West, Central, and East Africa in the Twenty-First Century: Stories from Social Change

[Idris2002]

I've been thinking that what P&P needs is a new kind of thread concept, so here it is. Every so often there's an African thread that dies the death because it just deals with this or that story, and with the exception of South Africa and Zimbabwe, most people don't really follow the continent enough to comment much.

So this thread is intended as a repository for stories of all sorts related to West and Central Africa - a very heterogeneous chunk of the earth's surface, but one where common patterns can be identified underneath all the diversity.

For example, for several years now, a lot of people have been talking up the idea of an "African middle class", as evidence that the free market works and that everything's going to be alright in Africa. To which the rest of say, no, it's just evidence that things are going to be alright for some.

There are people who are middle class in the western sense (in Sierra Leone and Ghana they go back to the nineteenth century) and their numbers are growing, but as always context is everything. Look at these two stories from Nigeria for example:

Nigeria: Africa Gets Ready for its First Luxury E-Commerce Platform

Inflation: Worry as Nigeria begins 2017 with higher misery index - Tribune

The first deals with luxury brands, the other with reality of people (workers, street traders, and even the famous 'middle class') struggling on low wages and incomes that are meagre to begin with, and then get hit by inflation. And behind all this is social change that means increasing urbanization, new problems in rural areas (the great land-grab hasn't gone away), and environmental issues that mean that the Ebola crisis won't be the last epidemic of its kind to hit the region.

What I'm picturing is that we can talk about this one, and when the talk gets exhausted, we can throw in other stories from the region that might be anything like the two links I've posted here, but which would still fit with the theme of social change in West and Central Africa. There may not be many Africanists on board here, but there are a lot of people who have read widely around the history of social change in Europe, North America and elsewhere - and that means that there might be more to talk about in this case than we might at first sight suppose.

 

[Idris2002]

Growth of African cities:

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I recently read about the new railway:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/world/africa/africa-china-train.html?_r=0

 

[Idris2002]

I recently read about the new railway:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/world/africa/africa-china-train.html?_r=0

Changed the thread title to reflect YW's post.

That post reflects the very different local character of the continent's changes. Sierra Leone has had a railway network rebuilt since the end of the civil war, but it's solely for transporting metal ore from the mines to ports on the coast. The passenger network SL had before the mid-70s has not been rebuilt.

 

[Idris2002]

A big part of social change is political protest, as people become less and less ready to put up with abuses of power committed by the powerful. The link here will take you to a story about the various forms of creative protest that have blossomed across the continent in recent years:

Sex, whistles and shutdowns: Inside Africa’s non-protesters’ protesting toolbox | African Arguments

What do urbanite veterans of various street battles think of these ones? (I have to admit the Liberian women's sex strike was a new one on me).

 

[Idris2002]

In 2005, I attended a conference on security in Africa . . . a conference in Moscow. Most people there took that as a sign that the continent was back on the Russian radar. Anyway, it looks like it is still on that radar, if this piece from the Russian International Affairs Council is any guide:

RIAC :: Keeping Peace in Africa in the 21st Century

The piece itself is rather boilerplate-ish, even though it makes some interesting points. The point is to indicate the kind of interest that Russia may have in the continent in the present moment, and into the near future.

 

[Idris2002]

Police brutality against journalist in Kenya:

Police torture 'Standard' journalist for exposing human rights abuses

What's interesting here is that on paper Kenya looks today like a success story, at least in terms of growth etc. But stories like this continue to appear. . .

 

[Idris2002]

Student protests in Sierra Leone lead violence, two deaths:

Sierra Leone: One dead, two seriously injured as security forces open fire on protesting students

S/L has a very long history of higher education - and an equally long history of it being monopolized by the elite. With the government promising to raise the country to middle-income status by the 2030s, that monopoly will have to end. Which makes the ongoing dysfunctions of the public system (lecturers at Njala university haven't been paid in months) even more problematic, and more likely to be protested by students.

 

[eatmorecheese]

Sorry I missed this, great idea for a thread.

One noticeable difference in recent years has been the opening up of information and journalism, allowing citizens across the continent to critically analyse dodginess at polling stations, financial misappropriation etc. Governments find it harder to control first hand information related by mobile phones directly to independent radio stations.

