By Prof Artwell Nhemachena
IF it is not good for African immigrants to physically and directly connect with the West, where they seek to go and stay, why would it be good for Africans to connect with the humans and non-humans in the world via the Internet of Things, Internet of Everything, Internet of Humans, Internet of Medical Things, Internet of Health Things and Internet of Battlefield Things?
If it is good for Africans to connect with non-humans in the way that is proposed by relational theorists, animists, vitalists and proponents of the Harmony with Nature proposals, why are some humans establishing fortresses against African immigrants who want to connect with them in the West?
Put succinctly, the technoscientific world simply seeks to further dispossess humans of their autonomy, privacy, minds, identity and bodily integrity. African special ownership operations need to be wary of the dark side of the invasive technoscientific world.
It is surprising that Africans are being persuaded to adopt homosexuality on the premise that it is part of African culture, yet Africans are denied ownership of their land and other resources which are also African. While Africans are being persuaded that homosexuality is part of the African culture and must, therefore, be embraced, it is surprising that African ownership of resources is being described in Western scholarship as a curse.
The unfortunate import of this hypocrisy is that Africans are (supposedly) cursed by their ownership of resources but they are (supposedly) blessed by adopting homosexuality.
The point here is that global capital does not want Africans to own and control their resources and so the resources are described as a curse to Africans.
On the other hand, global capital wants Africans to focus on sex and sexuality and so homosexuality is described as good for Africans. Africans need to be wary of ideologies that are churned out by global capital.
The sad thing is that some African scholars uncritically adopt such ideologies which do not serve Africans. It is not serious scholarship to believe that Africans are cursed by abundance of natural resources on their continent, as is proposed in the resource curse while believing that Africans are blessed by an abundance of homosexuality. Society needs to begin to seriously unpack issues for Africans to be taken seriously in the world.
African organisations and institutions which form the AU need to take matters much more seriously if Africans are to be liberated. It is necessary for African organisations and institutions to think of fortressing Africa just like other States and continents are doing. This would protect Africans and their resources.
African leaders, organisations and institutions must understand that what is most important is not a purse, such as the purses of donors, but the resources which Africans have.
In other words, Africans must cease to depend too much on donations of ideas, food, clothes, theories, vehicles and technologies. Donations simply create protectorates out of Africa: they take away sovereignty, autonomy, dignity, decency and the seriousness with which Africans must be treated in the world. Put differently, donations are weaponised to create the impression that Africa is a protectorate of the West.
One of the key reasons the AU has failed to liberate Africans is that it is dependent on aid, yet aid is weaponised to create dependency and protectorates out of Africans. In order to liberate Africans, the AU must first ensure that Africans get back sovereignty over their natural resources; they must take ownership and control over their resources.
It is only when Africans have ownership and control over their resources that they will be able to make the AU financially independent and hence politically meaningful in liberating the continent.
Africans do not only need unity, but they also need, a fortiori, ownership and control over their resources. Africans do not only need freedom of movement across the continent but they, a fortiori, need ownership and control over their resources.
Disinherited and impoverished, Africans will not be able to move freely across the continent even if the borders are removed. The point where Africans reclaim ownership and control over their resources is the most important and consequential, and so it is likely to meet with the greatest resistance from global capitalists who currently control African resources.
The question from the foregoing is: How can Africans launch special ownership operations when their minds are being scanned and then transferred from the biological brains to the metaverse and into technological substrates? If Africans do not own and control their minds, it becomes difficult to assert ownership and control over anything else.
African States need to be careful about the new invasive technologies that are being implanted, inserted and injected into African bodies to, inter alia, scan and transfer their minds from biological brains. Indeed, the 21st Century African special ownership operations should start with exposing and resisting the invasive technologies that are being injected, inserted and implanted into African bodies.
Africans have to own their bodies, minds, identities, and selves before they can assert ownership over their natural resources. The invasive technologies are similar to any other invasions that are being resisted in the world — they invade the body and deprive Africans of their autonomy, selfhood, integrity, privacy and identity.
The invasive technologies are part of the resource wars; by destroying autonomy, identity and African essence, they are meant to pre-empt African claims of sovereignty over their natural resources.
Problematising the assumptions of majority rule without majority ownership of resources in Africa, this instalment has argued for what it calls African special ownership operations.
Designed to recover ownership and control of physical resources, African special ownership operations argue that the world is not, and cannot, be ruled by the majority when the majority do not own and control the resources upon which their survival depends.
It notes that liberal democracy offers fake democracy, fake liberation and fake freedoms premised on assumptions of multiplicity and pluralism even as ownership and control over resources have not been pluralised.
Multiplicities and pluralities in the capitalist world order are, in fact, premised on singularities insofar as there are singularities that use the multiplicities as their force-multipliers. In this sense, multiplicities and pluralities of voices and actions conceal the singularity of silences and actions.
Real democracy does not merely count multiplicities of voices and actions, but it also counts the singularity of silences and inaction. Yet liberal democracy has fooled humanity to believe that all that matters is counting the multiplicities of voices and actions while ignoring the singularity of silences and inaction.
Put succinctly, much as it may be important to consider what liberal democracies have said and done in their multiplicities and pluralities, it is also important to consider what liberal democracies have not said and done. Inasfar as Africa is concerned, liberal democracies have not said and done anything about restitution and reparations to African victims of enslavement and colonisation — and this is the singularity that undergirds Western liberal democracies whose multiplicities and pluralities in their singularity evade what Africans count as real democracy.
The major problem in Africa is that the continent is still considered to be a de facto protectorate of the West. Africa is considered to be an economic protectorate and so Western economic policies are foisted on Africans. Africa is also considered to be a de facto political protectorate such that Western politics is foisted on Africans.
Africa is considered to be a de facto legal protectorate such that Western jurisprudence is imposed on Africans. Africa is still considered to be a cultural protectorate such that Western cultures are foisted on the continent. Africa is considered to be a de facto environmental protectorate such that Western environmental policies and laws are foisted on Africans. Africa is considered to be a health protectorate such that Western health and medical policies are foisted on Africans.
The contemporary discourses about One Health, Planetary Health, One Digital Health, One Earth and Eco Health are all meant to ensure that Africans and other people in the global south become protectorates. And Africa is considered to be, sexually, a protectorate of the West such that Western sexual orientations are foisted on Africans.
The discourses about aid, humanitarianism, liberal democracy, good governance, accountability, justice and equality are all intended to ensure Africa continues to be a protectorate of the West such that no genuine alternatives are born. Put succinctly, aid and humanitarianism are meant to be the opium for the Africans, so that they forget about the necessity of restitution and reparations for enslavement and colonisation.
Meanwhile, the empire is retooling and birthing a new empire. It is a new empire premised on technoscience, on the new technologies that assist the empire to achieve full-spectrum dominance, full-spectrum surveillance and full-spectrum exploitation. Instead of invading territories in the old style, the new empire uses invasive technologies to penetrate and perturb territories and subjects.
