It is hard, and it almost feels traitorous for one – especially being black African – to look interrogatingly into the mirror and start a conversation about whether there is something intrinsically misaligned with the way Africans manage their affairs. It is a discussion that almost immediately gets met with outrage, accusations of betrayal and self-hatred.

The same seems to be the case with the question of whether Africans – going by the state of, arguably, most African-led countries – are capable of successfully running sophisticated ‘modern’ economies. One is left wondering, with care to leave room for ‘benefit of the doubt’, of course, if the source of the difficulties faced by much of Africa is inherited/imposed socio-economic and political culture that is foreign to Africa’s traditional ways. It begs the question to ask whether centuries of colonial, then apartheid (in the case of South Africa) history, so much distanced Africa, and Africans, from what used to be their ‘natural way’ of doing things, which would, presumably, have evolved in its own way and at its pace, over time? Are there facts to support the existence of biologically inherited ways to do things that are unique to a people, or do humans simply do things the way they do because of socialisation and repeated, unquestioned, practices handed down from one generation to the next?

What would a 2022 Africa have been like had there never been any violent, domineering, encounters with the Arab world and, principally, the West; encounters that culminated in slavery, colonialism, apartheid, and the imposition of foreign languages, religions, and cultures that ensure, today, that African political and economic systems are, arguably, the most distanced from their natural roots? Can it be argued that whatever they do, Africans are always out of place because they’re constantly trying to fit into a suit that belongs to someone else and to navigate a complex world wearing it, a world whose rules were developed by and are natural to the owner of the suit?

It is known, for instance, that unlike African leaders – who have been turned by their respective colonial histories into Anglophone, Francophone, Lusophone, or Hispanophone/Spanish speaking – leaders from the West, the East, and Asia, amongst others, conduct official business, bilateral and multilateral engagements in their own traditional languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Hindi, Arabic, Cantonese, etc.

Anyone should know that language is an important carrier of culture and ‘the way of being’. Conducting their global affairs in languages that are ‘learned’ and that are not intrinsically, culturally, theirs might come at a disadvantage for Africans and African leaders. One can imagine it being very hard for many of them to be ‘natural’ and able to express their authentic thoughts and feelings using idioms that reference their cultural socialisation authentically in bilateral and multilateral engagements. The inability to do so places many of them – perhaps with a few exceptions – in disadvantageous positions vis-à-vis their interlocutors, as they must, almost like children learning to speak, be mindful of language and be assured that what comes out of their mouths is what they intend to communicate. Few, if any, are known to use home language translators in multilateral engagements.

Could it be, therefore, that African leaders fail because they’re trying too hard to culturally assimilate – at great expense to Africa – or is there another explanation for the current state of Africa? Some people will argue, with reason, that many Asian countries – Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, former ‘British-controlled’ Hongkong, and others – have managed to defy the odds that came with being former colonies to assimilate, culminating into successful modern democracies, for some, and free market economies, for others; why is Africa perennially failing to emerge as a giant it should be?

Is it, perhaps, a question of values? Ethical leadership? Stubborn, archaic, cultural, and traditional practices that ensure that much of Africa remains caught-up in ways that prevent it from advancing into the modern economic and political giant it could be?                  

Following Eritrea, which gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1991, and ahead of South Sudan, which separated from and gained its independence from ‘Sudan’ in 2011, South Africa generated global media coverage and admiration when it ended its racially repressive system of apartheid after several years of multiparty negotiations in the early 1990s. With world political icon, former late President Nelson Mandela at its helm, South Africa became an instant darling of the democratic world, a country many touted as an example for others to emulate.

It was the most industrialised economy in Africa, the biggest and most sophisticated. Furthermore, the democracy that was ushered in by the April 1994 elections came blessed with an arguably robust set of State-Owned Enterprises that constituted a viable economic ‘starter pack’ to grow from. But many doubters, Afropessimists, predicted that the honeymoon would not last. They argued that it would be just a matter of time before the institutions in place would buckle under ‘incompetent and corruption-inclined, black leadership’. Many of them were so convinced of this dark eventuality that they packed-up and emigrated from the country just before and as soon as the black-led African National Congress (ANC) took over the reins of power. 

The only explanation given to this emigratory phenomenon by many of those who remained in the country was that those who left were racists who could not imagine themselves living in a country led by Blacks, whom they did not believe to be capable to lead a modern African political and economic powerhouse and democracy. Perhaps they were racist, who knows? The only information they would have had to justify their fearful predictions at the time would have been their mostly anecdotal knowledge of failing leadership elsewhere on the continent, as well as reports of endless ethnic civil wars that culminated in bloody coups d’état and tribal repression in many cases.

Sadly, everything that has become of South Africa over the past two decades has given reason to the early warnings and predictions, irrespective of whether they were based on misplaced prejudice or facts.

In a piece written in 2016, Prince Mashele, a well-known South African political research expert and analyst, advised those who had high hopes for South Africa becoming a global economic powerhouse to “take a cold shower: South Africa is just another African country and will always be.” He warned against African leaders like former South African president, Zuma, who did not trust educated Blacks, whom he sarcastically referred to as “Clever Blacks” who have assimilated into foreign, Western, ways. Accordingly, Mashele warned, “Clever Blacks” were wrong to believe that South Africa would ultimately beat the African trend of economic and political decline. He concluded: “Think Nigeria, not Norway, when contemplating what life is likely to look like [in South Africa] if change did not come soon."

All this begs the question, have we, analysts and commentators, properly diagnosed the roots of the challenges faced by (South) Africa in order to suggest appropriate solutions?