Conference in Rio de Janiero, Brazil - July 2001

The Global & The Indigenous
Cultural Hegemony & The Re-Investigation Of The Indigenous Knowledge Systems
by Pitiki Ntuli

If I do not speak as an African, Act as an African; define the parameters around which I can speak I would be confessing to the sin of colluding with those who seek to gain hegemony over my soul. If I speak only as an African without acknowledging my other selves then I am condemning myself to the ghetto of thought from which I may not re-emerge. So I choose to speak not as the indigenous But as the endogenous African.

Colonial discourse teaches us that we, Africans, were discovered in a state of ignorance and barbarism. Europe set out on a mission to civilise us. To this end, mission stations equipped with priests and nuns were established; together with them were colonial administrators. Colonialism became a project of invention. (Mudimbe). We were invented; that is, positioned, packaged, framed and fixed. The image we carried was not a complimentary one. Successive struggles for liberation were launched and in the 50's and 60's Africa attained its independence, with few exceptions and South Africa being one of them.

The petty-bourgeoisie leaders of the new Africa inherited the colonial state and continued to rule without transforming it. Attempts at indigenisation of the state or its education systems were half hearted and consequently failed. The only evidence of indigenous practices was only in song, dress and dance. The content of the state and its educational institutions remained colonial. Cold War politics further prostituted the African state.

The end of the Cold War and the emergence of globalisation with its New World Order forces us to rethink Africa's role in world affairs; hence the impetus to push the notion of an African Renaissance. What is there to be reborn in The Heart of Darkness? Why should it be reborn? What purpose will it serve in the emerging Global Village? Who is to drive/lead this struggle for rebirth? What role should indigenisation play in this rebirth if any? These are the questions we seek to attempt to answer.

What is there to be reborn?

A simple answer to this question is: What was killed, suppressed, distorted, submerged and erased must be reborn. We here refer to Africa's indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) By Africa's indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) we refer to organisational and cultural leadership systems, institutions, relationships, patterns and processes for decision making and participation identified by indigenous people. Indigenous people, in the context of South Africa, are those people or societies identified by self-ascription and ascription by others, who have continuously lived as organised communities on communally bounded land and defined territory, and who have, under claims of ownership since time immemorial, occupied, possessed, utilised such territories, having common bonds of language, customs, traditions and other distinctive cultural traits, or have, through resistance to political, social and cultural inroads of colonization were defined by colonial powers as 'Natives', 'Bantu', 'Plurals', and/or 'Co-operatives' (see NCIP 1998).

The 'Endogenous' refers to the indigenous knowledge as well as the knowledge that was received from other sources outside the originary which has been assimilated and integrated into the indigenous to the point that it has become part of the collective heritage. IKS reflect the cosmology/worldview of a people; how they answer the question of 'Being and Becoming' How they order their educational systems, social, political and religious lives and how they manage change. Colonialism as an act of rupture interrupted Africa's processes of self-managed change and progress. Indigenisation then means picking up these interrupted discourses of Africa with a view to extract valuable lessons for the present and the future.

Why a rebirth?

A simple answer to this question is: Every system has self-renewing mechanisms- Neo-colonialism, Neo-Marxism, Neo-This and Neo-That why not Africa? An old African saying is useful here: If you do not know where you come from, you will not know where you are going. When you do not know where you are going any road will take you there. What with President George W. Bush dictating the destination? What a bleak prospect!

On a more serious note; Africa has extant indigenous technologies that must be harnessed if we are to gain comparative advantage in a competing world. Africa has to devise, to the best of her capacity, her solutions to her problems.

Alexander King's (1998) observation is important to note when he argues that; nearly all of the social problems that we encounter be they national or global, are interrelated and exceedingly complex, a tangled mass of individual threads connected in ways that are only dimly understood, so that attempts to solve a specific issue have repercussions on many others. Furthermore, each problem has many elements, technical, economic, social, political and human and can seldom be resolved by the politician, scientist, engineer or economist in isolation. With increasing interdependence of nations and the emergence of so many problems of global dimension, many disciplines have to be called simultaneously into play. Yet multidisciplinary action is difficult to achieve, for society is organized essentially on a vertical basis.

It is to address such problems therefore that the project for IKS seeks to address. We cannot solve arts problems outside broader concerns in the political, social, eceonomic and philosophical sites and terrains.

• State of Art Education

South Africa operates under the strict regime of self-imposed structural adjustment programme with all its results; retrenchments, closure of university departs, mainly of Art, Music and Drama. It is the formerly black universities that adversely affected. Formerly white institutions still keep the departments but a weak and reformed fashion. The implication of this on the production of artists, critics and curators is serious. There are very very few black art lecturers left in the system. However, if our argument is that our education system is Eurocentric and fails to meet the needs of indigenous Africa; then the closure of these departments will lead to the production of unconventional art practice and curatorship will assume new dimensions; as happened during our struggle for liberation.

