and it was Black queer activists like James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin who were central to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/American-civil-rights-movement">Civil Rights Movement</a>. So yes, part of the ethical challenge, then, is to recognise that some Black people have much more privilege than others.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/on-decolonising-teaching-practices-not-just-the-syllabus-137280">On decolonising teaching practices, not just the syllabus</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Aretha Phiri:</strong> I am struck, again, at how your analysis is relevant to Black African scholarship, where considerations of women and queer bodies have also historically been obscured or omitted…</p>
<p><strong>Michelle M. Wright:</strong> Racial metanarratives are inherently limiting. It’s very difficult for Black Africans, much less Black Europeans and Black peoples of the Pacific and Central and South America, to read themselves through the dominant (US) framings of Blackness. For example, if you are a Kenyan living in Mombasa, chances are high that your greatest preoccupation is not racist white cops, but violence from <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/02/20/kenya-no-letup-killings-nairobi-police">Black Kenyan policemen</a>. And here we are, one scholar Zimbabwean/South African, the other a US citizen born and raised in Western Europe, both women, myself queer. The “Middle Passage” epistemology fails because it dictates that you belong to the past and I belong to the present and future. But history, nationality, gender, class and sexuality intersected us here at this exchange even as we came through different paths and bring different experiences, outlooks and philosophies. </p>
<p><em>This article is part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=%23BlackAtlanticsSeries">series</a> called Decolonising the Black Atlantic in which black and queer women literary academics rethink and disrupt traditional Black Atlantic studies. The series is based on papers delivered at the <a href="https://stias.ac.za/events/revising-the-black-atlantic-african-diaspora-perspectives/">Revising the Black Atlantic: African Diaspora Perspectives</a> colloquium at the <a href="https://stias.ac.za">Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aretha Phiri is an NRF-rated researcher and previously a fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle M Wright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Black Lives Matter brings the slavery story into the present in America – but it leaves Africa stuck in the past.Aretha Phiri, Associate Professor, Department of Literary Studies in English, Rhodes UniversityMichelle M Wright, Professor, Emory UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1453002020-08-31T05:54:53Z2020-08-31T05:54:53ZTowards Wakanda – Chadwick Boseman’s passing and the power and limits of Afrofuturism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355448/original/file-20200831-22-ygmn6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C21%2C1763%2C893&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjE4Mjk0MjY1MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzg2NjI5MzI@._V1_SX1777_CR0,0,1777,937_AL_.jpg">Black Panther/IMDB</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re not a comics fan, you may have been surprised at the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/29/us/most-liked-tweet-of-all-time-chadwick-boseman-trnd/index.html?fbclid=IwAR1gOLYtIbL-5KIldoR779qme0B0_SVX39v8IsQp6HT8GHsVMYFxsQmevz8">extent</a> of the <a href="https://twitter.com/amjoyshow/status/1299715220445843457?s=20.">heartfelt</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/29/chadwick-boseman-helped-us-understand-our-history-his-death-shatters-our-hearts/">grief</a> expressed following the death of actor Chadwick Boseman. </p>
<p>One explanation lies in the extraordinary power of the 2018 movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/?ref_=ttmi_tt">Black Panther</a>, in which Boseman starred as T’Challa/Black Panther, to address racist stereotypes about Africa and Africans. </p>
<p>Boseman’s character was heir to the hidden kingdom of Wakanda, a mythical African nation free of European colonisation. The film’s subtext explores African Americans’ varying identifications, past and present, with Africa and a global Black diaspora. </p>
<h2>Dark continent</h2>
<p>Westerners’ ideas about Africa are steeped in myth. The United States, <a href="https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hi/introduction-lectures.htm#q">wrote German philosopher Georg Hegel in 1830</a>, was “the land of the future”. Africa, by contrast, was “the land of childhood” where history was meaningless. European powers dubbed it the “Dark Continent”, as if its people could never make progress.</p>
<p><a href="https://pages.vassar.edu/realarchaeology/2017/03/05/phrenology-and-scientific-racism-in-the-19th-century/">Fields of science emerged to classify human beings</a>, relying on simplistic notions of evolution and psychology. They all agreed “black” people inhabited the ladder’s bottom rung.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4VSx2E7WE50?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘We must find a way to look after one another … as if we were one single tribe.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From explorer <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/henry-morton-stanleys-unbreakable-will-99405/">Henry Morton Stanley</a>’s tales of impenetrable jungles to the <a href="https://www.historybyday.com/pop-culture/the-men-behind-tarzan-the-real-life-jungle-man-and-the-troubled-author-who-brought-him-to-life/">Tarzan</a> novels and early “talkie” films, entertainment portrayed Africa as irredeemably backward.</p>
<p>These (pseudo) scientific and cultural stereotypes underpinned colonisation. They served Western extraction of Africa’s natural resources, enslavement of Africans and of their descendants all over the Americas.</p>
<h2>Breaking chains and forging links</h2>
<p>Such ideas meant that when Black Americans broke slavery’s chains, starting in the 1820s in northern US states and ending in 1865, it was not straightforward to claim African allegiance. The Atlantic and internal slave trades had devastated ties between families and communities on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. </p>
<p>Black Americans had, instead, forged ties between themselves in the United States. This meant few people (roughly 12,000) were keen to migrate to Liberia, established by the <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/american-colonization-society-1816-1964/">American Colonization Society</a> in 1816. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-louisiana-to-queensland-how-american-slave-owners-started-again-in-australia-140725">From Louisiana to Queensland: how American slave owners started again in Australia</a>
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<p>By the 1920s, with memories of enslavement the preserve of older people, Black Americans began once again to forge links to Africa. Marcus Garvey’s <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/garvey/">Universal Negro Improvement Association</a> suggested a global black United States of Africa. When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, African Americans were incensed. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="African American woman with afro hairstyle" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355473/original/file-20200831-16-f8nr4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Colourised portrait of activist and academic Angela Davis. Original black and white negative by Bernard Gotfryd (1974).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1597954088261-4dc20374af14?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=1268&q=80">US Library of Congress/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1960s–70s era of <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/black-power#:%7E:text=Black%20Power%20was%20a%20revolutionary,of%20political%20and%20cultural%20institutions.">Black Power</a>, accelerated by film and television, ties to Africa became more prominent again. </p>
<p>Activists changed their names: Stokely Carmichael became Kwame Ture; Cassius Clay chose Muhammad Ali; and JoAnne Byron’s rebirth was as Assata Shakur. More widespread was the adoption of <a href="https://timeline.com/harlem-couple-afrocentric-fashion-dashiki-2e806f792794">dashikis</a> and “natural” <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1343885">hairstyles</a>. </p>
<p>Interest in Africa spiked dramatically with Alex Haley’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/546018.Roots">Roots: the Saga of an American Family</a>. The book (1976) and the miniseries (1977) told the story of Haley’s “furtherest-back ancestor”, Kunta Kinte, and his generations of American descendants.</p>
<p>In more recent decades, Black American <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/africa/black-americans-are-going-to-west-africa-in-search-of-roots/">tourism to Africa</a> has soared as people seek out their own roots. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/growing-up-african-in-australia-racism-resilience-and-the-right-to-belong-113121">Growing Up African in Australia: racism, resilience and the right to belong</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<h2>A different world</h2>
<p>In Black Panther, Chadwick Boseman – along with a host of other wonderful actors, and director and screenwriters Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole – brought to life a “<a href="https://time.com/black-panther/">splendidly black</a>” utopian vision. The film, which reverses stereotypes about Africa, <a href="https://twitter.com/FallonTonight/status/1299709632752033798?s=20">delighted</a> many African American fans.</p>
<p>In Wakanda, the fictional metal vibranium is the bedrock of a society in which wealth is distributed so justly that both men and women thrive and King T’Challa can stroll the city streets unnoticed.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black Panther Marvel Comic books." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355485/original/file-20200831-21-1jt70ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Comics from the Black Panther series.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1574959540245-2a2a574a0375?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=1575&q=80">Alicia Quan/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Vibranium represents the resources of the 54 countries of Africa, whose extraction has not, on the whole, benefited Africans. It is mahogany, ivory, rubber, diamonds, salt, gold, copper, and uranium. </p>