Out and about atm, will bookmark this thread

My optimistic side sees this as a positive development, the evolution of wider political spaces. My pessimistic side observed how easily and destructively these channels can be manipulated by governments and other sellers of ethnic hatreds, as in the Kenyan elections a few years back.

 

[Idris2002]

Guinea: trickle-down economics haven't worked, but that's not even half of the story.

The myth of the trickle-down effect: What Guinea’s recent upheavals intimate about the country, by Joschka Philipps

The key thing from this blogging post is that the country exhibits a 'multi-faceted distance' between the various insiders and outsiders, e.g. trade union bosses and the rank-and-file workers, or the president and the masses, etc. The author doesn't really expand on that one, but I think it's a way of thinking about social polarization that definitely has legs.

 

[Idris2002]

Here's a good one about the difficult but tenacious efforts of Mauretanian refugees to integrate themselves into Senegal's labour markets and urban communities:

In the Heart of the City: The case of long-term refugees in Dakar, Senegal, by Agathe Menetrier

 

[gawkrodger]

top idea for a thread. Don't think there's much I can contribute (except maybe a little on urban informality) but will be interesting to read

 

[Idris2002]

top idea for a thread. Don't think there's much I can contribute (except maybe a little on urban informality) but will be interesting to read

Well, maybe I should have specified in the original post that it wouldn't be necessary to be an expert on the continent to comment on this one.

We may not all know much about Africa, with some exceptions, but we do all know something about the history of the transition to modernity, as seen (for example) in the rise of urbanization. So that would allow for comment on cases like (for example) the integration of long-term refugees into the urban centres of Senegal.

 

[Idris2002]

Ethiopia's first rock group, making with the heavy sound, but incorporating local tradition as well:

Ethiopia's first rock band, blending rock with African sounds | Africanews

 

[eatmorecheese]

Ethiopia's first rock group, making with the heavy sound, but incorporating local tradition as well:

Ethiopia's first rock band, blending rock with African sounds | Africanews

On a similar vein...

http://www.okayafrica.com/audio/african-metal-bands-you-need-to-check-out/

 

[ViolentPanda]

Guinea: trickle-down economics haven't worked, but that's not even half of the story.

The myth of the trickle-down effect: What Guinea’s recent upheavals intimate about the country, by Joschka Philipps

The key thing from this blogging post is that the country exhibits a 'multi-faceted distance' between the various insiders and outsiders, e.g. trade union bosses and the rank-and-file workers, or the president and the masses, etc. The author doesn't really expand on that one, but I think it's a way of thinking about social polarization that definitely has legs.

Yep. Rather than taking the usual and simplistic "X against Y" formula, it possibly presents a more nuanced and segmented/stratified way of viewing the various linkages and conflicts between different actors.

 

[Idris2002]

Trouble brewing in the Ghanaian town of Gbani, thanks to a Chinese mining company buggering up the local environment:

Violence looms as Chinese firm defies mining order in Talensi

Ghana has a functioning multi-party system and a free press. It will be interesting to see how this one pans out. . .

 

[Idris2002]

More on the 'Middle class', and I use the quote marks advisedly:

It’s time to lift the ideological haze in debates about Africa’s middle class

Come on guys and gals, you lot love a good class debate. . . so what do you make of this one?

 

[Idris2002]

More on artisanal mining in Ghana and the movement of Chinese miners into the country:

Gold, guns and China: Ghana's fight to end galamsey - African Arguments

A lot of resentment and fear, but also a developing modus operandi, as local Ghanaian miners pick up fluent mandarin. Hmmm.

 

[eatmorecheese]

More on the 'Middle class', and I use the quote marks advisedly:

It’s time to lift the ideological haze in debates about Africa’s middle class

Come on guys and gals, you lot love a good class debate. . . so what do you make of this one?

A fair article, the point about how legions of IMF economists divorced their patchy economic analysis of 'middle class' from African social realities hits the nail on the head for me. Beyond the tiny percentage of fabulously wealthy people who have more in common with the residents of Knightsbridge than they do with you, me or the average African, the class divide in some areas can be as basic as having a bigger portion of rice for your meal. In economic terms, at least. The $2 definition of middle class is pretty risible.

