Dear All,

Some members of the group may be interested in this posting (6 pages) on a strategy - a strategy of ‘Subversive Rationalization’ -for pulling Africa toward some form of distinctive modernity. Any comment?

Jacques L. Hamel
http://jachamel.googlepages.com



"The world we have created is the product of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking" Albert Einstein

"Science is a way of thinking much more than a body of knowledge" Carl Sagan


The objective of this posting is to share ideas on a strategy - a STRATEGY OF SUBVERSIVE RATIONALIZATION - for uncovering modernity in Africa. The strategy emphasizes the internalization of the scientific method and rational modes of thinking as well as the assimilation of key scientific knowledge, as the epistemological foundation of any kind of modernity. It also stresses the necessity of renovating conformist, traditionalist or totalizing belief and knowledge systems, worldviews and cultures, that stand in the way to essential changes on the road to modernity - a mega-project of autonomization, individuation, rationalization, demystification and feminization processes (less patriarchal forms). Modernity is also a project of democratization, liberalization, secularization, trans-nationalization, systematization, technocratization and humanization processes.

The strategy relies on scientific knowledge, which offers only incomplete and patchy theories of the real but nonetheless possibly the best models of reality, for reordering and reconstructing the African reality and for engaging it with up to date, robust and economically efficient technical know-how. More generally, it relies on calculative thinking and on the scientific tradition as the most viable civilizational horizon of a budding region, whose tortuous and uncertain transition to modernity may necessitate an imaginative strand of thinking. Triumphant techno-scientific dogmas need not lead inevitably to the devastation, excesses and wastefulness of post-industrial consumerist cultures. They need not to be a model for an African modernity, which can avoid being exceedingly obsessed, en-framed or ordered by technology.

Humans, knowledge and technology are co-emerging, co-evolutive and mutually co-constitutive of each other. And as soon as we are born we enter into a corrupted reality: corrupted by ancient customary thinking, viewpoints and taboos; corrupted by ancestors’ tyrannies, norms and ideals; corrupted by the veiling visions of pre-contemporary cosmologies, revelations and prophecies; corrupted by inherited alien religious canons and credos – including those of Constantinian Christianity and Imperial Islam, which from a scientific perspective can be assimilated to blind lotteries (confirmed by statistics) of self-confirming systems of medieval thinking, superstitions and prejudices; corrupted by lies, mis-information and deceptions; corrupted by spirits, divinities and other cultural paradigms; and, more universally, corrupted by conventional modes of thinking, knowing, understanding and being.

The strategy aims at freeing, ‘uncorrupting’ or modernizing mentalities and mindscapes, thus opening the way to the emergence of some brand of original modernity on the African continent, going further than the simple ownership and display of modernity’s most visible technological gadgets and gizmos. It aims at reforming the technological code with key technologies: of the self, of sign, of freedom, of change, of creativity, of power and of truth. These technologies are fundamental for guiding the ‘rebirth’ of the self, or for cultivating the ‘reborn’ Afro-self as a more modern self; for enlarging the freedom necessary for the required societal transformations; for evolving effective technological symbols and meanings, such as those of a generous and mobilizing vision of a modern Africa; for designing and manufacturing appropriate material artefacts; for innovating in processes of change, including technologically-induced socio-cultural change; for reordering power configurations; and for uncovering, producing or reconstructing truth – an essential technology in a sea of lies, half-truths, self-delusions, clichés, cock-and-bull stories, and an important constitutive element of modernity.

If ‘ideas shape the course of history’ (Keynes) or if ‘imagination shapes history’ (Napoleon) then access to modernity entails going past inflationary rhetorical discourse, utopian dreams and ceremonial entertainments. It requires subversive ideas and actions and a methodology that can engineer radical and terribly complex adjustments in the intricate inner working of African communities. It calls for critical thinking, dialogue, self-examination, ‘self-exorcism’ and outright ‘war’ against the conservative supremacy of the status quo and the authority structures that maintain it. This cannot be achieved through somewhat academic, elitist and reductionist policies. The basic choice facing the region is between customary religio-mythic, idolatrous or astonishingly over-religious rules, on the one hand, and enlightening development regimes substantiated by controlled experiences, on the other hand.

The relative bottom position of most African countries in the techno-scientific global order is beyond dispute and current STI strategies may leave half the region as deprived as ever, blown by the fierce winds of technologization and globalization, locked into scientific and technical dependency and unable to meet key MDGs. In these circumstances, the strategy may be helpful for putting in place new foundational power-knowledge frameworks and configurations, and for improving the African condition.

