A Region in Flux

Many African countries are changing in ways and at speeds that some of Europe is struggling to understand. In parts of Africa this has resulted in the perception that Europe risks remaining in the past while new global players are offering new and alternative possibilities for international cooperation. Efforts have certainly been made with initiatives such as the Investing in People programme, but much remains to be done to change African perceptions that certain quarters of Europe still retain remnants of control over Africa’s independence. To a great extent, Europe’s engagement with Africa over the last few centuries is extent viewed as having been driven by Europe in the service of Europe’s own interests. This kind of position is simply not sustainable. To quote the words of Japanese art collector Soichhiro Fukutane when describing his philanthropic work on the Naoshima island art project: “You are doing something wrong if you decide things without considering nature, people and their history.”

As centuries-old trading routes are being redrawn, culture could present Europe with the opportunity to forge a ‘New Deal’ with Africa. The resource-rich continent is now demanding more balanced relationships that are driven by sincere promises based on shared interests. Forging a new deal that is based on the paternalism of a bygone era is both undesirable and unsustainable. There are perceptions in many African countries that old paternalistic traits still linger in certain corners of Europe and that they are manifested within some European cultural institutions that still have the mission of “civilizing inferior African cultures and values”.

These perceptions emerged in discourse around last year’s media coverage of Brett Murray’s controversial art work, The Spear. The South African president was depicted with his genitals exposed. The work was part of an exhibition whose curatorial conception proffered the view that good values were being eroded by the new custodians of power in the post-colonial and independent South Africa.

Many African states have rates of economic growth that are currently unrivalled anywhere else in the world.

Just like Europe, Africa is shaped by its unique history and culture. Its diverse peoples see the world around them and transmit it from one generation to the next through sophisticated knowledge systems, beliefs, aspirations, customs, morals, traditions and habits. Specifically, African philosophies such as Ubuntu in Southern and Sankofa in Western Africa, weave a connectedness between the individual and the whole in communities and society in relation to time and space, the living and the after-life. Africans tested their sense of humanity and still test the highest values of their cultural being through a diverse range of philosophies and artistic expressions. Underpinning the so-called African Renaissance is a revival of the narrative that the continent is culturally diverse; it has a deep philosophical grounding linking individuals to time and space.

While Zimbabwe and Europe have for centuries forged complex ties linked to religion, language, culture, the arts and commerce, there are perceptions that some Europeans remain reluctant to acknowledge that Africans have the right to total political, economic, spiritual and cultural independence. This includes the right to make mistakes. Europe has made its share of mistakes in the past and continues to do so. In the end, they provide an opportunity to learn. African concerns are founded on the observance of the mainstreaming of extreme right-wing views into Europe’s politics and hence its foreign policy agenda.

So what has changed? What are the new missionaries of development bringing to the table with their world views and models? Why are missions to use the arts as an instrument – such as those presented to Africa by powerful networks such as EUNIC – perceived as being a threat to sustainable development?

Some Europeans remain reluctant to acknowledge that Africans have the right to total political, economic, spiritual and cultural independence.

The answers to these questions may lie in the growing need for equitable new deals with Africa. It is useful to consider Zimbabwe’s agrarian reform history over the last decade when exploring new approaches to Europe’s engagement with Africa’s nature, people and history. The Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation that was founded during a period when multilateral relations between the government of Zimbabwe and the EU were suspended. The country was on the precipice of an unprecedented economic melt-down.

It was also during this period that Sweden, through its Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), found ways of remaining connected to the people of Zimbabwe by funding the Culture Fund and enabling it to become the most significant development enabler for Zimbabwean arts and culture. The Culture Fund of Zimbabwe was born from the desire of internal stakeholders to have the right of self-determination in the development of the country’s cultural ecosystem. The Fund borrowed institutional best practices from Tanzanian experiences, where actors in the sector had recognised that northern European architects may not be able to design and build houses in Africa without an understanding of the nature, people and history of Africans. A new model for funding the cultural ecology was born based on imbued values. A hybrid of Europe’s centralised and subsidised approach versus America’s decentralised and tax-exemption incentives approach would be developed to suit local needs.

This model has set Sweden and Sida apart among its community of European neighbours in Zimbabwe. But the history of Zimbabwe-Sweden relations goes back much further than this. Sweden was supportive of Zimbabwe’s liberation movement and recognised black Zimbabweans’ right to self-determination at a time when others in Europe still felt it was premature. The Culture Fund’s model of cooperation with Sweden has recently enabled a new two-year partnership with the European Union.

Sweden was supportive of Zimbabwe’s liberation movement and recognised black Zimbabweans’ right to self-determination at a time when others in Europe still felt it was premature.

Indeed, the EU’s external cultural relations with Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular are different in the various countries of Europe. Anglo-Zimbabwean relations are complex because of the colonial past and the cultural fulcrum of the white settler community. Because of their historic power base, the remaining small white community continues to wield a great deal of influence. Over the last decade, its continued existence in a new Zimbabwe has partly shaped British-Zimbabwean relations and in turn Zimbabwe’s relations with Europe itself.

While the former EU-member Britain is seen as the EU country that is chiefly responsible for the political impasse between Zimbabwe and Europe, a real opportunity exists for re-engagement. For example, this could be buttressed by exploiting the interpersonal ties that are a result of the hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans who migrated to the United Kingdom several years ago following the country’s agrarian reforms over the last decade. These migrants to Britain have been integrated into Europe and will open new avenues for cultural exchange and diplomacy in the looming era of détente.

Good approaches were already in place many years ago: The “European External Cultural Relations: Expectations from the outside” Conference held in Brussels in 2012 and to which I was invited, made an honest attempt to review the intent and focus of the EU’s “renewed development cooperation policy”. A resurgent Africa demands to become an equal partner with the EU because it has the right to be regarded as one. It is well aware of the vastness and wealth of its human and natural resources. Younger Africans have a new narrative that is cognisant of history and heritage, while resolutely focusing on a more assertive and prosperous future.