Implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) on the Development of Indigenous Languages of South Africa

Indigenous languages are the carriers of the communication, culture, and identity. It is through language that one expresses one's thoughts, emotions, and feelings. Unfortunately, colonialism created serious problems and obstacles in the development of African indigenous languages. European languages are used in Africa, rated as official languages of African countries while indigenous languages are sidelined and marginalized. Africa's own vision of decolonization, self-realization, and African Renaissance will always be a dream if African languages don't reclaim their rightful position in Africa. Intellectual decolonization is prudent for the realization of emancipation of the indigenous languages.

“I am an African”: A Philosophical Enquiry of Identity and Culture

With the public frenzy over Thabo Mbeki’s speech, “I am an African” that was delivered in 1996, South Africa has since become a subject of debate as to who is an African and what constitutes as African. This has been going on for almost two decades and a half now. Mbeki’s speech appears to have evoked solemn questions relating to the issues of identity and culture. Subsequent to that speech, the South African public began to question what it meant to be African. The central point of enquiry was: what makes one an African? Is it the color of their skin? Their citizenship? Or is one merely an African because others regard him or her as such? These and many other questions arise when one touches upon the subject of Africans. These perplexing questions, however, are not only unique to the South African context; they apply, to some extent, to the general continent of Africa. With talks and debates about African renaissance, decoloniality, and indigenization, the question of African identity and culture resurfaces. Here, the discussion hubs around the issue of African persona and what it means to be authentically African. By means of document analysis, this paper critically employs a philosophical approach in order to grapple with the subject of identity and culture. This is done through a systematic discussion of the following facets: (a) history, (b) identity, and (c) culture. These three facets are therefore critically engaged in order to establish what constitute an African and what can be characterized as an African identity.

From Offline to Online Imagined Community: Recuperating Asante Culture and History for Development in Ghana

Since the advent of social media, mediated through smartphones, about a decade ago in Ghana, West Africa, many of the youths have appropriated this modern communicative technology to rejuvenate indigenous cultures as important models for fashioning the pathways of development. About half a decade ago, some young men and women of Asante origin in Ghana embarked on a project of recuperating Asante cultures. These youths saw themselves as responding to the national call, since the mid-2000s, for re-traditionalisation. It was also partly a response to the United Nations’ call for alternative development narrative, framed around cultural revivalism, since the 1990s. It equally dovetails with the call of Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa, for African Renaissance. Given this continental and trans-continental contexts and the recent coronavirus protocol of social distancing, a group of Asante youth aligned themselves with their chiefs and cultural historians to establish an online community on WhatsApp. Their aim was/is to recuperate the Asante Kotoko Society, which was first established as an offline Society in 1916, to support Asanteman’s progress. Thus, this online imagined community has been established to serve as a point of confluence for the teaching, researching, and promoting “relevant” Asante cultures to ensure the socio-economic development of Asanteman and Ghana. Using critical discourse analysis and ethnographic technique of in-depth interviews with key respondents of the Society, I contribute to the discourse on community as I analyse the question: How relevant is online community to offline development?

Studying and teaching ethnic African languages for Pan-African consciousness, Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance: A Decolonising Task

In order to conquer and subjugate Africans, at the 1884 Berlin Conference, European countries dismembered Africa by carving her up into pieces and sharing her among themselves. European colonialists also antagonised Africans by setting up one ethnic African community against the other, thus promoting ethnic consciousness to undermine Pan-African consciousness. European powers also imposed their own “ethnic” languages, making them not only “official”, but also “international”. Consequently, as the Kenyan philosopher, Ngũgῖ wa Thiong’o, persuasively argues, through their ethnic languages, European colonialists planted their memory wherever they went, while simultaneously uprooting the memory of the colonised. Cognisant of efforts in some South African institutions of higher learning to promote African languages for the purpose of promoting literacy in African languages, this article argues that while this exercise is commendable, ethnic African languages should be deliberately taught to “re-member” Africa and rediscover Pan-African consciousness. By doing this, African scholarship would be aiding Africans’ perennial and elusive quest for Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance. Keywords: African Renaissance, Ethnic African Languages, Ethnic European Languages, European Colonialism, Pan-African Consciousness, Pan-Africanism

Afrocentricity as the Organizing Principle for African Renaissance. Interview with Prof. Molefi Kete Asante, Temple University (USA)

Professor Molefi Kete Asante is Professor and Chair of the Department of Africology at Temple University. Asante’s research has focused on the re-centering of African thinking and African people in narratives of historical experiences that provide opportunities for agency. As the most published African American scholars and one of the most prolific and influential writers in the African world, Asante is the leading theorist on Afrocentricity. His numerous works, over 85 books, and hundreds of articles, attest to his singular place in the discipline of African American Studies. His major works, An Afrocentric Manifesto [Asante 2007a], The History of Africa [Asante 2007b], The Afrocentric Idea [Asante 1998], The African Pyramids of Knowledge [Asante 2015], Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation [Asante 2009], As I Run Toward Africa [Asante 2011], Facing South to Africa [Asante 2014], and Revolutionary Pedagogy [Asante 2017], have become rich sources for countless scholars to probe for both theory and content. His recent award as National Communication Association (NCA) Distinguished Scholar placed him in the elite company of the best thinkers in the field of communication. In African Studies he is usually cited as the major proponent of Afrocentricity which the NCA said in its announcing of his Distinguished Scholar award was “a spectacular achievement”. Molefi Kete Asante is interviewed because of his recognized position as the major proponent of Afrocentricity and the most consistent theorist in relationship to creating Africological pathways such as institutes, research centers, departments, journals, conference and workshop programs, and academic mentoring opportunities. Asante has mentored over 100 students, some of whom are among the principal administrators in the field of Africology. Asante is professor of Africology at Temple University and has taught at the University of California, State University of New York, Howard University, Purdue University, Florida State University, as well as held special appointments at the University of South Africa, Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, and Ibadan University in Nigeria.