Kasanda, A. and Hrubec, M.: Africa in a Multilateral World. Afropolitan Dilemmas

I would like to draw the attention of interested readers to the book which was edited and co-authored by Albert Kasanda and Marek Hrubec.^[1] Their long-standing focused and critically directed intercultural interest in Africa in a multilateral world and Afropolitan dilemmas is strongly reflected in their latest publication, the emblematic work published in the Routledge Contemporary Africa Series in 2022.

Africa is undergoing a new and revolutionary phase of development from the perspectives of philosophy, sociology, political science, and other disciplines. The old, and still widely used in many analyses, divisions between the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial eras have long since ceased to reflect the complex developments in Africa. Conceptually speaking, this has to do with the overall transformation of the world constellation after the end of Cold War bipolarism. The advent of unilateralism in the 1990s has now been largely replaced by a multipolar and multilateral world order and the associated qualitatively new interest in Africa, although unipolar tendencies (which try to keep a global hegemony) still refuse to leave the scene.

The reason for the rise of multilateralism is mainly due to the growing influence of major and medium-sized developing countries such as India and China, but also Indonesia and Turkey, as well as some South and Central American economies, especially Brazil and Mexico. This new economic impetus, which Africa has absorbed quite successfully, opens up the coveted opportunity for Africa to find a better and more dignified position in a globally interconnected multilateral world. At the same time, it sends a signal to the Western world about the greater independence of many countries, i.e. the decreasing importance of the West. The major developed countries of the West are realising this influence and are rethinking their position. How Africa, as a continent still disunited and subject to strong influences from external forces, will be able to face this new extreme pressure, fraught with global and local disputes, and what positives and negatives may or will arise from this current process of development in the near future, is the inherent central thematic focus of the reviewed book.

The transformation of the contemporary world into a space of much wider and much more complex global, often conflicting interactions brings with it the necessity to redefine “critically, descriptively and normatively” (p. 2) the ancient idea of cosmopolitanism (which has long been internally linked to the existence of the United Nations and its agencies), formulated by various world civilizations. The idea of a mere subjective self-attribution of man as a “world citizen” is no longer sufficient. A common world, common humanity, a common history, and a common future only open up to us as a real idea if we share it together, following Mbembe’s philosophy (Mbembe, 2013). Today’s metamorphosis of the world necessarily presupposes a synthesis of particular and universal motivations which means a purposeful linking of the wider context from the local to the global level. This, in its necessary corollary, must also apply to the continental macro-region of Africa and its global interactions, including the dilemmas involved. And it is this tendency that engagingly runs like a red thread throughout the reviewed book, illuminating each chapter with its own purpose.

The visibly strengthening influence of the African Union in the multilateral world today can leave us in no doubt that Africa is becoming an important global player. While the voices of African countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia, and Kenya, for example, are becoming more powerful, in the longer term it cannot succeed as a macro-region if it is fixed only to separated African countries and communities alone. Africa must now be also seen as a whole, or as a special kind of whole, as sub-Saharan Africa.

From this perspective, we must also understand the term ‘Afropolitanism’ (or African cosmopolitanism), not infrequently used by many authors today. Beyond the need to understand how Africa relates to the world or what form Africa takes in people’s perceptions in relation to the intellectual engagement of a new generation of migrants in the media space, the book seeks to explicitly transcend these levels of viewpoints and links this futurologically attuned term to its relationship to political and social justice.

The authors argue that this meaning of Afropolitanism is possible to develop if we understand how this relationship of Africans and Africa to the world (or to particular parts of the world) emerges from local, national, and regional interactions in different parts of Africa, and in what respect these assumptions claim universal validity. A rigorously conducted critical analysis of local interactions then allows the authors to expose the various kinds of injustices that have previously constrained and continue to constrain these relations. In terms of editorial intent, this basic and multi-layered issue can serve as a further guide for the reader, linking the sequence and purpose of the book’s chapters.

