Violence, Racism and Dubois: the Relevance of Africana Studies

a short post I wrote for Binghamton University's ASO newsletter:

We live in an age of resurgent and wounded white supremacy. As a scholar of Africana Studies and History, I understand Donald Trump and his followers not as the aberration from the supposedly civil political norms of a previous age, but as the return to a mode of political discourse all too familiar in United States history, what the great scholar of Africana, Dr. W.E.B. Dubois called in his magnum opus Black Reconstruction, “the wages of whiteness.”

            We live in age where forms of toxic masculinity, alienation and white racism can combine to fuel destructive form of mass violence. I understand the ever increasing incidence of mass shootings not as the aberration from a previous age of peace, harmony and security, but as the result of our continued use of a mode of violent political action globally, and the inability to ‘wall off’ violence out there (Iraq, Afghanistan), from violence within US borders. 

            We live in an age where a resurgent xenophobic nationalism promises to deal with the ongoing economic catastrophes wrought by the 2008 financial crisis, by building a wall and keeping out Muslims, Mexicans and non-white people in general.   I understand this anti-immigrant sentiment not as the decline from a golden age of tolerance, but as the return to a time-honed mode of racist populism in our collective political discourse. While fascism and racism are common responses to economic anxiety, they only perpetuate the problem of violence, and eat deeply into the spiritual resolve of people who foolishly adopt them.

            In 1915, the great scholar W.E.B. Dubois published a prescient and prophetic piece in The Atlanticcalled “The African Roots of War.” In it, he located the roots of the destruction of Europe in World War One in the violence and genocide of European imperialism in Africa at the end of the nineteenth century. Dubois’s central contention, still relevant today, is that “We, then, who want peace, must remove the real causes of war.” Those causes, which Dubois identified as racism, greed, and despotic unjust rule, are still with us today; in fact they define our present global condition as clearly as they did in Dubois’s time.

            Under these conditions, scholars and students of the Africana experience have an opportunity to speak and raise up the truths of Dubois, as well as many others—from ancestor Winnie Mandela to the martyr Marielle Franco—to a new generation. Their writings and their lives are a powerful legacy bequeathed to us, and we speak and analyze and do the work of Africana studies as witnesses to and heirs of their vision. It is up to us, to use these tools to trenchantly analyze and critique the racism, xenophobia, misogyny, violence and general callousness of the powerful we see around us. The problems we face as a society, whether here on Binghamton’s campus, nationally or globally are not insurmountable. But their solutions require courage, careful analysis and a steely, clear-eyed determination about the kind of future we can sustainably build together. In that perpetual quest, Africana studies has much to offer to knowledge-seekers and builders of all kinds.

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Pambazuka - Rising up: Looking for Bob Marley and Fela Kuti

"From African-American gospel music to the soul of James Brown, the reggae of Bob Marley and the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti, Alemayehu G. Mariam charts the rich history of protest music and the need for new battle songs to rally around"....
(AND THIS IS WHY WE LOVE PAMBAZUKA)

Pambazuka - Rising up: Looking for Bob Marley and Fela Kuti

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Book Review: "East African Hip Hop"

I feel embarassed saying how much I enjoyed this new book from anthropologist Mwenda Ntarangwi. It is not only a delight to read, it is that rare academic book that encourages the hungry reader to search for more information on the topic. Its chronicle of emerging forms of creativity and resistance among youth in East Africa is both inspiring and accessible. Ntarangwi sees local forms of "hip hop" emerging among youth in East Africa as both reflective of global processses of American cultural influence, and at the same time critical of the forces of economic globalization eroding the social and economic outlook of the masses of East African youth. He writes in the Preface, "Rather than seeing hip hop as a completely new cultural phenomenon in East Africa, one is better off seeing it as a window into the culture of change in East Africa's political, economic and social realities created by local and global processes."

Ntarangwi divides his book into five chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of hip hop's social impact in East Africa. Chapters' one and two discuss globalization and hip hop music. Chapter three is a discussion of gender and hip hop. Chapter four explores economic privatization and its impact on the livelihoods of East Africans. Chapter 5 is about hip hop and HIV/AIDS, and in Chapter 6 Ntarangwi offers some concluding remarks. This is not a straightforward history, but an ethnography of hip hop's social influence in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

Two things I especially loved about the book: 1) The way in which Ntarangwi centers each chapter around a song, song lyric, or artist that exemplifies his theme. 2) The stories which give a human face to his ethnography and show him wrestling with various dilemmas as an anthropologist in the field.

I've posted videos from East Africa's burgeoning hip hop scene before on this blog, and it seems to be enjoying a growing global spotlight. As I write this, the famous Tanzanian artist Profesa Jay is embarking on a US tour. Other big name Tanzanian and Kenyan hip hop artists have embarked on international tours. But instead of focusing on the "bongo flava" side of East African hip hop--the sugary sweet commercial R&B side to the scene--Ntarangwi focuses on lyricists like Profesa Jay and Ukoo Flani, whose social critique have earned them devoted fans but perhaps less in the way of commercial accolade. As a Prof. Jay fan, I particularly enjoyed Ntarangwi's analysis of Prof. Jay's "Ndio Mzee" (Yes, Elder), a brilliant send up of politicians and their empty promises, and its followup "Kikao cha Dharura" (Emergency Meeting), where the politician who had earlier made such extravagant vows is forced to retract them, stating that the people have unrealistic expectations of luxury. Ntarangwi takes the song apart to show how Profesa Jay critiques local corruption in the state machinery, while remaining aware how these local structures are caught up and in many cases dependent on a global structure of economic dependence.

