Alfred B. Zack-Williams - Africa Beyond the Post-Colonial

AFRICA BEYOND THE POST-COLONIAL

For Shomari and Esm

Interdisciplinary Research Series in Ethnic, Gender and Class Relations

SERIES EDITOR: Biko Agozino Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, USA

This series brings together research from a range of disciplines including criminology, cultural studies and applied social studies, focusing on experience of ethnic, gender and class relations. In particular, the series examines the treatment of marginalized groups within the social systems for criminal justice, education, health, employment and welfare.

Africa Beyond the Post-Colonial

Political and Socio-Cultural Identities

Edited by

OLA UDUKU

University of Strathclyde

and

ALFRED B. ZACK-WILLIAMS

University of Central Lancashire

First published 2004 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2017 by Routledge

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Copyright Ola Uduku and Alfred B. Zack-Williams 2004

Ola Uduku and Alfred B. Zack-Williams have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as editors of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Africa beyond the post-colonial: political and

socio-cultural identities. - (Interdisciplinary research series in ethnic, gender and class relations)

1. African diaspora 2.Postcolonialism 3.Africa - Social conditions - 1960- 4. Africa - Politics and government - 1960- 5. Africa - Economic conditions -1960- 6. Africa - Civilization

I.Uduku, Ola Il.Zack-Williams, Alfred, 1945-

306.096

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Africa beyond the post-colonial: political and socio-cultural identities / edited by Ola Uduku and Alfred B. Zack-Williams.

p. cm. - (Interdisciplinary research series in ethnic, gender, and class relations) ISBN 0-7546-3171-0

1. African diaspora. 2. Africa--Social conditions--1960- 3. Africa--Politics and government--1960- 4. Africa--Economic conditions--1960- 5. Africa--Civilization. I Uduku, Ola, 1963- II. Zack-Williams, Alfred, 1945- III. Series.

HN773.5.A313 2004

306.096--dc22

2004046362

ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-3171-2 (hbk)

Contents

Alfred B. Zack-Williams with Ola Uduku

Alfred B. Zack-Williams

Kole Omotoso and Ferdinand Dennis

Ali Mazrui

Cecil Blake

E. Ike Udogu

Ola Uduku

Ola Uduku with Alfred B. Zack-Williams

Biko Agozino

This book is addressed to all those who are interested in the debates around development and culture with specific reference to people of African descent. The book contributes to this series, an important emphasis on African-African Diaspora engagement that fits in well with the multidisciplinary agenda of the series. Most of the contributors are people born in Africa but currently located outside Africa for their scholarly pursuits. This is an issue that the authors tackled directly and indirectly by analyzing the implications of brain drain for African development. It is ironic that while African experts are being drained away from home, Western experts are being imposed on African countries apparently as a condition for foreign aid. For instance, aid from foreign countries often requires that citizens of the donor be appointed as consultants even when there might be better-qualified consultants in the receiving country. This observation should serve to remind everyone that it is not only Africa, for instance, that benefits from foreign aid the citizens and businesses of the donor countries also benefit through guaranteed employment and monopolistic contracts. The implication of the mutual benefits that are possible from development aid is that development of poor countries in Africa would not benefit only Africans since the whole world would benefit from the eradication of poverty worldwide.

The ability to reflexively intervene with a text like this in the dialogue between Africa and its Diasporas is a powerful argument against the interpretation of brain drain in only the negative sense of pain but also in the positive sense of gain. Such gain goes beyond the textual contributions to the discourse of African development from Diaspora Africans and includes the notable remittances that the African Diaspora makes for the survival of those at home. However, the fact that such remittances appear to outstrip direct foreign investment and foreign aid for some African countries should not blind us to the fact that capital outflow from Africa continues to drain more resources from the continent than is replenished through remittances, loans, aid and investment put together. The problem of brain drain plus capital drain from Africa poses a huge challenge to two separate intellectual communities that the book seeks to bring closer together Development Studies and African Diaspora Studies.

Development Studies emerged within the context of colonial Orientalism under the despotic assumption that Europeans knew what was best for the whole world. At about the same time, Africans in the Diaspora were active in the struggle to end slavery, colonialism, sexism, class exploitation and racism. The hostility of Orientalist scholars to any suggestion that Africans in the Diaspora share marginalized political and economic conditions with Africans at home due to imperialism meant that the two communities of scholars grew farther and farther apart. African Diaspora scholars came to emphasize the problem of racial discrimination in the metropolitan locations while development experts tended to ignore all that and focus on how to make Africa a little more like the metropole. Scholars like W.E.B. Du Bois and Kwame Nkrumah can be seen as visionary leaders who saw clearly the need to link the struggles of Africans at home and in the Diaspora together in order to produce better results. Such an approach is what is taken up in this refreshing book.