The Cheikh Anta Diop on original afro centrism and cultural unity of Black Africa.

              Afro centrism it refers to the views of afro centric scholars especially of Africa as aiming at advancing the position of African people in the world by promoting and affirming pre-colonial Africans antiquity especially through ancient Egypt which save as the  theoretical framework  of afro centric school. And among of this scholars are Cheikh Anta Diop, J.K Nyerere   Nkwameh Nkrumah.

              Culture is nation society major identity, a society’s way of life, its attitude toward different matters and way of dealing with issues which differentiate it from other societies¹. Generally culture is the total way of life which identifies and differentiates one society to another in terms of arts, language and customs values.

                 Therefore among of the original afro centrism and cultural unity in Africa is Cheikh Anta Diop who tried to show on how the Africans has been developed and civilized over time in their culture .So let see who is Cheikh Anta Diop by looking his biography.

                Cheikh Anta Diop was born in 29 December 1923 and died in 7 February 1986; in Senegal .Diop was born to an aristocratic Muslim Wolof family in Senegal where he was educated in traditional Islamic school. He obtained bachelors degree in Senegal before involving to Paris for graduate students, where he ended his education. In 1946 at the age of 23, Diop went to Paris to study. He initially enrolled to study higher mathematics but them enrolled to study philosophy in the faculty of arts of the suborned. Generally he was a historians, anthropologist, physicist, politicians and egyotologists². He is very famous by his work like the civilization of Africa, and cultural unity of black Africa, so through his work Diop explain the civilization of Africa and their cultural unity by the study of Egypt civilization.

               So Cheikh Anta Diop is among of the influential scholars of afro centrist who explained much in development in cultural unity of black people in Africa. Diop as afro centrist he analyze various civilization and development attained by black Africans as follows.

                 Diop argue that Africa is the cradle of all humanity. it was from Africa that the evolutionary stage of homo habilies the hominid set out to populate the Eurasian continent. It was in Africa that humanity are accomplished its raise to the status of homo-sapience also it was in Africa that the first Neolithic took place.  So from this argument shows or indicating that Africa has developed in terms of Neolithic, agriculture and use of iron.

         He argues that African civilization can be marked or proved through the study of ancient Egypt civilization. Africa civilization get its beginning or formative beginning in the Sudan and Nilotic Nubian and Egypt provided the context in which it attained full flowering.

This means that Africa has a specific civilization area which can be used to explain the general civilization of Africa³. So Diop used his knowledge as Egyptologist and he learned that Africa had better development as seen in the ancient Egypt.

            Also argue that Egypt was not an indo-European achievements as it has been expressed by Eurocentric views or scholars, he come up with the view that Egypt civilization it was neither semitic nor hornito-Semitic, but the plain truth is that Egypt was black Africa spread its influences outside the parent continent.⁴ So Egypt civilization contributed much to the later civilization of raising in north Mediterranean.

            Then he continue by arguing that African  culture should be rebuilt on the basis of ancient Egypt in the same way that of ancient that of European culture was built upon the legacies of ancient Greece and Rome⁵. The bases could obtain through the sharing of culture continuity across African people that will be important to the varied development of different ethnic groups shown by differences among languages and culture over time.

            Diop  in his book “Black Africa “ the economy  and cultural bases for a federated  state, he argue that only  a united and federated Africa  will be able to overcome the underdevelopment⁵. This critical work constitutes a rational study of not only Africa culture, historic and geographic unity but of Africans potential for energy development and industrialization. All this factors combined bases on the formation of a federated end unified Africa cultural and otherwise.

                Moreover  Diop views  the African culture in terms of worship  he argue that  ancestors worship was already existed and was expressed in the form of domestic religion. The only solution which was available was to reduce the bodies of the died to a minimum weight and volume so that they could be easily transported⁶. Therefore that kind of culture of worship of these ancestors was very common among the African nation especially the Egypt as center of African civilization. So Diop opposed the ashes worship of Indo-European he said that ashes of one ancestors were nothing, but the matter is to preserve those bodies for the further ancestors worship. 

                  Another view of Diop on cultural unity of Africa was based in the marriage system and division of labor according to him he shows two types of the marriage system that is matriarchy and patriarchy,

 In patriarchy system it established that on marriage women leaves her own family to found one jointly with her husband, conversely when the social structure is such  that the man who marries leaves his clan to live within that of his wife that is matriarchy system. Also he argue that despite of having that system of marriage the Africa women were agriculturists while the men was hunters and women power was based on her important economic role. Also he shows that women in Africa were already queens and warriors participating in public life and politics while indo-European contemporizes were still subordinated and subjugated under patriarchal family⁸.for example of powerfully ancient queens are in Ethiopia there were queen of Sheba, queen of Candace who fought the invading army of Augustus.