<p>Black Panther draws on an artistic movement known as <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/afrofuturism">Afrofuturism</a>, in which knowledge about past violence and injustice inform an imagined future built on equality. Afrofuturists have included <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/zama18740">novelists</a> Sutton E. Griggs and George Schuyler in the early days, and later Octavia Butler, Samuel Delaney, and Ishmael Reed, and now N. K. Jemisin and Colson Whitehead. </p>
<p>Afrofuturist musicians include <a href="https://www.treblezine.com/beginners-guide-sun-ra-music/">Sun Ra</a>, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/how-george-clinton-made-funk-a-world-view">George Clinton and P-Funk</a>, and recently <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/5/16/17318242/janelle-monae-science-fiction-influences-afrofuturism">Janelle Monáe</a>.</p>
<h2>Black is King</h2>
<p>Beyoncé’s new visual album <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12607910/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Black Is King</a> also draws on the Afrofuturist tradition. </p>
<p>It <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/08/07/899421948/opinion-we-are-africans-heres-our-view-of-beyonc-s-black-is-king">has been criticised</a> for prioritising aesthetics over politics. In particular, Beyoncé’s effort to reclaim colonial stereotypes linking Africans to flora and fauna by donning couture animal prints has drawn mixed responses. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Singer Beyonce in leopard print on car with suited men" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355484/original/file-20200831-23-1hri08y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Beyoncé’s Black is King is a lush aesthetic exploration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://photos-cdn.aap.com.au/Image/20200728001482142873?path=/aap_dev2/imagearc/2020/07-28/38/b0/e3/aapimage-7bmns8wcoo91j0glx9en_layout.jpg">Travis Matthews/Disney Plus via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dedicated to her son, Black Is King falls into a long tradition of romanticising black ancestors as kings and queens. Criticising this tendency, <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/117353615/we-can-t-go-home-again-an-argument-about-afrocentrism">historian Clarence Walker has asked</a>: “If Everybody Was a King, Who Built the Pyramids?” </p>
<p>But kingship is also a metaphor for the power of history, properly told. “History is your future,” Beyoncé tells the film’s young king. An exchange following the track Brown Skinned Girl starts with a male voice saying, “Systematically, we’ve had so much taken from us”. A second voice responds:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Being a king is taking what’s yours. But not just for selfish reasons, but to actually build up your community. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>King T’Challa comes to the same realisation and at the end of Black Panther, we see him leave his tech-whizz sister at the helm of a new Wakandan outreach centre in Oakland, California.</p>
<p>In both Black Is King and Black Panther, global connections underpin a reimagined future universe – a marvellous one, even – where disadvantage and injustice stemming from racism are overcome. Wakanda forever.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1299794910837694464"}"></div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clare Corbould has received funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Australian Greens.</span></em></p>Both Black Panther and Beyoncé’s Black is King represent a utopian vision of empowerment and connection to Africa.Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1386462020-05-31T08:24:29Z2020-05-31T08:24:29ZHow African diaspora footballers juggle the identity question<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335081/original/file-20200514-77271-hnbkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Riyad Mahrez is one of several French born footballers currently playing for African countries</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sport is a useful prism through which to explore aspects of national identity. This is particularly so with football, given its popularity and global reach. International teams are often portrayed as the embodiment of the nation for the duration of a match. They carry the nation’s hopes and dreams. </p>
<p>Yet it’s becoming common to see footballers competing for a country other than the one they were born or raised in. The regulations allow this if they are eligible for citizenship of the country. </p>
<p>This raises questions for those interested in issues of identity, citizenship and belonging. An investigation into how many players transfer their sporting allegiance and why can shed light on the often complex, multi-layered and contingent nature of national identity.</p>
<p>I conducted a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17430437.2018.1555228">study</a> into the question of the identity choices of players with African family backgrounds. This revealed that players choose which country to represent for different reasons. Some players may be motivated by a sense of cultural affinity. For others it’s an opportunity to play international football and advance their career. </p>
<h2>Switching allegiance</h2>
<p>In recent years, a number of <a href="https://www.ozy.com/the-new-and-the-next/the-reverse-migration-fueling-africas-soccer-hopes/87616/">African countries</a> have opted to select players born outside the national territory. The sizeable African diaspora in Europe provides an expanded field of potential talent. Colonial history and continuing migrant links mean there are many European-born footballers with close ethnic and family ties to African countries, so it makes pragmatic sense to tap into that resource.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/sports/world-cup-morocco.html">Morocco </a>and Algeria have for some time been prominent in drawing on their diasporas. They have relied heavily on European-born players of Algerian or Moroccan descent such as <a href="https://www.footchampion.com/why-did-riyad-mahrez-choose-to-defend-algeria-over-france/">Riyad Mahrez</a> and Sofiane Boufal. Some of these players represented France in youth or under-age teams but elected to play for the country of their parents at senior international level. </p>
<p>The extent of this phenomenon is clear if we look at the squads from recent international tournaments. Of the <a href="https://www.optasportspro.com/news-analysis/blog-afcon-2017-the-european-influence-on-africas-premier-tournament/">368 players</a> registered in the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations tournament, 93 were born outside the country they were representing. The majority of these (69) were born in France. A further 22 players, although born in Africa, grew up in a European country.</p>
<p>If these are added to the 93, then approaching one third of players at the tournament were playing for a country they were not born in or had not lived in since early childhood. </p>
<p>At the 2018 FIFA World Cup, five African countries participated in the finals. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/sports/world-cup-morocco.html">Morocco</a> had 15 European-born players, plus another two who grew up in Europe. <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/07/world-cup-fifa-soccer-players-national-teams-foreign-born/">Tunisia and Senegal </a> each had nine while Nigeria had four (plus two more who grew up in Europe). In total, 38 players for these five countries were born in Europe, the majority in France (25). </p>
<p>At the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, of the 552 players registered in the tournament, 129 were born outside the country they were representing. Once again, most of these were born in France – 86. And a further 30 players grew up in a country other than the one in which they were born. Nineteen of Morocco’s squad were born outside the country, 10 of them in France; 14 of Algeria’s squad were born in France. </p>
<p>Overall, it seems francophone African countries in North and West Africa are more prone to draw on their diasporas. France’s colonial past leaves a big footprint on Africa’s sporting present.</p>
<h2>Identity conundrum</h2>
<p>Some players have made it clear in press interviews that identity issues influence their decision. For example, the French-born former Cameroon international Benoît Assou-Ekotta (son of a migrant Cameroonian footballer) has publicly expressed a strong sense of Cameroonian identity. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Me playing for Cameroon was a natural and normal thing. I have no feeling for the France national team; it just doesn’t exist. When people ask of my generation in France, “Where are you from?”, they will reply Morocco, Algeria, Cameroon or wherever.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His comments appear to reflect a wider set of issues relating to marginalisation and discrimination surrounding ethnic minority groups in France and elsewhere, highlighting disaffection and a rejection of French identity.</p>
<p>More pragmatic issues can be seen in the case of Swiss-born Joël Kiassumbua. In a television programme, the then Swiss youth international goalkeeper displayed little interest in his father’s country of DR Congo. (He ended up playing for them at senior level, though.) </p>
<p>In 2013 Saido Berahino, born in Burundi but who came to the United Kingdom as a refugee at the age of ten, spoke of his desire to play for England in highly functional terms:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I want to play at the best level with the best players at the best tournaments.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Five years later he said he would “always be a Burundian” and switched to playing for that country. </p>
<p>The failure to advance to senior level may lead to a decision to represent another country. But it may ultimately come down to the simple issue of which country asks first.</p>
<p>Paul Pogba may be happy to represent France but, had he been less gifted, the French opportunity would likely not have arisen and he might well have followed his brothers’ decisions to represent their parents’ country of Guinea. </p>