The African problematic of low exploitation of science and technology is well known in details and is often understood as the main reason behind the region’s poor socio-economic performance. In this low techno-scientific environment, attempts to give substance to the idea of an African Renaissance and comparable initiatives, have proliferated: Nyerre’s Ujamaa, Mobutu’s Authenticité, Sengor’s Négritude, Nkruma’s Conciencism, Kenyata’s Harambee, Wade’s Omega, Bouteflika’s Ennahda Movement, Mbeki’s ‘Call to Rebellion’ (1998) - let alone the vision of the Commission for Africa. These initiatives have mostly been successful at developing, justifying and communicating specific visions of modernity. But they also all have been failures because they have not only under-estimated the colossal effort required for achieving the necessary makeovers but they also conveniently ignored the most important changes to bring about: the painful modernization of the mythological landscape, including pre-modern Abrahamic, Shamanic and Animist mythologies. These changes imply a paradigmatic shift toward scientific ways of observing, questioning, analyzing and knowing or toward science as the latest myth or the new religion of the time that can propel the continent into some kind of modernity.

Rationalization refers to a maturation process guided by the scientific method and by instrumental reason, more than by fairy tale legacies, superstitions, revealed or divine knowledge, as historically envisioned by prominent Enlightenment philosophers and scientists of the 16th and 17th centuries. This rationalization enables better control and more accurate calculation of means to achieve precise ends, resulting in superior technological or technical effectiveness and flexibility, and in greater industrial advance. Modernizing nations are more ideologically open or keener to mathematize and channel the forces of nature for their own benefit. And they are more oriented toward the corrosion of doubt - believing in things that can be empirically supported -- and toward improving lives in this world (rather than in the after-life). In these mindsets, there are no place for Jonas-in-the-whale type of spellbound stories, amazing archangels, absurd limbos, far-fetched miracles, occult forces and providential intrusions. Reality is what is perceived through technological means. This results in developing societies being progressively subverted into essentially more ‘advanced’, enlightened or disenchanted ones.

Subversion refers to a process of overthrowing or overturning systems of principles and convictions as well as forms of dominance, control and power that are incompatible with or are not sustained by instrumental rationality and renovation processes. These processes result in the uprooting of totalizing, oppressive or terror structures that obstruct the way to modern manners of grasping reality - from terrorizing gods and demons, authoritative governments, phallocratic ecclesiasts, polygamous masters, mystifying medicine men to cloistered women, domestic slaves, mutilated girls and abducted brides. A strategy of Subversive Rationalization, therefore, means clearing the way toward more pragmatic, empirical and mechanical worldviews and at critically challenging pre-modern systems from un-enabling governance structures, including commanding husbands, as well as from constraining cosmological and ideological formations, whether home-grown or alien.

The strategy intends to probe the knowledge-power–technology gaps with modern / scientific modes of perceiving. Filling this gap necessitates not only acquiring new types of information, such as scientific, technical and business, but also abandoning some habitual or pre-scientific types of knowledge that stands in the way to progress and modernity. As much endeavour may be required to unlearn or deconstruct a pre-modern reality acquired through acculturation and socialization, than to learn new scientific and technical knowledge and a new version of reality.

Scientific proficiency is by far the trickiest to achieve since it often comes in conflict with long-established traditional knowledge edifices, which may not be seriously altered without social and political struggles. Undeniably, pre-modern spiritual constructions, including those originating from the Middle-East and ancient Arabia, tend to mesmerize, domesticate or subjugate African societies, leaving insufficient room for true scientific ways of viewing, judging, behaving, existing and living. These scientific ways must gain ground over non-scientific ways.

In a strategy of Subversive Rationalization, medieval faith-based representations, infrastructures and institutions, such as the institution of Heaven / Hell – amongst the most powerful establishment regulating the lives of Africans – could be superseded or supplanted by new thinking, unleashing the power of efficient systems, such as successful innovation systems. Indeed, Evangelical and Qur’anic models, although of relatively recent human construction, may lack decisive values for accessing modernity, such as democratic governance; the complete utilization of feminine talents and aptitudes; affection and care for nature; a concern for the future; superiority of scientific methods and hypotheses over ‘gaseous’ or prophetic knowledge; a strong focus on life before death and a less fatalistic attitude toward the lifeworld and poverty – all indispensable preconditions for uncovering modernity. In many circumstances mytho-religious texts and documents - promoted by a pervasive and expanding physical and human infrastructure (not exactly a hotspring of fresh worldviews) - may constitute a virtual owner’s manual for one’s life. This is especially so for Africans-of-one-book, which under certain conditions may not be conducive to paradigmatic innovation. Only techno-scientific knowledge can sustain the deep transformations to modernity.