               Lastly Diop constantly held that Africans could not be “pigeon holed” into rigid type that existed somewhere south of the Sahara but they varied widely in skin color, facial shape, hair type, height and number of additional factors just like other human population⁹. So he claimed that opponent were hypocritical in starting that the race of Egyptians was not important to define African culture.

               Cheikh Anta Diop as the original afro centric has some weakness in his argumentation on Africa civilization and development some scholars try to develop some critique on his views as following.

              The Diop argument and views was much based on Egypt civilization rather than any other, states in Africa. Although Egypt was the ancient civilized states in Africa but there was another nation which proceeded after them, but   Diop he did not show those states like Great Zimbabwe which was very famous in the production of gold but he traced only in Egypt.

               Another critique is that   Chiekh was racists in defined the African he used the word like blacks to show that there was the devaluation of white colors as well as the red Indies. Also he calls Egypt as a black and Egypt means the blacks of Africa while the majority of academics disavow the terms black for Egyptians and there was no consensus on substitute terminology.

    Generally Cheikh Anta Diop arguments were for the supporting the black values in the world by shows that even the whites had civilized but also Africa was civilized like or than them. In terms of civilization of Egypt as identity of Africa was a value to portray that Mesopotamia and western countries civilization was outcome of African civilization together with the huge contribution of African to the creation of man in the world due to the first human being remains discovered into African and some element of culture include religion, believes, matrinualy and patrinualy which were practiced by black Africans. Therefore African had more unique features of civilization compare to other continent in the world even though civilization come to spreaded to other continent which proves the cornerstone of civilization is in Africa.

                                   REFFERENCES

Babar S. Great African scholar revisit: journal of pan- African studies vol.5  no.1march 2012

Diop. A, C. (1989). The cultural unity of   black Africa. Fresence Afraine .Paris

Report on the 50^th years of independence of Tanzania main land

http:// en. Wikipedia.org./wiki/ cheikh-Anta-Diop

____________________

¹Report on the 50^th years of indepence of Tanzania main land

²Babar S. Great African scholar revisit: journal of pan- African studies vol.5 no.1march 2012 p.253

³Babacar S. Great African scholar revisit: The journal of pan-African studies vol.5 no.1 march 2012 p.254

4http:// en. Wikipedia.org./wiki/ Cheikh-Anta-Diop

5 Cheikh A, D. (1963). The cultural unity of black africa.APM publisher, paris.7

⁶Ibid p.7

⁷ Cheikh A.D.  (1989). The cultural unity of   black Africa.p.8

⁸ Ibid p.8

⁹Ibid p.9

Ethnicity engered “ethnised” politics in Kenya between 1960 and 2000.

Ethnicity refers to the social group of people who identify with each other based on common ancestral culture, social or national experience.[1]Memberships of ethnic tend to be associated with shared culture heritage, history homeland or ideology and with symbolic system such as religion, dressing style, physical appearance and mythodology.

Ethnized politics  is the situation in which political activities in the particular society is characterised by ethnic/ tribes basis such as way that each ethnic group fight/ struggle to acquire political power. Normally it is featured by regionalism and tribalism.

The struggle for independence is the product of European advent and power in Africa. The European advent created the territorial boundaries that have constituted the geographical basis of nationalism. Before the advent of this physical expressions or basis of today’s nationalism was no- existent.

Creation   of these territories in African land especially inter-tribe territories created regionalism, and tribalism that lead to the struggle for independence based on ethnic groups even after independence.

For the purpose of this discussion our case study will only focus in Kenya.

The struggle for independence in Kenya developed into two main phases which are proto-nationalism and mass nationalism as explained bellow;

Proto- nationalism. This was the movement of people existed before 1945, to fight against colonial domination. Proto- nationalist organization in Kenya based on ethnic groups culminated into the Mau Mau war against British colonial and the settler community. Proto- nationalism was ethnically based on the sense that each group fought for their own interest for example kikuyu was one of the ethnic group who fought against British land alienation and forced labour. Apart from kikuyu there were other tribes who fought for their alienated land these include Kipsigis, Maasai, Abuluhya and Kamba. For example about 12,200 square miles or 5.5 percent of the total land area was alienated.[2] Therefore, due to the problem above, the Africans lost their right to own their land as the result led to masses with no land. Also the landless people in Kenya were now used as forced labourers to British settler farms with low wages something that made then to organize in ethnic group to fought against land alienation and forced labour.