On the other hand, it is true that contemporary Africa is still not taking sufficient initiative of its own beyond its continental borders. The main reason for this is the alarming fact that the majority of Africa’s population lives below or just above the poverty line. If we are aware of the fact that it accounts for 40 % of the world’s poverty, we can conclude that it is not enough to eradicate it on its own. Well-directed and, above all, sustainable global interactions, as well as the preparedness of Africans themselves, can also help to address this cardinal issue, so intrinsically linked to human dignity. The book points out that Africans cannot be reduced to passive victims of these global interactions and that many of them have already actively and consciously engaged in local and global interactions. So far, it is primarily to these individuals or groups that our professional interests and opportunities for cooperation have been directed. Concerning these activities, it is now necessary to note the way in which some African regions, countries, or cities are pursuing their cosmopolitan endeavors. It appears that, as one of the relevant macro-regions of the world, it is already beginning to develop its first cosmopolitan opportunities.

In order to capture the complexity of the issues presented to the extent needed, the editors and co-authors of the book, Albert Kasanda and Marek Hrubec, have chosen a transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach based on social and political philosophy, which is then developed in global studies and other disciplines (Kasanda & Hrubec 2022, p. 4). In methodological terms, the individual chapters are appropriately permeated and intertwined with a critical aspect, an explanatory aspect and a pervasive normative aspect, from which the sought-after emancipatory tendencies can ultimately be inferred.

In terms of the actual thematic focus of the book, it covers four interrelated thematic areas divided into four parts. The first part, authored by Marek Hrubec, Binyam Mekonen and Stephan Chan, critically establishes the themes presented and illuminates the assumptions necessary for understanding Africa on the local and global stage. The critical aspect of this introductory section focuses on the controversial stages of development since the fall of colonialism, then the turbulent transition to the postcolonial and bipolar period, and then the subsequent periods of unilateralism, multilateralism, as well as the emerging hopeful period of polylateralism. Taken together, the various thematic contributions convincingly demonstrate that successful development is only possible if the desired tendency towards a normative foundation of reality draws on internal sources. Some authors have also chosen liberation philosophy with its critical-universalist, non-discriminatory diction which creates the necessary contrast between the quest for emancipation and justice for all the people of the world and the narrowly perceived pseudo-universalism of the West, which, from the African perspective, is justifiably associated with the power of domination, exploitation, violence and dehumanization. It is linked to a requirement of inclusion of the ‘other’. Recognition of various currents of thought in the world (especially in Africa, Latin America, and Asia) leads also to the concepts of multiple modernities, transmodernity, and new cosmopolitan political thinking through pluriversal communication. The debate about colonialism under the banner of universalism has focused exclusively on the expansion of Western hegemony around the world, and little critical attention has been paid to the actual nature of this one-sided kind of Western universalist discourse, especially in terms of the extent to which it can have a local face at all.

These considerations have been dominated by the contrasting idea that local cosmopolitanism arises only when we seek to appropriate the global world by free choice from our own potential cultural and philosophical resources - our actual needs and possibilities - and creatively transform it into intelligible local terms, that, in turn, transforms the global world itself. From this mutual creative social intermingling, the authors conceive justice and opportunity for an equal exchange of ideas. The basic condition, then, remains to fully understand the nature of the sites we are discussing (Chan, 2022, pp. 79–80).

The second part of the book, contributed by Albert Kasanda, Anke Graness and Dorota Pucherová, deals with the issue of Afropolitanism and discusses today’s Afropolitan trends and their limits. According to these authors, Afropolitanism possesses the necessary emancipatory potential, and if we want to understand the normative level of this specific kind of cosmopolitanism, this can only be done in direct critical relation to conventionally given narratives of African identity and emancipation. The ethical concept of ubuntu (‘humanity’ or ‘humanity towards others’) is important here as the traditional philosophy of sub-Saharan Africa (Granes, 2022, pp. 100–101) that holds up a mirror to classical notions of cosmopolitanism as well as to other conventional concepts and allows to reflexively grasp the positive ideas and principles that qualitatively transcend the imaginary boundaries of Eurocentrism. At the same time, this opens up a wider field of possibilities for epistemic justice and recognition of marginalized groups. The final chapter examines the self-conception of Africans in the global world and asks whether the concept of Afropolitanism obscures the real reasons for the increasing migration of Africans to the West. It opens up the essential question of whether migratory mobility is due to lifestyle choices or a reflection of the ethical stance of Africans.

