By Linda Kasonde |  I recently read a Facebook post by an otherwise enlightened individual, whom I will call Upendo, condemning a press briefing by Archbishop Desmond Tutu denouncing President Jacob Zuma’s abandonment of the ideals for which South Africans sought liberation from the apartheid regime and warning of Zuma’s downfall if he continues along this path.

Upendo expressed the view that any differences that citizens may have with the leaders of African countries should be resolved quietly and privately to avoid exposing your country and our race to public and international ridicule. My response was that often politicians only respond to criticism, positive or otherwise, when there is an audience that may affect their popularity - after all politics is about numbers. Quiet diplomacy or appeasement is often ineffective unless that person has some actual influence over the erring individual. In supporting my response to Upendo, a friend of mine added that it is actually dangerous to let our leaders live in ivory towers while they mismanage public resources as the impact on the ordinary African citizen who is poor, uneducated and unemployed is too costly.

Upendo’s outrage at the Archbishop’s “transgression” of the “African code” shocked me.

Here was a well-educated and exposed individual who seemed to believe that elders, persons in authority and the “big man” should not be publicly challenged. That is “disrespectful”. It got me to thinking about how much African culture actually constrains individuals from not only expressing themselves but also from self-actualising.  

African culture is celebrated because of its Ubuntu ethos: we are people through other people. We do things together, for each other, for the common good. We are also taught not to question elders or those in authority because “that is our culture” and “that is how it has always been”. It is what Sir Ken Robinson calls “the tyranny of common sense”. But what if the same thing that binds us together is keeping us from reaching our full potential?

This ethos promotes sameness; people that do not conform to the norm are often considered “unacceptable”. Jamaican political leader and Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey wrote:

“Most of the trouble I have had in advancing the cause of the race has come from Negroes. Booker Washington aptly described the race in one of his lectures by stating that we were like crabs in a barrel, that none would allow the other to climb over, but on any such attempt all would continue to pull back into the barrel the one crab that would make the effort to climb out”

I believe that almost a century later, this still holds true. Most unfortunate is the fact that this cultural thinking has equally affected descendants of Africans in the diaspora. Entrepreneurs with “harebrained” ideas are encouraged to get a real job, education and careers for many African women are seen as a waste of time and adventure is seen as the preserve of “crazy white people”. There is a stigma attached to things that are seen to be “unblack” or “unAfrican”. Garvey also wrote that a race dependent on another for its survival risks extinction. The fact that we as a race do not manufacture and produce most of the things that we consume is a problem. It makes us vulnerable.

In comparison to African cultures, Asian cultures are also very rich with strong traditions. Even the fact that they have high regard for authority and respect for elders has not deterred countries like the “Asian Tigers” from developing rapidly economically. Most of the Asian Tigers developed under autocratic regimes that put the greater good of the collective above that of the individual. Contrast this with many African leaders, even under democracies, whose “greater good” mainly serves immediate family relations and cronies above the general collective. Servant leadership appears to be an alien concept in many African countries. I believe that this is because historically in Africa your clan was your community. Nationhood and subsequently patriotism are very new concepts to us. Also, unlike most other cultures, so many African cultures rely on oral history and subsequently the pride of our ancestry has been lost or diminished post-colonialism. Like most African countries, Asian countries may not necessarily be great innovators but they have perfected the art of imitating and improving on existing innovations and technology. One of the main differences between African and Asian cultures appears to be that Asians support each other in their endeavours. By contrast to both African and Asian cultures, European cultures are much more dynamic; old ways that don’t work are much more easily disregarded for new ones that do. They appear to be less restricted by convention to culture and tradition and as a result they dominate global discourse on everything from politics and economics to football. I am not at all suggesting that African culture is bad. There are many things that humanity can learn from us Africans, including Ubuntu to a great extent. However, if we fail to compete on the global playing field and adapt to our current circumstances to address issues of poverty, disease and unemployment, we will literally die.

Africans need to wake up to the realisation that they too can be great as a race and change the world without having to leave the continent. It starts with the freedom to express our ideas, to challenge authority and to find the courage to climb out of the barrel. It starts with ensuring that we educate our people. As Garvey said: “emancipate yourselves from mentally slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.” 

   Linda Kasonde is a legal practitioner and the vice-president of the Law Association of Zambia.  

- See more at: http://www.postzambia.com/news.php?id=14573#sthash.uNLoWozx.dpuf