<p>Professional motivations may underpin many decisions, but these surely also reflect the duality of the players’ identities. A player’s background will clearly shape their self-identity but the wider socio-political context may have a bearing too. Whatever the feelings and motivations of players, the declaration of a sporting nationality that may differ from an “official” one reinforces the need to see identities as fluid and flexible rather than fixed and unchanging.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Storey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In football, a number of African teams draw heavily on their European-born diasporas, a reflection of a colonial past and deeply entrenched migration routes.David Storey, Principal Lecturer in Geography, University of WorcesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1361942020-04-16T14:19:00Z2020-04-16T14:19:00ZHudeide: a monumental musician who uplifted Somali life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328011/original/file-20200415-153357-1uvkojw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Al Eyad/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are many attributes that capture <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Somalia">Somali</a> identity, however none seem so deep and abiding as these two: constant hyper anxiety over scarce rainfall, and uncommon talent in poetic composition and artistic performance.</p>
<p>The first underscores the ecological brittleness of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Sahel">Sahel</a> landscape; the latter points towards Somali aesthetic creativity. </p>
<p>One of the most towering of these creative figures <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/obituaries/ahmed-ismail-hussein-dead-coronavirus.html">has passed</a> – Ahmed Ismail Hussein, popularly known as Hudeide, commonly spelled ‘Hudeydi’ in the West. </p>
<p>Hudeide was a cultural icon, creator of songs loved by the nation and a touchstone in the making of modern music in Somalia. He died at 91 in London, after complications from contracting <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=COVID-19&sort=relevancy&language=en&date=all&date_from=&date_to=">COVID-19</a>. </p>
<p>I was fortunate to <a href="https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&context=bildhaan">interview him</a> in 2007, and immediately saw why Somalis everywhere found the man enchanting: tall and handsome, a deep voice, a mixture of playfulness and seriousness of artistic purpose.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328017/original/file-20200415-153351-akkc9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328017/original/file-20200415-153351-akkc9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328017/original/file-20200415-153351-akkc9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328017/original/file-20200415-153351-akkc9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328017/original/file-20200415-153351-akkc9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328017/original/file-20200415-153351-akkc9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328017/original/file-20200415-153351-akkc9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328017/original/file-20200415-153351-akkc9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of many tributes to Hudeide.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Somali Production/Facebook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Nation of bards</h2>
<p>The composer and performer took an eminent place in a long tradition. </p>
<p>Historically known as a ‘<a href="https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/198806/a.nation.of.bards.htm">nation of bards</a>’, iconic Somali poets include the likes of <a href="https://oxfordaasc.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195301731.001.0001/acref-9780195301731-e-49802?rskey=7gQPJf&result=12">Raage Ugaas</a>, an erudite composer in the 1800s versed in local folklore. </p>
<p>In the 1900s, figures such as Mohamed Abdille Hassan, Abdillahi Sultan “Timacade” and Abdullahi Maalin Ahmed “Dhoodaan” were exemplars of bold nationalist perspectives, supremacy in vocabulary, and storytelling rich in analogic thought and imagery. </p>
<p>Equally outstanding are the country’s musical talents. Among the greatest was the oud maestro Hudeide. <a href="http://www.maqamworld.com/en/instr/oud.php">The oud</a> or <em>kaman</em> is a string instrument common in the Middle East, North and East Africa, and it’s sound is found at the heart of both classical and popular Somali music. </p>
<p>It was when Hudeide discovered the oud that his musical <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/world/onyourstreet/mshudeydi.shtml">journey</a> really began.</p>
<h2>Early life</h2>
<p>He was born in 1928 in the port of Berbara on the British protectorate of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/British-Somaliland">Somaliland</a> into a family of low-level workers in the colonial administration. He started school in Aden, the bustling main port of the British colony of Yemen. 'Hudeide’ was a nickname given because he had come to Aden from a brief stay at Hodeida on the Red Sea coast. </p>
<p>Hudeide had always been attracted to the beat of the drum, partly from watching and following parades of colourful colonial soldiers, with their drums, that took to the streets of Aden. One day, a young Somali oud player came to town. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328020/original/file-20200415-153347-6n0ah8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328020/original/file-20200415-153347-6n0ah8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328020/original/file-20200415-153347-6n0ah8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328020/original/file-20200415-153347-6n0ah8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328020/original/file-20200415-153347-6n0ah8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328020/original/file-20200415-153347-6n0ah8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328020/original/file-20200415-153347-6n0ah8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328020/original/file-20200415-153347-6n0ah8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hudeide, front right, with Somali singer Fatima, front centre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">lokha/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hudeide was mesmerised by the skill and sound of the troubadour and at once became fixated. He bought an oud and began to pick up lessons here and there, followed, to the chagrin of his parents, by full absorption in the instrument. </p>
<p>He told me that his parents died in relative old age, still in great disapproval of his devotion to music.</p>
<h2>Virtuoso of the oud</h2>
<p>By the late 1950s, Hudeide moved to <a href="https://roadsandkingdoms.com/2015/15-things-to-know-before-you-go-to-hargeisa/">Hargeisa</a>, the small headquarters of what was Somaliland. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.radiohargaysa.net">Radio Hargeisa</a> employed him. The only station in the territory, it was established by the colonial authority. Hudeide was a member of the official band that was assigned to arrange musical scores for songs submitted by distinguished composers and sung by elite singers. Within a few years he found himself in an archipelago of excellence among the senior musicians, loved by the oud players in particular. </p>
<p>There were a number of unique dimensions to his creativity that catapulted him to the forefront of the music world – and kept him there for decades. Perfect communication between his fingers, the strings and his ears; sheer dedication; and the audacity to strive for originality. They would produce what became the ‘Hudeide technique’, a new brand of oud playing. He inspired many generations and directly taught a few in the course of his long life.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wxbh6a3o8bA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Hudeide’s most enduring song, Mother’s Womb.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hudeide’s other rare artistic gifts included the composition of searing ballads that immediately became household phenomena. But his creative production had a wide range. It included political critique and patriotic messages. The famous <em>Haudow Magaca</em> is a moving nationalist composition accompanied by riveting manipulations of his oud strings that urges Somalis of the Ogaaden region to join the new Somali Republic. But it could just as easily include themes like sibling love or peace on earth.</p>
<p>A translation of his 1967 poem <em>Uur Hooyo</em> (Mother’s Womb) is a heartbreaking expression of the bond between brothers:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At the time of my death</p>
<p>It’s you who’ll place me</p>
<p>In the grave, and your hand</p>
<p>Throw the final soil.</p>
<p>My human inheritance</p>
<p>The one closest to me</p>
<p>The trials of the world</p>
<p>Have brought us apart.</p>
<p>I cannot endure</p>
<p>Being on my own</p>
<p>I sway with melancholy</p>
<p>I am no better off</p>
<p>Than a lone son.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Grounded cosmopolitan</h2>
<p>In 1993, with the Somali republic in the midst of horrendous <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/12/timeline-somalia-1991-2008/307190/">civil war</a>, Hudeide settled into the secure but melancholy condition of the <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/anthropology-and-archaeology/human-evolution/african-diaspora">diaspora</a> experience in London. </p>
<p>Once in a while, he met with other noted artists in exile, living in different parts of the city. He performed on special occasions and taught a few keen students, but mostly kept to himself. </p>
<p>In one of Hudeidi’s final creative moments, he ruminated on what it meant to be a citizen of a new country (Britain) and the larger global society – a kind of a grounded cosmopolitan. Meditating on the ugliness of possible nuclear war, the old oud maestro turned to writing apocalyptic poetry. A translation of <em>Dhulka</em> (Earth) opens with, “The Earth, the earth, the earth, the earth” and warns of global disaster. It ends with the lines</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Don’t make the trumpets sound</p>
<p>Don’t bring the day of Judgment near.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Given the cruelty of COVID-19 isolation, Hudeide died alone. </p>
