Lessons from Africa for the Twenty-First Century
Members of the Boston Pan-African Forum, established to educate and mobilize the African American and African Diaspora communities and influence the content and conduct of the United States foreign policy toward Africa, met at the BRC in Cambridge in early September. A video from Common Ground Productions, "When Everything Falls Apart," was the catalyst for beginning the evening's dialogue. In the drama, a plaintiff and the accused seek out a tribal court to resolve a land dispute. Tribal song and dance communicate the wrong done. The conflict resolution, it is made clear in the film, must be one that the entire community will find just and tolerable.
Dr. Patricia Walker, president of the Boston Pan-African Forum and the evening's dialogue facilitator, began with an assertion, "Africa is the continent of the twenty-first century. Its potential will truly be realized in the new century." She chided Westerners for their inability to perceive what Africa is really about and their inability to step beyond their biases to recognize African values.
Dr. Walker, like others in attendance, recalled in her work as an economic consultant an Africa that is generous, where sharing is valued, where the richness of culture reflects a spiritual wealth despite economic poverty. "Africa," she suggested, "has so much to teach the rest of the world. Africans and Westerners need to learn about values and traditions from each other. We need to focus on how to promote peace."
Jackie Owusu, a Harvard Medical School student, indicated that in her country, Ghana, she had observed the same kind of land disputes as that portrayed in the film. She indicated that in Africa land connection is part of self-identification and that the goal in any conflict resolution is to have everyone leave a dispute satisfied. However, as she and her colleagues agreed, generational differences in Africa are causing land to be viewed in new ways by the younger members of families.
Land should stay within families, parents say, yet this can mean that land is not worked or developed. Patrick Seyon, a fellow at the Boston University African Studies Center and former president of the University of Liberia, reminded his colleagues that, in Africa, land is the basis for survival and that communal ownership is important. He felt strongly that the African approach to conflict resolution is one in which there are no losers and that this is contrary to a capitalist approach to resolving disputes. Africa, he maintained, is highly egalitarian.
Asgedet "Segi" Stefanos, assistant professor in the College of Public and Community Service, University of Massachusetts Boston, asserted that we need to build bridges to be able to return to earlier traditions and customs.
Maureen Idehen, president of the Nigerian Advocacy Group for Democracy and Human Rights, explained simply: "Everything used to go to the first son; therefore, there was no land conflict. Now, this is changing and much is being lost."
A.I. "Tayo" Akinwande, associate professor of electrical engineering at MIT, indicated that Africans are finding that Western methods are not working and people are saying, We need to go back to the old ways. The discussions, he said, do not center on rights, but on responsibilities. The issue is not so much about "having land as it is about taking care of land because it was once my grandfather's."
"The Africa that is appearing now scares me," Jackie Owusu volunteered. "I want to go back to my grandparents' Africa."
Barbara Greene Seyon, founder of Global Linkages, Inc., provided some perspective when she suggested that, "Both sides of the ocean bear a responsibility." What the group was contending with were the difficulties that always come in times of transitions. The primary concern seemed to be that the modern state in Africa does not have the capacity to provide the range of services that were once provided by extended families. The example of the American welfare system seemed to all present woefully inadequate.
Based on her experiences in Eritrea and Ethiopia, Segi Stefanos noted several changes that are occurring in Africa: (1) pronouns of respect are being lost; (2) poverty is increasing; (3) as individualism is emphasized in place of community, sadness is growing; (4) there is a confusion about values; and (5) the worst parts of Western culture are being imported.
Journalist Nena Uche suggested that what each African yearns for is an integration of the old and the new, a salvaging of all that is best, while Patricia Walker articulated the kinds of African family and community values we should work to respect and preserve:
- Support each other
- Always be an ambassador
- Respect others, especially seniors
- Remember who you are
- Remember: you represent your whole village
- Excel: if you aim for the skies, you will land in the highest trees
As Tayo Akinwande recalled, a sense of responsibility is one of the first lessons conveyed at home. One grows up knowing that he must make both the family and the village proud.
To retain a sense of community and respect for life, even when outside of Africa, there was unanimous agreement that the question Africans and African Americans must address is this: "What part of our tradition do we want to keep?
The evening's dialogue ended, as it had begun, with laughter, embraces, and a determination to keep the embers of friendship and dialogue that had been fanned aglow. The spirit of Daisaku Ikeda, BRC founder and president of Soka Gakkai International, was very much present. It was President Ikeda who had declared at the United Nations headquarters that the twenty-first century would be the Century of Africa, that "by the Century of Africa I mean a century in which those who have suffered the most will be the happiest. . . . Those whom the world has oppressed the most will carry the world into the future. . . . The time has come for the entire world to learn from the energy, strength and wisdom of Africa."
Boston Pan-African Forum Roundtable Discussion
September 11, 1998
Tayo Akinwande, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nigeria
Maureen Idehen, Nigerian Advocacy Group for Democracy and Human Rights, Nigeria
Karen Nardella, Boston Research Center
Jackie Owusu, Harvard University, Ghana
Barbara Greene Seyon, Global Linkages, Inc., Liberia
Patrick Seyon, Boston University, Liberia
Asgedet Stefanos, UMass Boston, Eritrea
Virginia Straus, Boston Research Center
Nena Uche, Journalist, Nigeria
Patricia Walker, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, facilitator
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