It made me think of those young, 'bright' economists working for the IMF who would write the structural adjustment plan for an entire country whilst seeing little more of their assigned country than their hotel room at the Sheraton, and copying it out of a monetarist textbook. Did they predict the dramatic rise in mobile phone penetration across the continent or believe even rural Africans would have the financial resources to afford them and to buy airtime? Did they not understand that in some countries the elites, having no faith in the brittleness of local institutions and little faith in investing at home, pump it off to Europe, the US and various tax havens? Are the 'middle class' of, say, Angola, interested in having a transformative effect on their poorest millions? And can earning, say, $4 a day in Luanda (looking at cost of living) make someone a transformative member of the global middle class? No to all of the above, imo.

Rambling, apologies for truisms and generalisations

 

[Idris2002]

Now Ghana has launched its first satellite:

Ghana launches its first satellite into space - BBC News

(I passed through the Ghanaian capital Accra in 2011. It reminded me of stories of Dublin in the early '60s - still obvious poverty, and even in some cases extreme poverty, but also an obvious growth of wealth and capital as well, as expressed through a building boom).

 

[eatmorecheese]

A few weeks old, this. Important not just for Magufuli's comments, but for the social media backlash in a country that is supressing press freedom.

Tanzanian President's controversial remarks reignite debate on pregnant schoolgirl ban

 

[Idris2002]

Combined but uneven development in Luanda, Angola:

Divided Luanda: life inside a city fuelled by inequality – in pictures

 

[Idris2002]

There's just been a massive landslide in Freetown, Sierra Leone, with nearly two hundred already feared dead. That toll seems set to rise, as well.

Sierra Leone mudslide kills hundreds as houses are buried - BBC News

 

[Idris2002]

More on the mudslide:

How can Sierra Leone learn from mudslide to avert future deaths?

I was talking to a contact down there today, and from what he said this one has been a long-time coming. It's rooted in social inequity, for starters, but also an absence of urban planning, persistent deforestation, etc.

 

[Idris2002]

The landslide was a disaster, but it wasn't an accident.

Briama Koroma, co-director of the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre, said the tragedy could have been avoided if the government had listened to campaigners. Civil society groups have repeatedly warned that houses are being built illegally in areas that contribute to the risk of flooding.

“Most of the residents are top civil servants, private individuals, senior military and police officers, and squatters that grabbed the land to build houses. Through this action, the Sugar Loaf Mountain, which is national protected reserve area for the water reservoir and water dam, was infiltrated,” said Koroma. The government has failed to clamp down on such developments, he added.

Sierra Leone: fears of second mudslide as week of national mourning begins

 

[Idris2002]

Now Ghana has launched its first satellite:

Ghana launches its first satellite into space - BBC News

(I passed through the Ghanaian capital Accra in 2011. It reminded me of stories of Dublin in the early '60s - still obvious poverty, and even in some cases extreme poverty, but also an obvious growth of wealth and capital as well, as expressed through a building boom).

One part of the Irish story was getting American style fast food. And that's now a story being repeated in Ghana:

Obesity Was Rising as Ghana Embraced Fast Food. Then Came KFC.

"It's as if we have become mentally enslaved". What the NYT story doesn't really mention is that this is something for the elite, and for a fraction of the new middle class. Most of the broad masses will still be excluded from this, which will be literally life-saving in their case.

 

[Idris2002]

 

[petee]

they look like they're inviting you to climb into the turbine.

I've flown Ethiopian, about the best service I've ever had.

 

[Idris2002]

Story from South Africa; google was taking down videos in which South African women were dancing bare breasted - and dancing in ways that were not sexualised at all.

Nobukhosi Mtshali felt a little lost when she first arrived in Johannesburg. She was beginning a degree in education at Wits University, and Johannesburg felt a world away from where she grew up, just outside Pietermaritzburg. Here, in the big city, it was hard to find space to express her traditions and culture.

“In Joburg, people say, wow, that’s different, no we don’t do that. It was a shock at first,” she told the Mail & Guardian.

For example, on Heritage Day, there were a lot of women walking around with traditional clothes, she says. “But everyone had their breasts covered. But at a traditional gathering at home I could walk around with my breasts uncovered. In Joburg, if I did that, it would be a mess. It’s almost like we’ve been told that we have to cover up, that we are backward.”

‘Hey Google, our breasts aren’t sexual’

Eventually the techbros saw sense, but it's another interesting episode in the kind of social changes this thread is concerned with.