I anticipate this book will become required reading in many an African Cultural Anthropology class, but it is also a valuable addition to the Hip Hop Studies canon. Furthermore, its clear and readable prose could be a great entryway for high school and college students to talk about issues of cultural and economic globalization through a discussion of hip hop lyrics. Hip hop provides a cultural vantage point that will enhance the local relevance of the discussion for many students, while at the same time making them aware that hip hop is no longer just an American phenomenon but part of a group of interlocking and overlapping global processes that affect their lives in important ways.

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Afrabia: Is it a mere intellectual fascination or can it be realised?

by Ali A. Mazrui
There are different levels of Pan-Africanism, varying in degrees of sustainability. Sub-Saharan Pan-Africanism is a quest for the unification of Black people in Africa below the Sahara. Then there are two possible versions of Continental Pan-Africanism.

The Sub-Continental version would seek the union of Black States while excluding Arab Africa. This idea has been floated from time to time, but it does not seem to have much political support. More triumphant has been Trans-Saharan Pan-Africanism which formed the Afro-Arab basis of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU,) and its successor, the African Union (AU).

Another version of sub-Saharan Pan-Africanism is sub-regional rather than sub-continental. The sub-regional variety has produced organisations like the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) which in recent years has been more activist as a peacekeeping force than as a vanguard for economic change.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has also received a new lease on life since South Africa became a full member in the post-apartheid era. In December 1999 Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania finally succeeded in reviving the East African Community since its collapse 22 years earlier.

But by far the most ambitious idea floating around in the new era of intellectual speculation is whether the whole of Africa and the whole of the Arab world are two regions in the process of merging into one. Out of this speculative discourse has emerged the concept of Afrabia.

Two tendencies have stimulated the new thinking about African-Arab relations. One tendency is basically negative but potentially unifying: The war on terrorism. The new international terrorism may have its roots in injustices perpetrated against such Arab people as Palestinians and Iraqis, but the primary theatre of contestation is blurring the distinction between the Middle East and the African continent.
In order to kill twelve Americans in Nairobi in August 1998, over 200 Kenyans died in a terrorist act at the United States Embassy in Nairobi. Four years later, a suicide bomber in Mombasa, attacked the Israeli-owned and Israeli-patronised Paradise Hotel. There too, three times as many Kenyans as Israelis died.
Independently of the war on terror, Islam as a cultural and political force has also been deepening relationships between Africa and the Middle East. Intellectual revival is not only in the Western idiom. It is also in the idiom of African cultures and African Islam. Hot political debates about the Shariah (Islamic Law) in Nigeria constitute part of the trend of cultural integration between Africa and the Middle East.

The new legitimation of Muammar Gaddafi as a viable African leader has contributed to the birth of no less a new institution than the AU. It is sometimes startling how much more Pan-Africanist than Pan-Arabist Gaddafi has become in recent years. At least for the time being, Gaddafi is out-Africanising the legacy of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser.

The fourth force that may be merging Africa with the Middle East is political economy.

Africa’s oil producers need a joint partnership with the bigger oil producers of the Middle East.

In the area of aid and trade between Africa and the Middle East, the volumes may have gone down since the 1980s. But most indications seem to promise a future expansion of economic relations between Africa and the Middle East. In the Gulf countries of the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman the concept of Afrabia has begun to be examined on higher and higher echelons.
It was initially Trans-Saharan Pan-Africanism which gave birth to the idea of Afrabia. The first post-colonial waves of Pan-Africanists like Kwame Nkrumah, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Sekou Toure believed that the Sahara was a bridge rather than a divide.

The concept of Afrabia now connotes more than interaction between Africanity and Arab identity; it is seen as a process of fusion between the two. While the principle of Afrabia recognises that Africa and the Arab world are overlapping categories, it goes on to prophesy that these two are in the historic process of becoming one.

But who are the Afrabians? There are in reality at least four categories. Cultural Afrabians are those whose culture and way of life have been deeply Arabised but have fallen short of their being linguistically Arabs. Most Somali, Hausa, and some Waswahili are cultural Afrabians in that sense. Their mother-tongue is not Arabic, but much of the rest of their culture bears the stamp of Arab and Islamic impact.
Ideological Afrabians are those who intellectually believe in solidarity between Arabs and Africans, or at least between Arab Africa and black Africa. Historically, such ideological Afrabian leaders have included Kwame Nkrumah, the founder president of Ghana; Gamal Abdel Nasser, arguably the greatest Egyptian of the 20th Century; and Sekou Toure, the founding father of post-colonial Guinea (Conakry.) Such leaders refused to recognise the Sahara Desert as a divide, and insisted on visualising it as a historic bridge.

Geographical Afrabians are those Arabs and Berbers whose countries are concurrently members of both the African Union and the Arab League. Some of the countries are overwhelmingly Arab, such as Egypt and Tunisia, while others are only marginally Arab, such as Mauritania, Somalia and the Comoro Islands.
As for genealogical Afrabians, these are those who are biologically descended from both Arabs and Black Africans. In North Africa these include Anwar Sadat, the former President of Egypt who concluded a peace treaty with Israel and was assassinated for it in 1982. Anwar Sadat’s mother was Black. He was politically criticised for many things, but almost never for being racially mixed.

Genealogical Afrabians in sub-Saharan Africa include Salim Ahmed Salim, the longest serving Secretary-General of the OAU, and the Mazrui clan scattered across Coastal Kenya and Tanzania. It should be noted that Northern Sudanese qualify as Afrabians by both geographical and genealogical criteria. These four sub-categories of Afrabians provide some of the evidence that Africa and the Arab world are two geographical regions that are in the slow historic process of merging.


About The Author:


Professor Ali A. Mazrui is the Chancellor of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology: http://www.jkuat.ac.ke/



Article Source: AfroArticles.com - Article Marketing Directory

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