The war had a considerable impact in acceleration the struggle and achievement of independence. The proto-nationalist movement had progressive tendencies in the sense that they all made considerable contribution to the anti-colonial struggle.

With the formation of political parties’ proto-nationalist as well as civil society become very important in mobilizing nationals struggle, but most of them based on ethnic which led the foundation for the emergence and growth of ethnized political parties and therefore ethinized politics, which began take place in 1950’s. Examples of such organizations include the Kalenjin political alliance, the Maasai united front and the Abuluhya political union.[3] From 1960’s the Kenya nationalist politics had already been ethnized. Even when country wide or political parties such as KANU ( Kenya Africa national union) and KADU ( Kenya African democratic union were formed they were still characterised as ethnic parties as oyugi state;

The lifting of the ban on territorial political organization in 1960 came at a time when Kenya body politic was already ethnized. Formation of country wide political parties was as would be expected treated with suspicion by those who would not control them.  In deed the proliferation of ethnic based parties between 1955-1962 was an attempt by such actors to establish a frame-work within which to bargain if not compete at the centre. It is against that background that both Kenya Africa national union (KANU) Kenya African democratic union (KADU) emerged as ethnic political parties.[4]

It is no doubt that KANU and KADU were Jomo Kenyatta was rest ethnical based parties because KANU was supported by kikuyu and Luo alliance while KADU ( Kenya African Democratic Union) was supported by Maasai, coastal ethnic groups and the Luhya.

Furthermore , both KANU and KADU had a character of territorial nationalist political parties as they played very important role during the struggle for independence to mobilize all Kenyan people into anti-colonial struggle within the context of ethicized politics.

At independence Kenya had a multi-party system with three political parties namely Kenya Africa national union (KANU), Kenya African democratic Union(KADU) and Africa people party (APP) whereby all of these political parties based on ethnic character. This means that APP was based on Kamba, KADU was based on minority ethnic group and KANU was based on Kikuyu and Luo.

This ethnic politics increased even when Kenya attained her independence in 1963- under multiparty system like KANU, KADU, and APP. Soon after independence, KANU become a ruling party under the control of President Jomo Kenyatta. After entering into office, Kenyatta take stapes which make it difficult for the opposition political parties to operate. Example of the steps taken by President Jomo Kenyatta was restricting provision of government financial support to the opposition political parties. This led to the opposition political parties to dissolve themselves in 1964.

Following withdraw of the opposition political parties; Kenya became Mono-party under President Jomo Kenyatta.

The action taken by President Kenyatta contributed much ethnized politics in Kenya which result to ethnic scramble started taking place within KANU. This situation led to the split of KANU and emergence of other political party namely Kenya people’s Union (KPU) under the control of   Oginga Odinga in 1966. The split of KANU was due to the fact that since KANU was support by kikuyu and Luo but later on president Kenyatta favoured kikuyu and left Luo hopeless something that led to  dissatisfaction of Luo- as the result Luo decided to form their own political party known as KPU  under the leadership of Oginga Odinga.

After the rise of KPU as other political party in Kenya under Luo lead to the rise of conflict between KANU leaders and KPU leaders. About 1969 Tom Mboya the secretary general of KANU was assassinated. His assassination provoked ethnic tension between the Luo and the kikuyu. Following this event, resulted into the arrest and detention of Odinga and other KPU leaders, also KPU was banned by the government. The banning of KPU, made the kikuyu to enjoy privilege in politics matters.

Following the death of Jomo Kenyatta on 22 august 1978, vice president Daniel Arap Moi become president formally after he was elected head of KANU, in June 1982, the national assembly amend the constitution that claim officially Kenya to be mono-party state.

The leadership of Moi was embraced by all Kenyans with hope and high expectation that he will change the existing ethnic politics but unfortunately Moi introduce what so called footsteps.

Moi stated clearly that “he is going to follow the foot step of Kenyatta” which granted the expectation of the citizen futile.[5]  “As Kenyatta had used a kikuyu power based of promoting disproportional for his community, the Kalenjin. KANU soon became a vehicle to promote Kalenjin political sentiments. By 1990, most senior position the govern-owned corporations’ were held by Kalenjin.”

After the shift of the power based from the kikuyu to Kalenjin the mono-party system under Moi was highly associated by abuse of human right, economic corruption and sharp political patronage. All these lead to the ethnic tension and consciousness as marginalization and dipertispation of many powerful ethnic groups into political and social economic system grew, these was first reflected by the formation of ethnic associations which thought their objective was welfare issues. Some of ethnic associations are such as Gikuyu-Embu-Meru associations (GEMA), the Luo union and new Akamba union were formed during 1980’s

Following the formation of ethnic associations lead to the movements demanding democratization and multipartism although the government resisted. But in 1991 the government made it possible multipartism due to pressure from within and international donor community.