<p>But he left behind a reputation for the ages: durable and multifaceted talents, humane dispositions, enlightened engagement with others, and a universalist ethos. </p>
<p>He was an artistic pioneer of lasting and distinctive gifts, and bottomless stamina. He gave us over 70 years of high-octane performances. </p>
<p>We are grateful.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136194/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ahmed I Samatar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The composer, performer and poet was an artistic pioneer of lasting and distinctive gifts, and bottomless stamina. He gave us over 70 years of high-octane Somali musical mastery.Ahmed I Samatar, James Wallace Professor of International Studies, Macalester CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1346762020-03-29T08:33:09Z2020-03-29T08:33:09ZCOVID-19 compromises social networks. What this means for people in humanitarian crises<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323191/original/file-20200326-133027-1ljilxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Iraqi, Iranian and Somali asylum seekers at a tent camp in the Netherlands</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ROBIN UTRECHT/AFP/GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The novel coronavirus is now being transmitted through the six continents. A key concern is for those who are already extremely vulnerable – those who are caught in ongoing humanitarian emergencies, such as those in Syria, South Sudan and the Rohingya refugee crisis.</p>
<p>For people caught in these emergencies, a public health response will be a challenge, but there is another factor that has been largely overlooked: the role of people’s social networks – and how these networks might be compromised by the pandemic.</p>
<p>In crises, whether the threat is severe drought, floods, famine, conflict, or displacement, <a href="https://fic.tufts.edu/publication-item/facing-famine-somali-response/">people turn</a> for help first to their social network. Research in several countries shows that social connectedness is the main (in some cases, perhaps the <em>only</em>) source of help that ordinary people have when caught in a crisis. Assistance from these networks includes food, shelter, money or credit, forms of employment, emotional support and information or advice.</p>
<p>But what happens when the threat is embedded in that very social network? What happens to the source of support that people have learned to count on, when everyone is affected by the threat in terms of both their health and their livelihoods?</p>
<p>The current global pandemic is an unprecedented situation where the survival resource of the world’s most vulnerable people – their social networks – may become compromised and an additional risk, because the virus is transmitted between people.</p>
<p>This has massive implications for responses to this pandemic. How will it amplify the impact of existing humanitarian crises? </p>
<h2>Social networks in crises</h2>
<p>During the series of shocks (drought, hyperinflation, and conflict) that hit Somalia in 2011, aid agencies <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/famine-in-somalia/">were hobbled</a> by the restrictions of Al-Shabaab - a terrorist group that controlled much of the affected area - and by counter-terrorism <a href="https://www.unocha.org/sites/unocha/files/CounterTerrorism_Study_Full_Report.pdf">legislation</a> in western donor countries that criminalised the diversion of aid that ended up in the hands of terrorist groups. As a result, most of the formal assistance that could have averted the crisis was very late to arrive; the crisis spiralled out of control and led to famine, <a href="https://fews.net/sites/default/files/documents/reports/Somalia_Mortality_Estimates_Final_Report_1May2013_upload.pdf">killing</a> a quarter million people.</p>
<p><a href="https://fic.tufts.edu/research-item/food-security-and-resilience-in-somalia/">Our research</a> showed that in large parts of the affected area, people mostly had only their own social networks to fall back on. </p>
<p>Those with stronger networks - particularly with people outside the affected area, or not subject to the same hazards - were the best able to cope with the crisis. </p>
<p>Social networks support their members best when only some people in the network are affected by a particular threat. People who had networks that expanded into the global diaspora of Somali people were able to cope with the crisis much better than those whose networks consisted only of people who were suffering the same fate. The latter types of networks soon ran out of resources to share, and could no longer support people.</p>
<p>Recognising and protecting social solidarity is more important than ever. But even physically distant sources of support are at risk during this pandemic. </p>
<p>Unlike previous crises, where social connections outside the immediately affected areas were mobilised to help, this pandemic knows no boundaries - people in the diaspora are also locked down, and as vulnerable to the virus as people caught in refugee or internally displaced people’s camps. Their livelihoods have been severely disrupted too.</p>
<h2>Building networks</h2>
<p>The pandemic will also affect people’s ability to forge new social connections and maintain their existing networks.</p>
<p>During the recent crisis in South Sudan, <a href="https://www.mercycorps.org/currency-connections">our research</a> shows that households mostly relied on their relatives, neighbours and friends, informal livelihood and community groups in times of need. </p>
<p>While the conflict, displacement, and family separations disrupted households’ support systems, new forms of social connections emerged. <a href="https://www.mercycorps.org/research-resources/wages-war">Similar results were found in Syria</a>, where households’ social connections were critical for successful coping and livelihood adaptation during the conflict, especially in densely populated besieged areas.</p>
<p>Even in Haiti, which has had a heavy presence of international aid efforts, social networks are often the first and only means of survival. After the earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010, even in the midst of significant international aid, most Haitians <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24601934">relied on</a> one another for survival and recovery.</p>
<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>Humanitarians - both local and international - will have to pay attention to what a pandemic like this does, not only to their own programming, but also to the functioning of social networks. We don’t actually know what the effects will be. </p>
<p>In the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, stigma, rumours, and movement restrictions <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5884263/">affected</a> social and economic networks, particularly of survivors and health workers. </p>
<p>Likely, the COVID-19 pandemic will limit the support people are able to mobilise through their networks, certainly in person but also through their distant connections. But in what ways, and who will be most affected by this, remain to be seen. </p>
<p>In times of crises, people’s assets can sometimes become liabilities. The current global pandemic is an unprecedented situation where the very fabric of survival for the world’s most vulnerable people – their social networks – may both become compromised and an additional risk. The humanitarian field needs to work fast to understand the implications and to adapt to this crisis that has challenged the way we work in so many ways.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeeyon Kim receives funding from DFID, the Center for Resilience and Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance at USAID. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Maxwell receives funding from DFID, the Swiss Office of Development Cooperation, FAO, Action Against Hunger, REACH, and USAID.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sabina Robillard has recently worked on projects with CDA Collaborative Learning, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Save the Children Denmark, and Concern International. </span></em></p>The survival resource of the world’s most vulnerable people – their social networks – may become compromisedJeeyon Kim, Senior Researcher for Resilience at Mercy Corps and a Visiting Fellow, Tufts UniversityDaniel Maxwell, Henry J. Leir Professor in Food Security, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts UniversitySabina Robillard, Doctoral student at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1060062018-11-28T13:09:16Z2018-11-28T13:09:16ZThings Fall Apart: Chinua Achebe and the languages of African literature<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247718/original/file-20181128-32185-4x4d69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Christian missionaries in Congo in 1911. From the biography of Gwen Elen Lewis.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Princeton Theological Seminary</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“One of the most infuriating habits of these people was their love of superfluous words,” thinks the colonial district commissioner to himself in the final chapter of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/31/things-fall-apart-achebe-review">Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart</a>. It is from the only section of this groundbreaking novel that is not written from the perspective of Africans. Telling of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/180569">colonisation of the Igbo</a> from their point of view, the line foreshadows much: how colonisation will attempt to write African perspectives, deemed “superfluous”, out of their own histories, but also that, “infuriatingly” enough for an oppressor, the colonised Africans wield words of their own.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247727/original/file-20181128-32191-xi4esr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247727/original/file-20181128-32191-xi4esr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247727/original/file-20181128-32191-xi4esr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247727/original/file-20181128-32191-xi4esr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247727/original/file-20181128-32191-xi4esr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247727/original/file-20181128-32191-xi4esr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247727/original/file-20181128-32191-xi4esr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The great African novel?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paull Young via Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Published 60 years ago this year by Heinemann in London, Things Fall Apart has sold more than 10m copies and been translated into more than 50 languages. It follows Okonkwo, a renowned warrior from a fictional Igbo village in early 20th-century eastern Nigeria. In straightforward and evocative prose, Achebe depicts how a culturally rich and well-governed society is destabilised by the arrival of Christian missionaries and British colonialists. Okonkwo is a flawed hero, but his attempts to confront the forces transforming his village speak to a long history of anti-colonial resistance.</p>