The third part of the book focuses on specifically African global trends, with explicit consideration of their local potential. The authors of these chapters are Viktor Marsai, Claudia Favarato, Valéria Bankóová and Tereza Němečková. The chapters highlight different aspects of these African global tendencies, such as precisely the problematic policy linkages with various jihadist organisations such as Somalia’s Al-Shabaab. However, this requires a more thorough understanding of the local, regional, and global aspects of the issue, which can avoid unnecessary bloodshed and the destruction of many lives. This positive normative potential of cosmopolitanism can be found in the traditional basis of political power in Guinea-Bissau, for example, i.e. in an intersubjective basis of cosmopolitanism in the local community with the intention to reach the higher, global level.

This issue is then enriched by a timely account of Africa’s demographic growth (projected to account for 60 % of the world’s population by 2025). In order to benefit positively from this growth, Africa must first meet certain requirements, including the use of advanced technologies, increased youth employment, and support for health care and education. It is in these areas that even greater opportunities for cooperation between Africa, the EU, and other key macro-regions of the world are opening up, leading to an improvement in Africa’s position in the global world. The final chapter of this part of the book focuses specifically on Africa’s new economic opportunities, in particular the digital transformation and its linkages with the global digital economy. Despite the low development of internet infrastructure, Africa currently has the highest global growth in internet users. This is due to the fact that it has the youngest population globally. However, it is important to note that this transformation is mainly concentrated in the big cities (Cape Town, Lagos, Nairobi, Cairo, for example), to the detriment of rural areas and some poor countries.

The fourth and final part of the book, authored by Mary Stella C. Okolo, Alena Rettová and Stephanie Rudwick, turns our attention to the significance of African philosophy, genre and linguistic ambivalence against the backdrop of contemporary global interactions. It points to the essential interconnectedness of these areas, firstly the role of language in understanding African philosophy, as well as the limits of the various identities that are associated with the ideals of today’s cosmopolitan and multilateral world.

The author of the first chapter develops a critique of inequality in terms of belonging to the so-called “right” races and nations. The resulting marginalisation or, conversely, empowerment of individual citizens, she argues, is closely related to the privileging of English. However, she does not consider English to be a neutral language, as it is often presented to us. According to the author, it creates certain preferences and priorities that cause inequalities and this kind of discrimination needs to be urgently addressed (Okolo, 2022, pp. 194–196).

The second chapter focuses on the relationship between African philosophy and genre. The author of this chapter prefaces that indigenous African languages have no specific term for the concept of philosophy. Philosophy was considered to be thought expressed in non-fictional prose, which African writers themselves considered philosophical. He concludes that ignorance of the genre has led scholars of African-language texts to various reductionist conceptions of African philosophy, as well as to often erroneous judgments about it. Although the author is clear that genre must be conceptualized much more broadly, she advocates the idea of a conception of the text enriched by an examination of context, culture, languages (both local and foreign), and genre.

The final chapter focuses on the relationship between English, Afropolitanism and cosmopolitanism in the context of the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa (a city where, incidentally, racial segregation still remains strong to this day). Following recent protests, English has been privileged over Afrikaans for two reasons: first, because of its supposed neutrality (Afrikaans is still strongly associated with white minority Africanism), but also because it is associated with cosmopolitanism and has international and institutional status. The author of the final paper considers the association of English with cosmopolitanism to be a misnomer, but neither English nor English as a lingua franca (ELF) is neutral, according to the author. The African multilingual concept and the diversity of English require an alternative approach (Rudwick, 2022, pp. 231–322). Regarding the relationship between ELF and cosmopolitanism, the author believes that the ideas of cosmopolitanism, Afropolitanism (or Cosmubuntuism) are relevant. They have the potential to embrace difference and diversity, which appropriately corresponds to the idea of Afropolitanism with reference to the intermingling of worlds, hence the idea of the mutability, heterogeneity and hybridity of African cities. In this sense, the author suggests the need for different varieties of English, as these ongoing dynamic processes reflect not only the diversity of the academic community but also its transracial and transethnic characteristics (Rudwick, 2022, pp. 236–237).

The book’s message, by its transdisciplinary nature, appeals to a reader to turn his or her gaze from a narrow self-interest to the unfulfilled need for a more just world for all, this time through the appropriately chosen perspective of the contemporary, vibrant and re-invigorated Africa in a multilateral world.