Africa is far too complex for generalisations: this should be self-evident

Lyndall Beddy made a couple of comments on Thought Leader that have been problematic. The most recent of these comments was this at the bottom of a recent post:

“Western Culture for centuries has satirised leaders and held them accountable. African culture, until recently has been feudal, and venerated leaders, without holding them accountable. Both cultures have to understand each other.”

Now, there is some strength in what I sense is an implicit argument in Beddy’s comment for greater sensitivity and appreciation for cultural differences between different groups of people. With that I have no dispute. What I am concerned about is the claim that “African culture” has, “until recently”, “been feudal, and venerated leaders without holding them accountable.”

Many intellectuals make generalisations about Africa that other than in the blogosphere or down the pub is quite simply bunk, and weakens their argument. By intellectuals I mean journalists, scholars, policy-makers, politicians and almost every other member of society. To clear a path for this discussion, let me define what I understand as “culture”. Dynamic, malleable and labile as the concept may be, I come out on the side of Amilcar Cabral who considered culture as being “simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history, by the positive or negative influence which it exerts on the evolution of relationships between man and his environment, among men or groups of men within a society, as well as among different societies”.

The problem with generalisations about Africa

At the start of every course I teach on Africa (I have taught mainly African Politics and Government, and the International Relations of Africa) I make a point of warning students that generalisations about a vast, diverse and complex continent, such as it is, weakens their argument. I also explain that Africa cannot be seen as unique socio-historical formation detached from the history of the world. Indeed, one of the most common problems in analysing Africa is isolating the continent (as a single whole), then comparing it with Europe (as a single whole) without considering the dialectical relationship between the two entities.

Let us be clear, individual African societies and cultures may have their own unique features, but I would argue that these are best viewed on a continuum; from pre-colonial, colonial to post-colonial and not in isolation. I would like to believe that one cannot begin to understand individual cultures in Africa without an examination of how they were, in many places across the continent, crammed over an extended period into unitary nation states by European colonists, and how indigenous cultures and autochthonous formations were destroyed and replaced by European systems of education and social organisation – especially the imposition of Christianity and capitalism. From the thought of African scholars, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Chinua Achebe we learn how Europeans imposed their ways on indigenous people on the continent by enlisting “the services of Christianity and Christian oriented education” in order to “capture the soul and the mind” of Africans. The newly converted would then turn their backs on their indigenous ways of life and thereby advance the colonial project.

Getting towards a more truthful account of African today – from contemporary literature to civil society and conflict – is almost impossible without considering Africa’s place in what the British historian JM Roberts described as Europe’s “assault on the world”. It is also not possible to understand Africa without an examination, or at least an appreciation, for the ways in which Europeans under-developed the continent and relegated it to the periphery of an emerging world economy. Getting towards a more truthful account of Africa in the world today is almost impossible without an appreciation for the way that African countries (and some in Asia and Latin America) have become “rule-takers” in the late capitalist period. It becomes problematic, therefore, to make pronouncements about Africa’s history, least of all with loose descriptions like “until recently”.

Feudalism in Africa

In her posted comment, Beddy was not clear about the chronological timing. Was the year of decolonisation (1961) the start/end of “recently”? Does she go back further to the 1880s and the Berlin Conference when Europeans carved up Africa among themselves? Does she refer to the post-Cold War period of democratisation? From her reference to “feudal” she seems to refer to the world in the 14th century. Either way, a simple reference to feudalism in Africa, as if it were some unique (social and historical) moment in African history is nonsense.

While the first use of the “feudal” is sometimes disputed, it generally refers to a type of tied labour in terms of which workers (serfs) are essentially tied to lords and/or landowners. Feudal society is usually stratified with three distinct classes: 1) the rulers, 2) merchants, crafters and town dwellers, and 3) mass of peasants and agriculturalists who were un-free, in the sense that they were bound as labourers to lords and/or landowners. This “bounded labour” should be viewed in contrast to capitalism’s “free labour,” or feudalism’s status and capitalism’s contract.

Also, while there are some core features of feudalism that were fairly universal and useful for comparisons, it is probably safer to speak, instead, of feudalisms. What can be said with certainty, nonetheless, is that Feudalism was not unique to Africa; it was a defining feature of all once-great agrarian societies or civilisations – from Portugal to Russia, India, Japan, among the Maya and Inca civilizations of South America and in some of the more traditional kingdoms of Africa. The world in the 14th century was, by and large, feudal, with the possible exception of small pockets of hunter-gatherers or nomadic pastoralists. Beddy’s contention of Africa being feudal needs clarity.

Accountability

Unlike feudalism, which was a historical reality, the idea of accountability is essentially an ethnical matter which, in normative sense, covers human agency across the social world. It is, therefore, a lot more problematic; it may mean different things to different people at different times and places. In liberal capitalist society the very idea of accountability can be contradictory. We can always assume that a democratically elected government ought to be accountable to those who placed it in office. We give them time in office, and if/when we’re unhappy, we elected another group to govern.

However, in liberal capitalist democracies market fundamentalism and/or neo-liberal orthodoxy may consider “market accountability” as more important. For instance, a government is elected (hypothetically) with a specific mandate to roll back injustices of the past; reducing poverty, narrowing inequalities, developing infrastructure providing public services and increasing representation and participation may be among the priorities of mandate. Doctrinaire neo-liberalism may well subvert any purposeful intervention towards eradicating injustice in the world. Finance ministers may say repeat the mantra “the economic fundamentals are in place’; s/he may say “we have achieved low inflation, macro-economic stability, a balanced budget” and then sit back and let “the market” eradicate poverty. (As if low inflation is the ultimate goal of government elected by people)

In liberal capitalist societies, market accountability in, say, education may override any social or moral accountability to provide a basic education to everyone. With market accountability schools are privatised and children and parents are customers or consumers. Because liberal capitalists tend to consider the market as final arbiter of human affairs, “the market” will, then, discipline and punish deviant behaviour. Under such conditions the government’s obligation to provide a basic education to all goes out the window, as does its accountability.

It is not clear what Beddy refers to in her comments. So, until she can (first) provide specific details about what she meant by “most recently”, (two) provide specific facts about Africa’s feudal past, and (three) explain the specific type of accountability she had in mind, there really is not much value in her commentary. Before she does provide a more detailed comment, here is some advice: There are 53 countries in Africa. In Nigeria alone there are an estimated 250 ethnic groups – each may have their own ideas about accountability measures. These ideas may not necessarily be consistent with Western or Eurocentric values or notions about accountability.