<p>Now considered essential reading in many African Studies and English Literature courses, Things Fall Apart can hardly be dissociated from the emergence of the African novel and modern African writing in general. However, Achebe’s debut also sparked a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2935429?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">formative debate</a> on language and African literatures. With English so intimately entwined with colonial history, the fact that the novel hailed as inaugurating a modern, independent Africa’s literature was also written in English became a point of contention. Was Things Fall Apart upholding a Western model, or confronting and subverting it?</p>
<h2>Language is power</h2>
<p>Language is never ahistorical or apolitical, but it carries an especial charge in post-colonial contexts. Educational, administrative and religious institutions had conducted life in the colonies in the language of the coloniser. Speaking it would often mean access to privileges, while speaking only African languages could mean economic disadvantage at best, physical punishment at worst. With this history in mind, Achebe and his contemporaries had to ask: did reaching global audiences to challenge their perceptions about Africa matter more than enriching their own languages by helping African readerships flourish?</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o7FS95IcRNU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The debate extended beyond the question of use and reach: it was also about post-colonial identities. Language provides the names, value systems and and discourses by which we “know” our world and ourselves. A dominant language dominates the terms by which your reality is constituted. To prioritise reading and writing in European languages could perpetuate colonial structures after independence, once again delineating <em>who</em> could speak, on what terms, and by what criteria African writers would be judged. </p>
<h2>Forging identity</h2>
<p>Whether to foster post-independence African literary cultures in European or African languages fuelled the historic <a href="https://90.mak.ac.ug/timeline/first-makerere-african-writers-conference-1962">1962 African Writers Conference</a> at Makerere University in Uganda. Many of its participants went on to become well-known literary voices from the continent. These included the first African Nobel laureate <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1986/soyinka/biographical/">Wole Soyinka</a>, a Nigerian poet and playwright; <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Grace-Ogot">Grace Ogot</a>, one of the first Anglophone female Kenyan writers to be published; and <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/christopher-okigbo">Christopher Okigbo</a>, who together with Achebe established Citadel Press. Also prominent were <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kofi-awoonor">Kofi Awoonor</a>, a Ghanaian poet and diplomat who was among those killed in the 2013 attack in Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lewis-Nkosi">Lewis Nkosi</a>, whose literary career in exile from South Africa spanned nearly every genre. </p>
<p>There was division on the issue. Kenyan playwright and academic, <a href="https://ngugiwathiongo.com/">Ngugi wa Thiong’o</a> – then a student at Makerere – believed that the restoration of cultural memory rested on rehabilitating mother tongues. Now a major voice in African letters who writes mostly in <a href="https://www.ethnologue.com/language/kik">Gĩkũyũ</a>, Ngugi argued that, without this “decolonisation of the mind”, they would otherwise be forever living by moral, ethical and aesthetic values not their own.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247726/original/file-20181128-32226-1vicp04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247726/original/file-20181128-32226-1vicp04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247726/original/file-20181128-32226-1vicp04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247726/original/file-20181128-32226-1vicp04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247726/original/file-20181128-32226-1vicp04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247726/original/file-20181128-32226-1vicp04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247726/original/file-20181128-32226-1vicp04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Chinua Achebe by Steve Pyke (2008)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New Yorker</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Born into a family of Christian converts in eastern Nigeria in 1930, Achebe was educated in local Anglican schools and went onto become one the first graduates of the <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/university-ibadan">University of Ibadan</a>. So English was indeed a part of his identity in ways not every Nigerian would have shared. But Achebe was therefore all the more aware that education and religion were complex facets of colonialism. Things Fall Apart dramatises this with nuance in the character of Nwoye, who rebels after his brother’s death by converting to Christianity.</p>
<p>Achebe advocated a “both” rather than an “either/or” approach in his 1965 essay <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272336796_African_Languages_and_African_Literature">The African Writer and the English Language</a>. He argued that the African writer, in “fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience”, would bring about a far more subtle rejection of the historical dominance standard English represented. </p>
<h2>Clearing ground</h2>
<p>Ultimately, English was one factor that helped Things Fall Apart, as it did other works of African literature, to transcend national boundaries for six decades. But these probing political and cultural questions were carried right along with it – and they informed a legacy of African thought on the meaning and purpose of literature, which the continent’s contemporary voices can stand on today. </p>
<p>When African writers choose to contribute to literatures in their mother tongues, this can only be positive. But when they chose to reach the world’s Anglophone readers, it is as Achebe <a href="http://wrightinglanguage.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/0/5/24059962/achebe_englishandafricanwriter.pdf">envisioned it</a>: with “a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its new African surroundings”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106006/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Jilani receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK and the Isaac Newton Trust.</span></em></p>It’s hailed as one of the greatest works of fiction to emerge from Africa. But Things Fall Apart was written in English, sparking debate about the colonisation of language.Sarah Jilani, PhD Candidate, Faculty of English, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1007802018-08-09T10:32:53Z2018-08-09T10:32:53ZTrevor Noah is right. People can be both French and African<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230024/original/file-20180731-136646-na58xa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two of France's players with African roots, Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappé, celebrate winning the World Cup.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The afterglow of France winning the 2018 World Cup tournament on July 15 should be gone by now. But the arguments over France’s 23-man squad, with as many as <a href="https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2785862-why-france-are-carrying-africas-hopes-in-the-world-cup-final">15 players</a> with African roots, rage on. The victory has ignited social commentaries on race, immigration and national identity across the international terrain.</p>
<p>But it was a joke that set the cat among <em>les pigeons</em>. Two days after the final, Trevor Noah – host of the late-night American TV talk programme, “The Daily Show” – <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2018/07/trevor-noah-answers-french-ambassador-criticism-over-african-world-cup-comments-video.html">jokingly alluded</a> to France’s World Cup triumph as an indisputable bilateral “win-win” for Africa(ns):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Africa won the World Cup… I get it, they have to say it’s a French team, but look at those guys. You don’t get that tan by hanging out in the South of France, my friends.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a British Nigerian – and as such part of the worldwide, transnational African diaspora community – I, along with multiple other Africans, both continental and diasporan, basked in the reflected glory of Noah’s sentiment as we congratulated the French team from afar.</p>
