Africa's cyberspace challenge

BOASTING of more nation states than the United States of America is a continent that has significantly contributed to global civilisation through its voluntary and involuntary exports of its human and natural resources but whose promise is yet to be fully exploited and realized.
The African family carries a global stigma that militates against the repositioning of its people in an increasingly competitive environment.
While Africa’s relatively untapped human and natural resources offer a lot of promise to future generations, there is a real risk that unless the global African family realises that a lasting heritage can only be defined through collective effort, the promise of Africa may be inherited by non-Africans.
With only six years into this century, many have dubbed it the African century and yet there is no visible effort by the African family to invest in a new address.
An address is an important variable in human existence because it is a device that allows human beings in a network of humanity to identify and communicate with each other. Unfortunately, the involuntary African human exports, i.e. slaves, were not allowed to create an address in their new homes that could provide a platform for other Africans to make a connection.
In as much as the Anglo Saxons who ventured into foreign lands and created enduring addresses that provided them with a platform to create new communities, albeit connected to their native lands, Africans who went into the diaspora were systematically prevented from using their new addresses to attract their fellow brothers and sisters to build stronger and vibrant communities with any connection to Africa.
It is not difficult to imagine what was in the minds of the European pioneers who ventured into Africa. When they discovered Africa’s promise, they immediately told their kith and kin that they had found a new address that could be potentially rewarding to them. Equally, for example other nationalities like Chinese, Jews, Arabs, Lebanese, Indians, Koreans, and Japanese etc who have chosen other countries as their new addresses have demonstrated a capacity to build successful communities with supporting institutions. In doing so, they have contributed in building their own native identity as a people and in helping to position their people in the global matrix of development.
The need for creating a new African network cannot be overstated. Africans in general have not invested in their own corporate and individual address that is necessary if they want to be taken seriously by other communities in the world. Some have chosen to simplistically explain Africa’s dilemma as being a creation of imperialists and yet fail to explain the success of Asians in Africa.
In fact, South Africa provides a unique example where indentured Indians were imported to provide cheap labour in the sugar plantations have over the years managed to create an address for themselves in the country resulting in their assimilation in the political culture of the country. The Indian family of South Africa has created business address and visible geographical communities that Africans in the diaspora have failed to create and yet spent most of their productive lives as arm chair critics against the political confusion that characterises Africa. Could it be that the failure by Africans in the diaspora to create their own addresses may explain why Africa continues to invest in the blame game without taking ownership of its challenges and solutions?
If Lebanese people, without the benefit of a colonial past, can successfully confuse the whole of West Africa by creating their own African addresses why is it that Africans continue to talk about Blair and Bush as if they are the only causes of their plight? If anyone visits a town like Durban, then one can appreciate the investment Asians have made in being African and yet they may never get the recognition they deserve. I do believe that anyone who builds a home in someone’s territory is in effect demonstrating confidence in that person. For how would it be possible for an Indian, for example, who has built a house in Africa to export the same house to India? It should be common cause that Africans who are in the majority in Africa stand to inherit that infrastructure. If anything, the investment by Indians should inspire natives to do better.
Rather, the natives of Africa have chosen to export their skills to other continents while at the same time not adding value to the creation of a new value system that recognises the individual in the context of an African family as the centre of transformation.
Our generation is fortunate to live at a time when existing technologies allow us to network more efficiently and effectively. However, even in the cyberspace Africans have failed to create sustainable virtual networks and invest in new IP addresses that can add content to the global debate on interplay between race and development. I have observed that most of the Africans I interface with in the virtual world have wrong email addresses i.e. their surnames go as follows: yahoo, hotmail, gmail, msn, etc. We are not ashamed that we have failed to create our own unique portals and Africa sensitive addresses. Some of us have invested in creating new email addresses that can only be accessed through African content. It is important that those of us fortunate to be computer literate and connected in the cyberspace use this privileged to create a new African presence. If myspace.com; YouTube can show that through networks people can create their own civilisations and improve the content of their conversations, why is it that we are not talking about this as Africans?
We need urgently to take advantage of the intersection of three revolutions that are taking place in the world. The first relates to the revolution in video production made possible by cheap camcorders and easy-to-use video software. African should invest in creating their own stories and exchanging them as an integral part of nation building or what can be described as “Africanation”. The African nation is extensive and yet fragmented and not only angry but destructively envious of progress. There is need to showcase African stories using the video medium so that these stories can begin to challenge our leaders who have a tendency to look east and west when they should be looking at themselves and learn from their own citizens. Surely, Asians had to confront themselves and map out a strategy for their salvation rather than investing in excuses.
The second revolution that pundits and analysts have dubbed Web 2.0 is exemplified by sites like MySpace, Wikipedia, Flickr and Digg where people create and share information together. Unfortunately, Africans have not created their own space where they can exchange their stories in a kind of mass collaboration that would not have been possible without the internet.
The third revolution is the cultural one where people are impatient with mainstream media and the top down approach in which governments and talking heads spoonfeed passive spectators ideas about what is happening in the world. People including Zimbabweans want unfiltered news and hence the growth of sites like, New Zimbabwe.com, as a source of untainted news.
On my part, I agreed to contribute to this new culture by my weekly column that I hope will add to the required conversations that can make Africa a continent of hope and promise. It is my sincere hope that Africans can invest in their own portal and tell the world their own stories in their own words. However, we must start by looking at our email addresses to ensure that we are compliant as Africans.
To this end, Africa Heritage Corporate Council (AHCC) has invested in a networking site, http://www.ahccouncil.com/, where any person interested in making a difference on the continent is welcome to join and get an e-mail address. The site is structured no different from MySpace.com to allow you to add your content. I have noted that many of the people who have registered on the site have chosen to remain anonymous and in some instances refused to provide their photographs. I find no excuse for people who choose to provide addresses without the necessary useful information to allow the users to use such information to not only make a difference to the lives of the authors but others.
Imagine, we created a site where our photos and profiles are available as well as the profile of Africa’s companies and brands, what difference can we make as Africans who appear increasingly challenged by the lack of case studies showcasing their successes and failures?
We should not begrudge anyone who regards African businesspersons are crooks and criminals, if we have chosen not to invest in understanding the lives and tribulations of Africa’s business people. We need to start learning how it is that foreigners who have chosen Africa as their new addresses have succeeded in both pre-colonial and post-colonial times to distinguish themselves and give an identity to their own people without spending a lot of energy winging about why things are not working. A new value system for Africans can only come about if Africans start by sharing selflessly their unique life experiences so that its people can draw inspiration where appropriate.
Finally, the ability of Africans to create their own vibrant virtual communities is not contingent on African governments. The few Africans who are privileged to communicate with the world have an obligation to use their time and resources to collectively create new images that can locate the African family in a continuum of human progress rather than in a residue of despair and hopelessness. I believe that we collectively owe it to our future generations to act creatively and use our collective presence in the virtual world to demonstrate something positive about us as Africans. It is important that we recognise that Perception is King.
The cyberspace is available and all we have to do is put our content in a portal that can help locate us where others have shown the lead.