Mbeki’s
problematic take on the ‘democratization of knowledge’.
By
Takura Zhangazha
On Monday January 16 2012, former South African President Thabo Mbeki
made a key note opening presentation on the ‘Democratisation of knowledge: The Role of knowledge in the Betterment of society’ at a conference held under
the same theme by the University of
Stellenbosch Business School in South Africa. It
was a presentation that on the face of
it appears either too philosophical or too abstract to rouse the public
interest.
The former point is probably
the more prominent given the fact that Mr. Mbeki no longer holds influential
political office neither has he stated any intention to do so again. Regardless, the truth of the matter is that
the pursuit, acquisition, production and dissemination of knowledge is at the
heart of human existence. And this makes not only the presentation by Mr.
Mbeki but the convening of the Stellenbosch
conference itself relevant to our time.
In his presentation it is
evident that the former South African president is alive to this fact. In being so, he accuses those in positions of global
political, socio-economic and financial
influence of essentially creating ‘false knowledge’ around internationally
important issues. These include what he perceives to have been knowledge
dishonesty about the war in Iraq, the NATO intervention in Libya, the global
financial crisis and the ‘H1N1’ flu outbreak amongst other examples he gives of 'false knowledge'.
As would be expected the South African media
immediately latched on to the issue of how in his speech Mr. Mbeki argued that
‘false knowledge’ caused the downfall of former Libyan leader Muammar Gadafi .
But to dwell on this point might miss the central arguments in his presentation.
The interesting aspects of Mr.
Mbeki’s argumentation is not only to be found in the examples he cites such as
the ones I have referred to above. Instead they are also found in the emphasis he makes concerning the undemocratic nature of
knowledge production in the world in the political, economic and natural
science spheres of global existence.
Indeed most of this knowledge
is generated in the West with Africa generally following rather blindly and with complicity in the former's footsteps. And this is perhaps where the
former South African president begins to mix up his argument and begins to
muddle the progressive points that he essentially intends to make.
This is because outside of the
broad framework presented by Mbeki, there is the primary problem of Africa’s
acquiescence to Western hegemony, either via its own leaders or it’s inability
to persuasively address its fundamental challenges with a demonstration of
understanding the continents placement in world history or in contemporary times.
As an example of the
acquiescence that I mention, after his address Mr. Mbeki demonstrated a disdain
for the social media platform twitter and partly defined it as an inadequate platform
for engagement with knowledge for the improvement of societies. In short, he thinks
it is a poor substitute for knowledge production or dissemination. Such an
argument is a case of too little too late because the internet and social media
platforms are increasingly popular (across Africa) methods of disseminating
information on knowledge that all world governments tend to want to keep from
their citizens.
And this is where the issue of hegemony
reverts. The primary challenge in seeking to ‘democratize knowledge
production’ is not so much a political solution as it is a holistic (cultural,
technological, economic and historical)
one. The internet is not intended to undermine ‘genuine’ knowledge, it is a
product that accentuates access to knowledge.
For the African, the primary problem is ‘who’s knowledge is it anyway?’
And why does a sizable proportion of our continental population take to this
knowledge as do ducks to water?
It is also clear that in his
argumentation, Mr. Mbeki skirts the
challenge that ‘mimicry’ in the process
of acquiring, pursuing or even refusing knowledge has presented to independent African
states. By mimicry I refer to the general enthusiasm shown by the majority of
Africa’s post independence leaders to generate a culture of seeking to arrive
at being viewed as equals with the knowledge ‘gate-keeping’ western other. And once satisfied they have 'arrived', not seeking to go any further or create new consciencious African centers of knowledge. This was done largely at the expense of
seeking solutions that had context and true application to African circumstances.
An example of this was the
simple shift by African leaders and liberation movements from being negotiators
with both the capitalist bloc and the socialist bloc to becoming lackeys of the former via economic structural adjustment programmes and an opportunistic
embrace of neo-liberalism. To that extent, where former president Mbeki
correctly argues about the undemocratic nature of the dissemination, sharing
and distribution of knowledge, he is at risk at doing so without a holistic summary
of the historical challenges and African leadership complicity around the same.
And its understandable why he
has avoided that particular issue. It would in part indict him, the ANC and
other African liberation movements or governments. The indictment would not in
any way undermine their respective triumphs, but it may in the end indicate that
in the aftermath of our collective African independence victories, we have
continued swaying from the revolutionary path in search for knowledge that
benefits us temporarily and undermines our equality as knowledge producing global
citizens. In short, we have failed to negotiate for knowledge and with
knowledge on firm historical and ‘knowledge of selves’ grounding.
We continue to play second
fiddle to others primarily because in
our contemporary times, the acquisition of leadership or knowledge in our
societies has been less about what the Guinea-
Bissau and Cape Verde leader Amilcar Cabral referred to as the ‘return to the revolutionary
path’ of making our own history. Instead, and tragically so, it has focused too
much on seeking to demonstrate an ability to make a post-independence history that is all too similar to that of
those who today have continued to orchestrate a dictatorship of knowledge.
Ends// Takura Zhangazha writes in his personal capacity and this
article first appeared on http://takura-zhangazha. blogspot.com/. Please acknowledge
this.
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