<p>However, the French Ambassador to the US, Gérard Araud, didn’t think the South African-born comedian’s joke was funny. He sent an indignant official letter to Noah the very next day saying that nothing could be less true than his quip about “an African victory”. He added:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Unlike the United States of America, France does not refer to their citizens based on their race, religion or origin. To us, there is no hyphenated identity, roots are an individual reality. By calling them an African team, it seems you are denying their Frenchness. This, even in jest, legitimises the ideology which claims whiteness as the only definition of being French.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230040/original/file-20180731-136679-1dub5an.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230040/original/file-20180731-136679-1dub5an.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230040/original/file-20180731-136679-1dub5an.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=210&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230040/original/file-20180731-136679-1dub5an.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=210&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230040/original/file-20180731-136679-1dub5an.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=210&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230040/original/file-20180731-136679-1dub5an.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230040/original/file-20180731-136679-1dub5an.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230040/original/file-20180731-136679-1dub5an.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">French Ambassador’s Tweet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.twitter.com">Twitter</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That evening on his show, Noah stood by his satirical comments. He <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/07/trevor-noah-french-ambassador-soccer-team-african">argued</a> that Araud was in fact tippexing out the African identities of the French players:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Why can’t they be both? What they’re arguing here is: in order to be French they have to erase everything that is African.</p>
</blockquote>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3ujf4s7HVfQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trevor Noah reacting to France’s US ambassador.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s this dual identity argument where the crux of the tension lies – an issue I’ve explored <a href="http://blog.gdi.manchester.ac.uk/seeing-and-being-developments-other-representations-of-africa-and-diaspora-audiences/">in my research</a> on the identities of African diaspora communities.</p>
<h2>Identity boundaries</h2>
<p>In his letter Araud said this to Noah about the African-rooted French players:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>By calling them African, it seems you are denying their Frenchness.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As such, both ambitious and irrational, Araud’s comments suggest that national identity transcends and supplants the assumed limitations of racial and ethno-cultural heritage. That it renders their heritage wholly irrelevant and unreconciled. </p>
<p>A person is simply French – and unequivocally so. Within this speculative proposition, and unsolicited moral evaluation of the veracity of one’s identity, are we to assume that forward Kylian Mbappé’s Algerian and Cameroonian roots are annulled? Or, that midfielder Paul Pogba’s “Guinean-ness” is a mere figment of his “undiluted French” imagination? </p>
<p>No. It would be utterly naïve and ill-advised to arrive at such conclusions.</p>
<p>If there is one thing that <a href="http://blog.gdi.manchester.ac.uk/seeing-and-being-developments-other-representations-of-africa-and-diaspora-audiences/">my research</a> on the identities of African diaspora communities has taught me, it is that they are seldom tethered to the extremities of irreconcilably divided loyalties of “you’re either this”, or “you’re that”. Rather, identity boundaries for African minorities are necessarily blurred, inconsistent, situationally-driven, provisional, dynamic and transformational. They often lend themselves to progressive hyphenation in strategic and unconscious ways. </p>
<p>These convoluted identity configurations are appropriated and remastered by black and brown folk in their daily attempts to make “meaning” legible in their lived and racialised realities. Within this frame, it is important to understand that the African diaspora constitutes complex and multiplicitous identities. It is not for others then – especially white privileged others – to provide the unsolicited space within which their identities are defined, confined and deemed as comprehensible. </p>
<p>Ultimately, this removes the agency of choice in African “Self”-definition. It also renders all French-situated diaspora as a vast horde of undifferentiated masses devoid of individual intent. It begs the question, if it is true that “roots” are “individual reality” as Araud proclaims, then why implicate the French African players in all-inclusive assimilationist narratives? Where’s the individuality in that?</p>
<p>Suffice to say, it is this hybridity that has affixed my “British” to “Nigerian”, “English” to “Yoruba”, and the “Afro” to my “European” – all coexisting in their complementary contradictions. </p>
<p>If anything, the argument between Noah and Araud implores a rethinking in how France engages with identity, especially for African diaspora communities. It should go from treating it as a conspiratorial affront to its nationalism, and aspirations of a common peoplehood, to conceiving it instead as an enrichment. </p>
<p>By doing this, we consciously engage with African-descended minorities and their hybrid identities in ways that are as multiple and diverse as the football players that compose them.</p>
<p>So yes, Noah is right. The players, and many other people, can indeed be both French and African.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100780/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Edward Ademolu PhD, FHEA does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is important to understand that African diaspora constitute complex and multiplicitous identities.Dr Edward Ademolu PhD, FHEA, Dr of International Development; Global Development Institute, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/962312018-05-13T08:38:39Z2018-05-13T08:38:39ZCountries must compete for migrant workers to boost their economies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218070/original/file-20180508-34027-z7qbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Instead of keeping migrants out, countries should consider the economic benefits of letting them in.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zoltan Major/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Politicians and the media expend inordinate amounts of energy debating migration, often using nativist, populist and xenophobic rhetoric. This is despite the fact that, as of 2017, only three out of every 100 people – a <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/publications/international-migration-report-2017.html">mere 3.4%</a> of the world’s population – have left their home nations to migrate to a new country. </p>
<p>The message from people like US President Donald Trump and the UK’s “Brexiteers” is that migrants should be kept out at all costs to “save” their economies. Yet many scholars have argued that attracting and keeping migrants is <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-is-at-risk-of-losing-migrants-who-are-vital-to-the-health-of-our-economy-67455">essential to economic competitiveness</a> in a globalising world. Some countries are responding positively to such arguments, embracing the benefits migrants can offer to their economies. Others – African countries among them – are far behind the curve.</p>
<p>Many developing countries are immigrant-sending countries which can have some negative effects. In 2017, <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/publications/international-migration-report-2017.html">74% of all immigrants</a> were of working age. It makes sense that losing this vital demographic can damage a country’s economy – and that gaining these workers can help grow another’s. This is borne out by history, too: in the 19th century, migrant-receiving countries like the US grew faster than migrant-sending countries like Italy and Ireland because these migrants added to their host country’s workforce and left their home countries with fewer workers.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/public-culture/article-abstract/29/2%20(82)/261/31081/Frontier-Heritage-Migration-in-the-Global-Ethnic">my research</a> on migration I have found that countries like Vietnam, India and China are actively trying to recruit people from their diasporas – those living outside the region where they or their ancestors were born – to help build their economies.</p>
<p>My research focuses on frontier migration: the movement of people, technology, ideas and capital from a “developed” to a “developing” economy. Among them are increasing numbers of frontier return migrants who were born and raised in one country, leave it for some time but are now opting to return home. Researchers used to assume that once people migrated to the West, they and their children would stay there. But this is increasingly not the case. Another category I focus on are frontier heritage migrants; those raised in the diaspora who return to the land of their ethnic heritage. </p>
<p>Globalisation has spurred increasing numbers of all types of frontier migrants. One of the unexpected consequences is that developed countries might lose out as more and more frontier migrants set their sights on emerging market economies.</p>
<h2>The US is losing out</h2>
<p>The world’s most powerful country and its <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/worlds-biggest-economies-in-2017/">largest economy</a>, the US, was until recently known as a country of immigrants. </p>
<p>Since 2017, the Trump administration has championed a number of measures to keep immigrants and refugees out: building a wall on the country’s southern border with Mexico, limiting refugees and even deleting the phrase, “nation of immigrants” from <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/22/588097749/america-no-longer-a-nation-of-immigrants-uscis-says">an official mission statement</a>. But this shift didn’t begin with Trump: it started <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/ways-immigration-system-changed-911/story?id=17231590">in earnest</a> after the events of 11 September, 2001. </p>
<p>Migration and tech researcher Vivek Wadhwa <a href="http://issues.org/25-3/wadhwa-2/">has warned</a> for years that putting up barriers to immigration will reduce the US’s innovative, technological and economic edge. After all, many US businesses are started by immigrants, and just over half of the country’s one billion dollar startup companies had <a href="http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Billion-Dollar-Startups.NFAP-Policy-Brief.March-2016.pdf">at least one immigrant founder</a>.</p>
