Page 84 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 11

COMMUNITY

Without exception, modernization
used an evolutionary schema that
regarded the West's ideal character-
istics as the end of social evolution.
That meant that reduced to essen-
tials, the development of the world's
backward parts was implicitly a
matter of becoming Western. When
the theorists encountered cultural
resistance, they proclaimed the need
for modernization of attitudes. As
a result, the theory did not come to
terms with the historical specificities
of backward countries. Strangely,
the neoclassical paradigm prevailed

absorbed their minds. centuries of the social construction and was not seriously questioned
– is a reminder of what they are not. even as African economies contin-
In the end, it fell to the West to It is a reminder of an undesirable, ued to deteriorate.
supply a development paradigm. undignified condition. To escape
What was supplied was a more from it, they need to be enslaved to For Zimbabwean scholar, Ndl-
specific form of a broader Western others' experiences and dreams. ovu-Gatsheni, a more fundamental
social transformation model, namely and sustainable revolution that is ur-
the modernization theory. In the most common form, mod- gently needed in 21st century Africa
American President Harry Truman ernization theory posts an original is a knowledge revolution, the revo-
in January 1949 opened a new era, state of backwardness or under- lution of the mind. Philosophically,
a uniquely American one, with the development, characterized by, under coloniality, the principle of
declaration of his development amongst other things, a low rate Cartesian doubt – I think therefore
agenda: '... we must embark on a of economic growth that is at least I am - underwent a quick metamor-
bold new program for making the potentially amenable to alteration phosis, to I conquer therefore I
benefits of our scientific advances through the normal processes am. The right of conquest became
and industrial progress available for of capital. This original state of a significant legitimizing value that
the improvement and growth of backwardness is initially universal. authorized all sorts of violence de-
underdeveloped areas'. According to the theory, the indus- ployed against the colonized.
trialized countries have managed to
Underdevelopment began then on overcome it. All the other countries For Africans, economic and social
20 January 1949. On that same day, too could conceivably overcome it if freedom is not enough. Contrary to
two billion people became underde- they adopted appropriate strategies. what Ake opined, political freedom
veloped. In a sense, from that time Modernization theory assumes that is not even enough. The most im-
on, they ceased being what they progress tends to be spatially dif- portant freedom, in my view, is cog-
were, in all their diversity and were fused, a process by which more and nitive freedom. Cognitive freedom
transmogrified into an inverted mir- more countries evolve from the state is the freedom of Africans to tell
ror of others' reality: a mirror that of backwardness, capitalizing on the their own stories based on their own
belittles them and sends them off experience of those that developed experiences, so as to understand the
to the end of the queue, a mirror before them. Thus, uneven devel- present in light of the past. Africans
that defines their identity, that of a opment is a transitional phenome- must 'own' the story they tell and
heterogeneous and diverse majority, non that can be removed sooner or take control of telling it in their own
in terms of a homogenizing and later by creating certain favorable language and metaphors, to avoid
strict minority. For two-thirds of the conditions within the underdevel- being ‘story-o-typed’ (origin of the
people on earth then, this positive oped regions and by ensuring the stereotype) again.
meaning of the word 'develop- appropriate interactions between Africa, it is time to RE-STORY
ment' – profoundly rooted after two them and the developed regions. yourself.

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