A Strategy of ‘Subversive Rationalization’ for Revealing Modernity in Africa

"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

This paper is about sharing a novel 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.
.
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.

more at http://jachamel.googlepages.com

Jacques Hamel
jachamel@gmail.com