By MKPE ABANG
These words always ring out, drummed and rammed into the airwaves much too strong to be ignored. If anything, they have the potency to tear the eardrums till the ENT (ear, nose and throat) experts would have to be called in to repair the damage.
But these words are a disparaging of history, of reality; the same history and reality that the very same people always call up when they discuss humankind. These words must therefore be a false attempt to create yet another follow-us-forever legacy.
Those words that I always shudder to utter; but here and now I must state them: Africa is the last frontier! These words must be considered an insult on the African heritage from the start. Yet, those are the very same words that have become hackneyed and played over and over again like a cracked record on an old turntable.
What is worrisome is that it is in the very field where Africa should be the first frontier that it is regarded most as the last frontier – the field of information and communications technology.
We are told Africa is the last frontier to be claimed when investors want to enter the continent to make money; these same Africans who are among the most sociable, the most hospitable, among the most vivacious; in fact the very people that gave the world the meaning of family ties, who gave birth to humanity, from where the humankind went forth – and became the proverbial prodigal people.
The history of the beginning of the human race, and where it originated is already too well known to be repeated here. Therefore, whoever mouths the words that Africa is the last frontier for ICTs to be taken to, must see themselves as prodigal children, who have lavished and squandered all the lessons of morality and good conduct (which translate into wealth) learnt from Africa. No wonder the world is in such a flux into ultimate decay.
No! Africa is certainly not the last frontier for ICTs. Indeed, Africa is the first frontier for the emergence of communication. The talking drum and the town-crier system attest to that. Besides, before Graham Bell’s telephone feat, communication, even if in the most crude form, has been most pronounced in Africa and among the African peoples more than at any other region of the world.
What the world must admit is that Africa’s resources were depleted, its citizens stolen and taken by force of arms (without compensation up to today) and the region so plundered that it was left like the most ignored pigsty, such that today, with no resources (as they have been stolen and taken abroad – in man and material resources), the continent is regarded erroneously as the last.
But Africans must themselves shake off the lethargic and apologetic approach to wresting back what is theirs; what was taken from them; and what must be returned to the First Land. Africans must step out of the delirium of feeling comforted when told their continent is the last frontier. We must collectively reject such reference. It is a belittling of the continent and the resources that the Creator endowed the region with.
As the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) celebrates its 150th anniversary, this must be the time to draw the line and demand what belongs to Africa; why, for instance should the headquarters of the ITU not be on the African continent; after all, all the resources in Switzerland were taken, and are still being taken from Africa – whether directly or from her offspring (other nations of the world).
America never existed until a few hundred years ago, history tells. And decade after decade one discovery or the other is made, of the beginning of the human race. So, why doesn’t the world feel some pangs of shame for once and return to Africa what they took from Africa?
Here’s how to find justification in this position, and make meaning of it: a child takes leave of his village, into the city, to get education, get employment and make money. But before that child travelled to the city, the child had received all it requires in moral upbringing to prepare it for life outside of its region.
Having made all the money possible, isn’t every child – now an adult, perhaps a wealthy one at that – always itching to, in fact, obliged to return back to its roots and pour onto the if-still-poor homeland, the rewards and gains and spoils from the city? That is what takes place.
But the other continents which took flight from out Africa, having become comfortable in their newfound environments, having become so wealthy from using still the Africans’ raw human resources, and raw materials (the records are there for whoever cares to doubt), now turn around to call Africa the last frontier. What effrontery!
That is why I call out to Africans: let’s resolutely re-enact the African Renaissance. The works of the typical Africans, who refused to be taken slavery, or who refused to be cowed in the face of intimidation to forego their Africanness for western ways of Europe and America, must not be in vain.
For the records, the African Renaissance infers that African people and nations shall overcome the current challenges confronting the continent and achieve cultural, scientific, and economic renewal. The African Renaissance concept, first articulated by Cheikh Anta Diop in a series of essays beginning in 1946, which are collected in his book Towards the African Renaissance: Essays in Culture and Development, 1946-1960.
The concept was further popularised by former South African President Thabo Mbeki during his term of office, heralding the beginning of The African Renaissance, and it continues to be a key part of the post-apartheid intellectual agenda. Let the African Renaissance become a mass movement, pervading the entire continent!
It is important to realise that the African Renaissance can and must be translated into all facets of the Africans’ lives – social, political, economic, cultural and also in the field of ICTs. Because indeed, Africa cannot be the last frontier; rather we must as people of the world, address ourselves to facts and figures, reasons and realities: where did the world begin? If indeed, it is Africa, how and why then is Africa the ‘last’ frontier? Neglect the continent further at your peril; for indeed, everything must return to its starting point, its point of origin when it has reached its most matured state. And humankind shall return to Africa.
So, when you return to Africa, is it an Africa as the last frontier for ICTs where you have plundered and squandered her resources and now a bed of poverty, misery and what that you wish to see? Or is it an African continent as a strong Motherland, from where you originated, and to where you must return? If you realise the latter, then you would know Africa is the first frontier.
Bring back her resources – in all the progress you have made while abroad. This shall be the call to all peoples of the world as developments continue to advance in ICTs, in technology, in broadband, in Internet penetration, in mobile telephony penetration, and in much else that is still waiting to be discovered – for the use, and furthering of humankind on earth.