Page 31 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 25
P. 31
Community
The Berlin Conference of 1884- colonialism, on the African trap of underdevelopment.
1885 legitimized the creeping continent, African ethics However, the economic success
European economic and political and economic relations were of South East Asia on the
dominance in Africa and dislocated and put almost one hand and the failure of
obstructed the normal historical into non-existence. African economic development in sub-
thrust and continuity of African countries and Africans in Saharan Africa on the other, are
societies, whether in cultural general, were forced to embrace increasingly proving that the
developments, economic Western capitalism holus bolus, ‘economic’ argument cannot
growth, or state-building. and as such, a vacuum was be taken dogmatically: self-
With an unquestioned belief created in the African economic interest and market rationality
in their own self-righteousness system. do not seem to be the sufficient
and the depravity of Africans, The rapacious and venal explanations for economic
Europeans were determined to individualism we are development.
change indigenous institutions experiencing, will only be
and behavior and thus saw resolved by a rediscovery of Western capitalism is
themselves as agents of an “African identity” and the antithetical to African
civilization. This conclusion building of a society that is communal life as advocated
meant that Africans had to be “new not only in its economic in the African ethic of Maat/
taught different values, goals, arrangements, but also in terms Ubuntu/Utu. It almost disrupted
and modes of behavior. This of the values it upholds”, namely and uprooted African ethics,
was a deliberate destruction the Ubuntu value system, which since capitalism tends to be a
of African cultural values, is an African philosophy that science of self-interest, of how
traditions and customs. teaches us (the human race) that to best accommodate individual
Since then, Africans are still we are one moral universe, and behaviour by means of markets
demanding for respect of their our shared moral sense makes and the commodification of
culture. This psychological us recognize our duty to the human relations. Secondly,
factor was probably the greatest Other. Its world-wide known Africans fail to reconcile their
legacy Europeans left in Africa maxim is: Umuntu ngumuntu culture with Western capitalism,
ngabantu – (I am because you hence capitalism fails to thrive
The crashing of the capitalist are, you are because we are). in an African setting,
market fundamentalism in 2008
and the crashing of the Soviet Development paradigms in Afrikan-Oriented Ekonomic
style command economy by the Africa have been grounded System
end of 1980s, has led to many in Western political and The ancient Afrikan economic
of the Afrikan people to believe development traditions that system was widely anchored
that it is now the time for a failed to take cognizance of on the principles of economic
moral economy. Africa’s cultural and historical democracy. The basic premise
The emergence and ascendancy background. African countries of this notion is the study of
of Western capitalism are often advised to embrace economic processes in relation
(neo-liberal economics), the neo-liberal economic credo to the social and cultural
simultaneously with for them to escape from the contexts in which they occur.
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