<p>Wadwha’s <a href="https://www.cfr.org/content/thinktank/Wadhwa_Presentation.pdf">research</a> among STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) graduate students who came to the US to study for advanced degrees revealed alarming shifts. Before 2001, most of these sorts of graduates would remain in the US after completing their degrees. After 2001, hostile immigration policies “pushed” them to become frontier return migrants, going home to countries like India and China. </p>
<p>The US was forced to <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/05/10/number-of-foreign-college-students-staying-and-working-in-u-s-after-graduation-surges/?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=e692facc96-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_05_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-e692facc96-400347641">change policy</a> to counter the trend towards STEM students’ return migration. </p>
<p>India and China, meanwhile, have also realised the value of attracting their own diasporas back home, and drawing talent from elsewhere in the world. They’ve developed several <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/public-culture/article/29/2%20(82)/261/31081/Frontier-Heritage-Migration-in-the-Global-Ethnic">new policies</a> to make this easier.</p>
<p>For example, China recently changed its <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201801/23/WS5a668664a3106e7dcc135dfb.html">visa policy</a> so that “overseas Chinese” can have multiple-entry visas valid for five years instead of just one. <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---ilo-beijing/documents/publication/wcms_565474.pdf">A number of other initiatives</a> have also been introduced to entice skilled migrants to China.</p>
<p><a href="http://time.com/5107485/baidus-robin-li-helping-china-win-21st-century/">Robin Li</a>, the billionaire entrepreneur behind the internet company Baidu – often referred to as China’s Google – is one of those who’ve pointed out that the US’s loss could be his country’s gain, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2017/04/28/talk-asia-robin-li-block-a.cnn">saying</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>this is a good time that China stand up and say, ‘Hey, come to us, we welcome immigrants…’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>China and the US are in a battle over which nation will dominate the 21st-century technologically and immigration is at the heart of this battle. </p>
<p>However, it is not only technology migrants who add value to an economy. Workers with all different skill sets are necessary. For example, US agriculture <a href="http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-farms-immigration/">largely relies</a> on foreign workers and Japan, a highly industrialised country with an ageing population, will need to bring in more and more young foreign workers <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/12/31/national/japans-need-foreign-labor-get-dire-2050-nears/">to survive</a>.</p>
<h2>Policy benefits for Africa?</h2>
<p>African countries are not seizing the opportunity presented by the migration-economic nexus. </p>
<p>Only a handful of African countries – among them <a href="https://www.liberianobserver.com/news/we-must-integrate-the-diaspora-in-our-policies-on-migration/">Liberia</a> and <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-05-17/west-shuts-out-migrants-ethiopias-doors-are-open-even-its-enemy">Ethiopia</a> – have actively worked to bring in more migrants. </p>
<p>I have found that people in general and people of African descent in particular, both in Africa and the West, are particularly interested in moving to South Africa to work. This is because South Africa has a well-developed infrastructure and offers what many migrants refer to as “lifestyle” – a good quality of life. </p>
<p>South Africa is trying to position itself as the gateway to the African continent and needs a strong economy to do so. The country would therefore benefit tremendously from a more migrant-welcoming policy. </p>
<p>Building a robust economy has always required migrant workers of all types. That’s not going to change any time soon. The country with the most open immigration policy will be best positioned to succeed in the global economy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96231/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Tandiwe Myambo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many scholars argue that attracting migrants is essential to economic competitiveness in a globalising world.Melissa Tandiwe Myambo, Research Associate, Centre for Indian Studies, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/700622017-01-09T20:09:25Z2017-01-09T20:09:25ZSlave heritage is big business, tainting the diaspora’s bonds with Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151689/original/image-20170104-18644-h9u9qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ghana's Elmina Castle was has been declared a World Heritage Site and renovated as a tourism destination</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Luc Gnago</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ghana’s meandering coast is dotted with numerous <a href="http://easytrackghana.com/tour-ghana_forts-castles.php">forts and castles</a>. These monuments were built between the 15th and 17th centuries by early modern European <a href="http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/chartered-companies.htm">chartered companies</a>. They were initially used for trading gold and other commodities. After Ghana became enmeshed in the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1650 they were used as spaces to buy, torture and hold captured people before shipping them away from Africa. </p>
<p>Over the past three decades these landmark monuments have taken on another role. Ghana has developed a significant heritage tourism industry and the monuments have become tourist attractions. They particularly draw people of the original historic <a href="http://history-world.org/African%20Diaspora.htm">African diaspora</a>.</p>
<p>The descendants of Africans who were captured and enslaved in the <a href="http://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/africanpassageslowcountryadapt/introductionatlanticworld">western Atlantic World</a> return to the continent – and to the monuments – for a number of reasons. For many, it is a way to reconnect with their ancestry and find a sense of belonging in the African world. The memory of Africa can also be a source of strength, pride and identity.</p>
<p>Heritage tourism in Ghana provides an important opportunity for diasporic Africans to connect with their history and identity. But in the context of global neoliberal capitalism it also creates an uncomfortable continuity. Today the forts and castles of Ghana’s coast continue to fulfil one of the key purposes for which they were first built – making money. This trend has distorted the relationship between the historic African diaspora and the continent.</p>
<h2>From independence to neoliberalism</h2>
<p>The rise of Ghana’s heritage tourism industry coincided with a shift in its economic policy orientation. From independence in 1957 well into the 1980s the economy was largely state controlled. Its <a href="http://www.justiceghana.com/index.php/en/2012-01-24-13-47-55/6720-discipline-in-economic-management-the-key-to-sustainable-growth-and-prosperity?showall=&start=1">policies</a> included government interventions aimed at easing the people’s hardships. But by the end of the 1990s Ghana’s economic, social and political policies had, by and large, become aligned with the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=NrLv4surz7UC&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=neoliberalism&ots=Jv-AIN6IjK&sig=C4w1cd1CCNCXNp4b2a28BpSU-Yw#v=onepage&q=neoliberalism&f=false">global neoliberal agenda</a>. </p>
<p>The economic and ideological system of <a href="http://www.sok.bz/web/media/video/ABriefHistoryNeoliberalism.pdf">neoliberalism</a> is centred on the primacy of private property and private enterprise. Government intervention in the economy is discouraged. Neoliberalism operates on principles such as subsidy removal, social spending cuts and the privatisation of social services. </p>
<p>These free market and pro-business principles were <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=w0Z_AgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=imf+conditional+lending&ots=AFE9HaYQoZ&sig=1UzOqv2sbyktxLFWbqGwLxCBS-o#v=onepage&q=imf%20conditional%20lending&f=false">imposed</a> on developing countries desperate to secure loans to salvage and stabilise their erratic economies. Powerful international agencies made loans conditional on countries adopting neoliberal reforms. The <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/bretton-woods-system-and-1944-agreement-3306133">Bretton Woods</a> twin financial institutions of the <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/about">World Bank</a> and the <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/about.htm">International Monetary Fund</a> did the same. In this way they were able to reshape the economies of many African countries, including Ghana’s.</p>
<p>The ultimate objective was to make developing countries toe the line of profit maximisation in both public and private sectors.</p>
<h2>Tourism potential and profit</h2>
<p>Tourism was identified and bolstered by the government as a viable, reliable and productive source of revenue within the framework of global neoliberalism.</p>
<p>Ghana boasts an irresistible package of celebrated cultural heritage. In addition to its extant European castles and forts, it also has a number of old slave markets, slave routes and slave cemeteries.</p>
<p>In 1993 Ghana boosted its tourism attractiveness with a US$10m investment <a href="http://sova.si.edu/record/Accession%2099-111?q=*&s=0&n=10">project</a>. This was planned and implemented by the Ghanaian authorities in conjunction with the <a href="http://www.undp.org/">United Nations Development Programme</a> and the <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/">United States Agency for International Development</a>.</p>
<p>It involved, among other things, the development of the <a href="http://www.kakumnationalpark.info/">Kakum National Park</a> as well as the preservation and renovation of the <a href="http://www.capecoastcastlemuseum.com/">Cape Coast</a> and <a href="http://www.elminacastle.info/">Elmina Castles</a>. As if to glorify these sites, <a href="http://en.unesco.org/">Unesco</a> declared the castles and forts <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/africa/">World Heritage sites</a>. They were furnished with new museums and other tourist facilities.</p>