The strategy requires pushing back fabulous or pre-scientific beliefs formations in order to clear a space or a pathway for more scientific views and practices. The central tussle is being played between various categories of knowledge - from scientifically founded to unfounded. This could be the crucible where a meaningful African modernity could emerge, through a redefinition of cultural, social, economic, ideological, mythological and political relationships with science and technology.

Technology is more than a tool or an instrument at our disposal. It is also an organizing activity in which humans themselves are organized. The more technologies evolve and become ubiquitous the more humans are themselves transformed and organized into resources, raw material, system components, toys, cogs, devices and sex organs and optimized for the sake of system efficiency – the essence of technology. The outcome is easier and more secure and prosperous ways of life, but dominated and regulated by the rigorous disciplinary order of technical systems. In this framework, the African youth struggles to become ‘efficient’ resource in the global job market, while technology mainly reveals Africa as a collection of folkloric curiosities, and an immense fuel station coveted for powering the global technological engine.

A techno-scientific renewal through a strategy of Subversive Rationalization could be helpful in promoting Pan-African integration and in responding to the special needs of the region. It could be supportive in revitalizing, refreshing, unifying and integrating knowledge systems in African territories. These systems are greatly fractured, compartmented, ‘medievalized’ and largely unscientifically founded (Muslim / Christian division and exclusive possession), balkanized (by six colonizing powers), fragmented (+ 1000 idioms and worldviews), and mythologized (with indigenous and foreign superstitions). Knowledge is also sometimes monopolized (non-sharing knowledge practices and ethos), atomized (not part of any advanced international knowledge networks), decontextualized (uprooted, transplanted from the technologically-advanced areas), unused or underused (scientists as taxi drivers), misappropriated (by power hungry sources), under or mis-professionalized (shamanic knowledge), misapplied (ecocidal) or misinterpreted (disregarding scientific revolutions). African knowledge is also somewhat being eroded (extinct or dying knowledge), canned (ready-made shipped in a pre-packaged fashion), drained (brains seeking greener pasture), rarely rented (against royalty payments) and always somewhat plagued with ancestors-,Western- and phallo-centricity. The strategy would provide an enhanced and more modern ordering of knowledge and reality.

Current science, technology, innovation and knowledge policy approaches remain hopelessly naïve and basically adjunct to the actual working of knowledge economies. They do not address the issues specifically related to a region a bit ‘stained’ with pre-modern habits of mind, languages and views of the universe and life. They do not put enough emphasis on the structural-constitutional issues that have stabilized many African spaces into pre-modern technological ways of life (with some growing islands of imitative modernization). These spaces can graduate into some sort of modernity through a more intensive, rational, unfettered and popular use of avant-garde science, technology and knowledge and with the requisite mental or intellectual costumes of modern times.

Free-thinkers, scientists, policymakers and stakeholders could be influential in contextualizing and supporting the strategy in the African region. In line and in full support of NEPAD, they could commit themselves to building competences for acquiring and incorporating vital techno-scientific knowledge in strategic areas and to encouraging and utilizing science as a way of thinking, which fortunately or unfortunately, is highly injurious and detrimental to time-honoured traditional or pre-modern myths, prejudices, doctrines, tenets, precepts, credos, faiths or fantasies.

The strategy could entrust opinion makers and the scientific and entrepreneurial communities to sound courses of action such as strengthening capacities for converting or revamping existing traditional knowledge systems, including faith-based systems, and for restructuring or recreating reality. These could include Africanizing, decolonizing, indigenizing, liberating, re-cosmologizing, re-mythologizing, re-charlatanizing, re-prophetizing, re-sacralizing and re-deifying processes for a different African adventure, driven by thriving methodical ways of thinking and scientific practices.
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In summary the strategy of Subversive Rationalization uses the power of scientific thought to launch a counter hegemonic offensive in order to subvert disabling traditional and repressive knowledge-power orders that stand in the way to a new realism, or to the rejuvenation and reconstruction of the African reality. The strategy may be valuable for bringing about a post-totemic, post-enchanted, post-Abrahamic, post-phallocratic, post-colonial and post-fragmented regional space and in moving Africa forward into a distinctive, creative, secular, democratic and authentic form of modernity.

Details regarding the strategy can be found in a draft website - http://jachamel.googlepages.com - (600 pages).