In 1991 while demands and struggles for multipartism were taking place, violent ethnic clashes erupted in October 1991 in the rift valley province which comprises western province districts these clashes were started by the Kalenjin  people who comprise of the Nandi, Tugen, Markwet, Kipsigis and Sabact, they use spears, bows and arrows and other weapons they launched the attack on kikuyu, Luo, Luhya and Kisii who since the colonial period had settled in the rift valley province[6]

The ethnic clashes were very serious. It caused death and injuries, internal displacements, destitution and intensive destruction of resources. The agricultural, economic and social infrastructure was highly affected. Crops, livestock and other properties were destroyed and cause starvation to the people. Houses were burnt and some people had to abandon their farm and home resulting into more than 250,000 internally displaced people.[7]

At the mid of 1992, 1500 people had lost their lives, 600 people were injured, 56,000 families lost their property and about  Kshs, 210 million (4 millions us dollars0 worth of property was destroyed.

The ethnic politics during the regime of president Daniel Arap  Moi continued until 2000 where by different ethnic groups support the political parties of their side something that led to the political instability, tribalism and regionalism among the Kenyans.

Generally, the ethnized politics in Kenya is the historical phenomenon which has been emerged since the struggle for independence. Thus made the Kenyans to fight for themselves resulted into deaths, regionalism and tribalism. This ehthized politics is evidenced even today despite the fact that the international communities like United Nations Organisation (UNO)  and Africa unity (AU) put much effort to ensure  that Kenya ethnized politics is removed for example in the 2007 general election Kenya entered into conflict that costed the life of thousands of people after orange democratic movement under Laila Odinga to mobilize his Luo tribe to refuse the election outcomes in which Mwai Kibaki worn the voters under the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). Ethnized politics is not only the problem of Kenya but this problem is also affect most African countries as we see it in Nigeria currently.

REFERENCES

Gaudence,P. Mpangala(2002). Ethnic conflicts in the region of great lake: origins and prospects

                                                For change. Dar es Salaam: instate of Kiswahili research.

Preeti patel(2001). Multiparty politics in Kenya: volumes xxi/no.1; research fellow. London

www.south sudan news agency.com ethnic politics in Kenya. A history of south sudan should lear from kuach. Y. Tu tkat, 2014/24, January. 23:40

Wikipedia 2014/24 January 16:30

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[1] Wikipedia 2014/24 January 16:30

[2] Gaudence,P. Mpangala(2002). Ethnic conflicts in the region of great lake: origins and prospects for change.

[3] Oyugi  Ibid. Pg 52

[4] Ibid. Pg 53

[5] www.south sudan news agency.com ethnic politics in Kenya. A history of south sudan should lear from kuach. Y. Tu Tkat.

[6] Ayot in Gaudence,P. Mpangala(2002). Ethnic conflicts in the region of great lake: origins and prospects for change. Pg 55

[7] Wamue in Gaudence,P. Mpangala(2002). Ethnic conflicts in the region of great lake: origins and prospects for change. Pg 56

Description of the main stages of public policy making and its connection to the Tanzania’s public policy making cycle.

Up to date key policy making stages are not clearly identified, basing on scholars regard key policy making stages is still a controversial issues. For instance in Danny’s process model  there are five stages of public policy making namely, agenda setting, policy formulation, policy adoption, policy implementation and policy assessment. Also Mutahaba and others have identified three policy making stages which are policy formulation, policy implementation and policy monitoring and evaluation. In our discussion we are going to discuss six essential stages for public policy making and these are problem identification, agenda setting, policy problem formulation, policy adoption, policy implementation and policy monitoring and evaluation. Also in our discussion we are going to relate these stages with policy making cycle of Tanzania which have to pass to different stages from where the is identified, then to the  respective ministries to the cabinet secretaries, cabinet, and parliament so as to become a public policy. This topic is important because it help us to know the different stages of public policy making and how policies came into existence

 The first stage which involves in public policy making is identification of problem. This is the process of cabinet to see a problem or government sees a problem. Under this stage it asks the questions like where is the problem, what is the problem and likewise. Under the problem identification relies on the interests or the need of the interest group or society.  the players at this stage are members of the parliament who collect the problems from their constituencies and submit them to the respective ministries, also ministers from respective ministries are involved in collecting the problems from the society, these ministers can collect problem such problems by going either direct to the public or by indirect from the members of the parliament. For example the demands can be employment to the youth, diseases, relief from poverty and among others. This is evidenced in our nation, by taking example from health policy of 2003, the problems which were identified were high number of disabilities, high mortality rate, poor nutrition status and low life expectancy. Therefore these problems identified resulted to the government’s attention.

