Valdai Club

However long the night, the dawn will break.
African Proverb

Just like 1917, 1945 and 1991, 2022 was a defining moment in human history. However, unlike the previous century, when the socialist/communist ideology grew as an alternative to Western domination, expanded and then collapsed, the geopolitical storm of the third decade of the 21^st century challenges Western hegemony at its core, writes Ibrahima Diagne. This is the first part of his reflections on the emerging multipolarity and Africa’s role in this process.

As never before in more than five centuries, Western hegemony is being challenged on economic, spiritual, military, social and technological levels simultaneously by the global majority.

The Western world’s development model is based on a parasitic approach to all resources (human, financial, raw materials, etc..), and is incapable of adapting to embrace a symbiotic approach in which all parties have to trade off (‘you give me some, I give you some’, instead of ‘I take everything and give you crumbs’). 

As a result, the West faces an existential threat: preserve its current hegemony at all costs or be forced to become “regular” countries that must trade with the rest of humanity on a more equitable basis.

The conduct of the West might appear non-rational. The EU is taking actions that deeply undermine its economy, countries are abandoning policies of neutrality that have served them well for decades or even centuries, and the USA has weaponised the dollar to the extreme despite the fact that it severely undermines the credibility of its key economy’s asset.

Why?

Do they not see the damage they’re doing to their economies and the social well-being of their people?

Actually, they do, but for the Western ruling class, this battle is a battle to the death! All gloves are off! Russia must be crushed, then China will be neutralised and after that, the Global majority will fall back to the previous order and Western hegemony will be preserved for at least another century.

Africans are acutely aware of the stakes!

In human history, Africans are among the few peoples to have faced total dehumanisation – slavery was justified on the grounds that blacks were considered soulless and therefore could be assimilated as “commodities”; while slavery was not only practiced by Europeans, the European slave trade, which lasted over 400 years, reached an industrial level that profoundly affected the economy, culture and population of Africa.

Furthermore, over 100 years of colonisation, Africans were dispossessed of their lands and cultures, massacred and displaced. European greed had genocidal proportions, comparable to the extermination of the indigenous populations of the Americas. 

Fortunately, Africa has retained enough of its original population and culture to remain African, even if to this day it has not regained the percentage of the world population that it represented before the European slave trade.

Africa’s historical contribution to humanity

Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.
African Proverb

Despite regular attempts to challenge the scientific consensus, Africa is today considered the cradle of humanity. Some of the challenges to the consensus are driven by scientific hypotheses, which is understandable since science develops by confronting accepted “truths”, sometimes rejecting them and sometimes confirming them totally or partially.

A considerable part of the thinking that challenges the notion of Africa as the cradle of humanity is based on a supremacist ideology and/or political dogma: “These inferior Africans cannot be our ancestors. We are different, we are superior. It is therefore legitimate to abuse and control ALL African resources (people, lands, raw materials, water, etc.)

Policies that glorified the enslavement of the African population, the colonisation of Africa and currently justify the hoarding of Africa’s resources conveniently propagate and reinforce the perception that Africa, having giving birth to Humanity, remains somehow stuck in the past with no sense of state, without any capability to innovate and with a backwards belief system.

Due to the control of information by the collective West over the last several centuries, these deceits and fabrications have been perpetuated around the world to create grow and maintain disunity among oppressed nations and to quell challenges within Western societies. 

The rediscovery of Ancient Egypt coincided with the rise of the West’s global military hegemony and its self-adoption of its “civilisation duty” to justify the massacre and genocide of 100 million people around the world. 

Consequently, ancient Egypt was defined as a Greco-Roman civilisation in Africa. Over time, scientific data has accumulated, demonstrating that ancient Egypt was an indigenous African civilisation that influenced the Greco-Roman and Arabic civilisations and other civilisations, but also interacted with other cultures and enriched itself with the contribution of peoples from many parts of the world.

The contribution of ancient Egypt to science, engineering, medicine, philosophy, religion and other aspects of the common development of human civilization is profound and continues to have an influence on humankind today. 

In addition to being the cradle of ancient Egyptian civilization, it was in Africa that the foundations of agriculture and metallurgy developed.

France prides itself for the proclamation of Human Rights in the 18th century. This declaration was an achievement for the contemporary regulation of social interactions in Western-inspired societies and a solid contribution to human civilisation. 

However, more than five centuries earlier, in West Africa, the Mandé Charter was proclaimed. The Mandé Charter of 1226 not only affirmed the rights of men and women (the initial French declaration of human rights did not include women), but also the rights of animals and nature, thus expanding human rights by taking into consideration the rights of nature.

Thus 500 years before Europe, Africa had already established in-depth human rights, ecological principles and responsible economics.

From an economic and financial point of view, the richest man of all time was Kankan Moussa Mansa (King of Kings) of the Mali Empire, who reigned from 1312 to 1337. His personal fortune was estimated as being the equivalent of over $400 billion. Under his reign, the Mali Empire became one of the richest nations in the world.

Mansa Moussa expanded the Sankoré Mosque, built in 988, to build the second-oldest university in the world in Timbuktu. As a matter of fact, the first university in the world was also founded in Africa in 857-859 AD. The University of al-Qarawiyyin is located in Fez (Morocco).

In the early 14th century, a Malian ruler sent an expedition to discover America. There is debate as to whether the expedition reached America, but the event highlights Africa's consistent contribution to humanity's scientific, technological, economic, and cultural heritage.

It is therefore essential to dispel not only these false constructions about African history, but also to actively debunk the negative misrepresentations about the nations of the Global majority, while relegating the contribution of Western Europe to the development of humanity to its true proportion. 

This step is essential for the reconciliation of formerly dominated nations with themselves and, moreover, to enable a healthier interaction between the peoples of the world. Without mutual respect and understanding between peoples, it will be far more challenging to build a more inclusive and just humanity.

Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
African Proverb