Writing against the grain: Adekeye Adebajo's Africa
Africa has always been marked by difference, globally, and this difference always bears negativity,and tends to perpetuate stereotypes.
What Adekeye Adebajo's recent work The Splendid Tapestry of African Life: Essays on a Resilient Continent, Its Diaspora, and the World, counts for is to challenge and make that difference a positive appeal to the continent.
The book is a collection of essays penned over a period of three decades, covering most compelling issues, debates and developments across the continent.
It is the outcome of Adebajo's intellectual engagement which evolved and established a comprehensive and grounded critique, thoughts and reviews over the time.
The collection is broken into 10 chapters, with 36 essays in total.
The titles of essays are full of echoes and implications that bring a global kind of rendering to the issues explored.
Among the names invoked throughout the book are William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Pliny the Elder, Ali Mazrui, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Chinua Achebe — to name just a few.
Even the title of the book resonates with Nigerian novelist, poet and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka's latest novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, where he laments the decay of beauties spoiled by the politics of corruption in his country.
The title of the book also suggests a striking contrast with the issues covered, or more deeply, a politics of difference, which comes to mind when dealing with Africa.
This contrast is summed up as follows: Africa we believe versus Africa we think. For the problematic arises out of difference, challenges and analysis.
The truth that Adebajo brings into life is not something new, it is something embedded in Africa, which is not and/or cannot be seen from outside the continent.
Nigerian poet and scholar Harry Garuba once said that the truth lies at the heart of an unexplored part of Africa that is not yet covered by the Western discourse, namely Afro-pessimism and Afro-romanticism.
I believe Adebajo's attempt in this extensive study is to tap into that unexplored medium of the African domain.
He aptly challenges the prevailing eurocentric and discursive representations of Africa foregrounded in the mainstream media, as well as the Western military and political interventions across the continent.
For instance, calling France a myth of 'Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité', he calls into question the country's sustained hegemonic power in the francophone countries, saying, 'France continued to apply democracy inconsistently, sanctioning sham elections in Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Gabon, Niger and Togo between 1992 and 1996, and resuming aid to fraudulent, undemocratic regimes.'
He adds, 'France's intervention on the continent has thus become a costly relic of a bygone age of imperial delusion.'
The book covers a diverse range of issues, problems and themes around Africa including pan-Africanism; slavery; colonialism; reparations; foreign policy; governance; decolonisation; peacekeeping; Africa and Western relations; terrorism and Cold War problems on the continent, as well as cultural issues.
In 586 pages, Adebajo deals with a multitude of issues besetting and underrating Africa.
The Splendid Tapestry is informative and illuminating, providing an insightful, critical and deconstructive approach to global issues over Africa.
Regarding reparations, for Adebajo, one of the most significant recent developments is the agreement by Germany to pay Namibia €1.1 billion in compensation, which was followed by the Netherlands' apology for Dutch slavery, globally.
He asks: 'Will the more egregious abusers of France, Britain, Belgium, Portugal and Italy follow suit and start to atone for their historical crimes against humanity?'
The way Adebajo tackles problems is strategic and optimistic.
Bringing African leaders, thinkers, scholars such as Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Kwame Nkrumah, Ruth First, Wole Soyinka, Ali Mazrui and many others into his pan-Africanist perspective, he establishes Africa as a global actor through interactions, encounters and engagement on the global scene.
He sees Africa as moving, glittering and shining: 'Africa. A breath-taking continent of spectacular beauty conjures up extreme images of paradisiacal Eden as the birthplace of humankind and, in contrast, a conflict-ridden, disease-afflicted 'Dark Continent' that offers a glimpse of apocalyptic Armageddon.
'But Africa is a resilient continent that, despite continuing challenges, is currently on the move in the areas of economic development, conflict resolution, and democratic governance.'
Though the bulk of the book takes a strategic and critical view over the African political landscape, considerable parts are dedicated to cinema, sports and cityscapes.
One of the striking points he makes about Nollywood is important to note. He locates Nollywood at the heart of Africa because of its Nigerian location. He maintains: 'Nollywood has unquestioningly become one of the few true representations of 'global Africa'.'
What strikes me most is to read about African cities in the writer's imagination. Adebajo provides astonishing pieces of cities, profoundly lived experiences of Lagos, Abuja, Accra, Abidjan, Johannesburg and Laayoune.
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