<p>The new policy targeted the massive patronage of the historic African diaspora, particularly those from the US, as effective partners in development. </p>
<p>Within the neoliberal framework, both the ideology of <a href="http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africanaage/essay-pan-africanism.html">Pan-Africanism</a> and the legacy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade became marketable commodities.</p>
<h2>Tourists, customers and investors</h2>
<p>African Americans were invited to come back to their “roots”. But increasingly they became aware that they were regarded as tourists and customers in Ghana. Some were also encouraged to become stakeholders in the broader project of capitalist development. Land grants and other business incentives were promised to the diaspora. The objective was to encourage <a href="http://unctad.org/en/Pages/DIAE/Foreign-Direct-Investment-(FDI).aspx">foreign direct investment</a> in the economy’s various sectors.</p>
<p>The travel and tourism sector was one where some of the historic African diaspora entered and did brisk business. Those with the necessary resources and expertise competed with their Ghanaian counterparts. By forming tour companies, they facilitated travel to the country in appreciable numbers. Others also invested in hotels and beach resorts.</p>
<p>In 2015 tourism and travel directly contributed a total of around <a href="http://www.wttc.org/-/media/files/reports/economic%20impact%20research/countries%202016/ghana2016.pdf">GHC4.5 million</a> (more than US $1 million) to Ghana’s GDP. This amounts to about 3.3% of national GDP.</p>
<p>This is good for business. But what does it mean for relations between the continent and the diaspora? Ghana’s forts and castles, among other things, were once used to make profit off African bodies. Today they continue to exist as money-making facilities. The legacy of slavery has been turned into a commodity and diasporic Africans are cast as <a href="http://search.proquest.com/docview/1770385210?pq-origsite=gscholar">tourists, investors, customers and foreigners</a> – rather than members of the <a href="http://search.proquest.com/docview/1677381295?pq-origsite=gscholar">African family</a> to which they belong.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kwaku Nti does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the era of neoliberal capitalism, both the ideology of Pan-Africanism and the legacy of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade have become marketable commodities.Kwaku Nti, Assistant Professor of History, Armstrong State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/685322016-11-09T15:27:07Z2016-11-09T15:27:07ZDonald Trump’s foreign policy on Africa is likely to be: ‘Where’s that?’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145264/original/image-20161109-19085-a52top.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">US President elect Donald Trump greets supporters on election night in New York. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Jonathan Ernst</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Africa is likely to slide down the list of foreign policy priorities of a <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/profile-president-donald-trump-161109050153947.html">Donald Trump</a> administration. This is because America’s foreign policy is determined by both domestic and foreign issues. </p>
<p>When it comes to domestic factors Trump is not going to be open to lobbying by the <a href="http://www.sanfranciscostar.com/index.php/sid/249194211">African diaspora</a> in the US which has, historically, always played an <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40034881">important role</a> in pushing African policy and keeping the continent on the domestic agenda. But this constituency <a href="http://newafricanmagazine.com/trump-africans-see/">hasn’t helped</a> Trump at all in this election so there’s no need for any payback. And I think that the kind of visibility Africa had is also going to fall in social movements and society in general in the US.</p>
<p>Trump is also unlikely to have any tolerance for the idea that the African diaspora is part of the <a href="http://auads-nl.org/au-sixth-region/">“sixth region”</a> of Africa. The African Union recognises people of African decent who live outside the continent as the sixth region, in addition to southern, eastern, central, western and northern Africa.</p>
<p>This isn’t going to be something that is of much concern to the new president-elect. </p>
<p>In addition, I think that he is going to be intolerant and disinterested in issues around the domestic politics of African countries. That is unless – as he was very clear in <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/09/politics/donald-trump-victory-speech/index.html">his acceptance speech</a> – they strongly impinge on American national interests. </p>
<p>For example, I don’t think he is going to be very interested in what is happening in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14094503">Somalia</a> or <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13349398">Ethiopia</a> or in other parts of Africa where there may be conflict. Trump hasn’t got a great capacity for detail, so at best he will live by macro assessments.</p>
<p>The other break with tradition is that it’s impossible to predict who he will chose as his assistant-secretary of state for Africa. As a follower of foreign policy over the past 40 years it has been possible, in nearly all instances, to know who the new incumbent is likely to be. Examples include <a href="http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/crockerc/">Chester Crocker</a>, <a href="http://www.cohenonafrica.com/about/">Hank Cohen</a> and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/author/ambassador-susan-rice">Susan Rice</a>. Now with Trump, we simply have no indication.</p>
<p>With this in mind I think it is really important for African countries, including South Africa, to be very conscious, constructive and conspicuous in their choices of ambassador. These appointments will be crucial in opening the doors to the new Trump administration. The worst that African countries can do, however difficult it will be politically, would be to show their displeasure and hold their noses.</p>
<h2>Security will be a major issue</h2>
<p>Security is going to be a major issue on Trump’s foreign policy agenda. This points directly at the US African Command, which was established in 2007. <a href="http://www.africom.mil/about-the-command">Africom</a>, as it is generally known, is one of six of the US Defence Department’s “geographic combatant commands and is responsible to the Secretary of Defence for military relations with African nations, the African Union and African regional security organisations”.</p>
<p>When it comes to American policy in Africa, Africom is very likely to emerge as its central piece. Given Trump’s expressed, belligerent <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/11/donald-trump-islamophobia-president-161109065355945.html">views</a> on the Muslim world, Africom will be set to be the lynchpin. I think African countries should resist this because it is central to American ideology in the world and will bring African countries into conflict with China. But whether African states will in fact resist is a different issue. </p>
<p>In fact, I think one of the issues African leaders will have to be careful about now is how they have to manage their relationships with China and the US. The US has been a little bit lackadaisical in its approach to Africa while <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-us-aid-to-africa-has-changed-in-the-wake-of-chinas-growing-influence-58080">China has made great strides</a> on the continent. Not all, in my view, bad. The US will in all likelihood resist the inroads China has made, an issue African leaders will have to manage with kid gloves.</p>
<h2>Trade won’t be a given</h2>
<p>The African Growth and Opportunity Act <a href="https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/trade-development/preference-programs/african-growth-and-opportunity-act-agoa">AGOA</a>, which came into effect 16 years ago, is aimed at expanding US trade and investment with sub-Saharan Africa. It is supposed to “stimulate economic growth, to encourage economic integration, and to facilitate sub-Saharan Africa’s integration into the global economy”.</p>
<p>There’s still some life left in the act. But it’s clear that <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-lays-out-protectionist-views-in-trade-speech-1467145538">Trump is protectionist</a>. He is not going to tolerate any expansion or extension of the agreement, or any <a href="http://www.health24.com/Diet-and-nutrition/Food-safety/unwanted-american-chicken-dumped-in-south-africa-20160324">misunderstandings</a>. This means American trade policy under Trump needs to be watched closely.</p>
<p>There is also likely to be a decline in aid to Africa from the US. For some African countries aid from the US is absolutely crucial. Take <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/malawi">Malawi</a> for example, where it is essential and necessary. As a businessman Trump will want something in return and it’s unlikely he will get his sort of returns on investment from most African countries. His possible response will be that of a <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/10/3/13148364/donald-trump-sexual-harassment-apprentice">reality show host</a> – eject any errant contestants.</p>
<p>Another factor that will affect investment is that Trump is going to improve American infrastructure. I think he is going to borrow and he is going to use the money to rebuild the US because that is his project, to “make America great again”. He will most certainly not care if it comes at the expense of aid to or trade with a number African countries.</p>
<p>The next four years promise to test Africa’s place in the world. The lodestars by which we have understood politics such as rightwing, fiscal conservative, social conservative are all going to be overturned.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Vale receives funding from National Research Foundation, the University of Johannesburg, Nanyang Technological University.</span></em></p>The world’s best known talk show host has become the president-elect of the most powerful country in the world. Trump running the US is unlikely to be good news for Africa.Peter Vale, Professor of Humanities and the Director of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS), University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.