Apart from identification of the problem, the next stage is agenda setting. At this stage it is where we make the government to consider the problems, here we ask ourselves question like where the problem is presented. Involvers in this stage are appointed officials, public managers, secretaries, director of policy and planning as well as ministers from respective ministries. In order for agenda to be formulated the problem should reach crisis proportion and can no longer be  ignored by the government, another criteria is the issues that have a wide impact to the society have a great chance of reaching agenda setting. For example serious disease such as HIV/AID’s, Malaria and Cholera are the diseases that can encourage agenda setting. This is equivalent to our nation by taking  health policy of 2003 as an example there were formulated different agendas tossed on the serious diseases for example to improve the health and wellbeing of all Tanzania  with a focus on those most at risk and encourage the health system to be more responsive to the needs of the people, to facilitate the equitable, quality and affordable basic health services, to do away with high level of infant mortality rate and to increase life expectance to whole Tanzanians, after agenda setting leads to the  next  stage which is policy problem formulation.

In addition to agenda setting another stage is the policy problem formulation. In this stage it is where we try to get or convince the government to consider the solutions, we ask the questions like what are the proposed solutions. For instance the Tanzania’s national health policy of 2003, there were different solutions which were proposed towards the problems which face health sector, the solutions were provision of adequate and equitable materials and health care to reduce mortality rate and increase of life expectancy. This was to ensure that health services are available and accessible to all people in urban and rural areas, to ensure availability of drugs, reagents and medical supply and infrastructures.

Furthermore, policy adoption is another stage of public policy making. In this stage the government is supposed to adopt the solution or what is done about the problem and choose the solutions to the problem identified. In order for public policy to be adopted there must be majority collisions that support the suggested solutions to the problem. In this stage the government can propose various laws, orders, regulations and rules that support the proposed solution, so as to put the policy into effect. This is done in Tanzania by the Member of Parliament, since they can propose various laws and orders to the selected solutions. From the suggested solutions especially in Tanzania’s national health policy of 2003 the solutions were to ensure availability of drugs, reagents, medical care for example establishment of health centres almost in all Tanzania’s rural areas and also they ensured the creation of infrastructure.

On the other hand there is policy implementation stage. This is the stage whereby the government applies the solutions selected by the parliament to overcome the existing problems that have been found in policy adoption stage. These solutions accompanied with laws, orders, rules and regulations which ensure the effectiveness of the suggested solutions to the particular policy. For example in Tanzania’s  health policy of 2003 government implemented numbers of solutions towards the problems associated with health sector, such as  reduction of maternal and infant mortality rate, increase of life expectancy through provision of adequate and equitable maternal and child health services, promotion of environmental  health and sanitation, promotion of adequate nutrition, control of communicable disease and treatment for common conditions, ensure availability of drugs, reagents and medical supplies, infrastructure, train and make available of competent and adequate number of staffs to manage health services with gender respective at all levels, capacity building of human resources at all levels in management and health services provision. All are the examples of policy implementation in health policy of 2003.

The last stage is policy evaluation. This is the systematic process of assessing the designed implementation and outcomes of the public policy. An importatant of policy evaluation is to see if the policy has achieved the intended objectives or otherwise. The policy evaluation is needed in order to continue with the policy or not. In this stage we ask the question like did the solutions work? Or not, respective ministry, public sectors, private sectors, and stakeholders involves in policy evaluations. If the policy had not succeeded the policy makers start again to identify the problems. For example the national health policy of 2003 succeeded in large extent to the solutions that were proposed towards the health problems, for example, succeeded to increase life expectancy, succeeded in provision of medical supply, succeeded in reduction of high degree of both infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate, succeeded in provision of drugs, reagents and control of communicable disease, just to mention.

Generally speaking, despite the fact that there is complications which we have seen in understanding the stages of public policy making, in Tanzania there are several policies being made which show future development in different ministries, but the most problem which encounters the Tanzania’s policies are lack of enough capital to run different issues, lack of committed leaders as well as poor implementation of policies might be the basic problems.

REFFERENCES

James,E.(1994). Public policy making: An Introduction (Boston: Houghton Mifflin co.)

Mutahaba,G and Balogun, J(1989), Strengthening policy management in  Africa: Hartford.

                                        Kumarian Press. 

The United Republic of Tanzania: Tanzania National Health policy. (2003).