During this period artists and students created Peace Parks out of burnt out car parts, exploded teargas canisters and other found objects only to see them destroyed the next day. The resilience and ingenuity of these artists was legendary. Houses were turned into part art galleries collectively curated.

• Memories, Museums: Absences & Silences

There is the emergence or a proliferation of local museums in South Africa today to celebrate sites of struggle and heroism. The Ministry of Art, Culture, and Science & Technology has just passed The Heritage Act that will bolster the struggle for the creation of more museums and the training of curators.

Last Friday we submitted the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Bill whose aim is to: recognise, promote, develop, protect and affirm the hitherto undermined and marginalized IKS to contribute to the reclamation and realisation of indigenous knowledge of S. Africa's diverse indigenous peoples and value connected with therewith and to establish a regulatory institution for the management of the IKS and matters connected therewith.

The regulatory institution referred to above will have the power to shape how museums and art practices described as indigenous would be organized and managed. What are the implications for cultural hegemony? The Bill was submitted in recognition that the cultural value systems of the majority of people are marginalized and their discourses peripherised. The Act will offer us the opportunity to reconfigure and bring about a rethinking of our art institutions and the practices that go with them.

• Re-imagining the Post-Nation

Since coming into power President Thabo Mbeki has been espousing the concept of the African Renaissance Or Africa's Rebirth, in his words:

          ÒÉThe beginning of our rebirth as a Continent must be our own rediscovery of our
           soul, captured and made permanently available in the great works of creativity 
           represented by the pyramids and sphinxes of Egypt, the stone buildings of Axum and 
           the ruins of Carthage and Zimbabwe, the rock paintings of the San, the Benin bronzes and 
           the African masks, the carvings of the Makonde and the stone sculptures of the Shona.Ó 
           -Deputy President, Thabo Mbeki, SABC, Gallagher Estate, 13 August 1998. 

The concept of the African Renaissance is framed along the registers of Redress, Renewal, Re-invention, Reclamation, Refocus and Redemption from Eurocentrism. The new South African nation is multicultural, multi-ethnic and diverse in many ways. It is a nation in search of its identity. Both black and white people in South Africa advocate African value systems and many books on management are framed within this discourse. Those who yesterday denigrated 'Africans' today argue that they too are African.

• Millennium Parade Model

At the end of 1999, in Durban, I curated the biggest street art festival called the Millennium Parade. We had over 500 participating artists, performers, crafters, fashion designers, street children (who painted the masks), traditional healers and musicians on the streets of Durban. Respective communities were invited to create and curate their own artworks and performances. For instance, the Portuguese community constructed a whole Vasco da Gama galleon painted it and designed costumes to go with it. The Afrikaaners brought a real ossewa (wagon) from a museum 200 kms away. Simultaneously, Awesome Africa Group organized a music festival involving musicians from over fifteen countries, mainly in Africa. The following year Awesome/Africa and Millennium Parade came together to organize a festival that attracted 22,000 people over one weekend. This year this event will draw in artists, crafters, musicians and traditional healers over a two week period which will involve visiting musicians working with artists and crafters in their communities and bringing the artworks to the three day music festival.All this is a build up to next years planned massive holistic experience in Durban. To curate these events needs a reconceptualisation of curatorship especially when communities are involved in shaping their own artistic parameters.

• Art/Craft Liaisons

Collaborations between women crafters and artists is becoming commonplace in Kwa Zulu-Natal province where I work. Age old craft techniques are shared and the women paid and exposed to the world beyond the village community and exposed to the broader world of art.

• Kwa Ximba Project

Kwa Ximba Trust lead by Nkosi (Chief!) Mlaba invited Sankofa to help them conceive a Zulu Cultural Interpretative Project. A design had already been made by a local architect company working with an international consortium. Sankofa invited traditional healers, local sages and traditional leaders to a workshop in which indigenous knowledge was the base from which everything stemmed from. The community re-designed the project and architects interpreted it faithfully.

• Black Empowerment Without Vision

To redress the economic imbalances of the past the S African government has instituted a programme of black economic empowerment with hope that the riches these nouve riche will make will eventually 'trickle' down to the masses of the people. This programme has produced a good number of millionaires but their millions have not as yet trickled down to the community, least of all the artists. Those who collect European mass-produced posters! A move to change this is underfoot. Sankofa has begun a campaign to address this.

• Conclusion:

In the same way that economic hegemony of the Bretton Wood Financial Institutions are fought and confronted everywhere with digital weapons I believe there is the need to rethink the power of the imagination and creativity and use it to centre art practice at the helm of discursive formations. There is the need to forge principled and well-organized linkages between artists and their organizations in the centre and those in developing countries if art is to regain its dignity and efficacy. One of the ways is by revisiting the notion and praxis of Biennales in the 'periphery' There is, in my opinion, more scope in the developing countries to produce more innovative projects than we have in the developed world where structures are rigid and more set and where broader participation is restricted, comparatively. The projects that I have scantily sketched above symbolize icebergs under which lies a constellation of possibilities.

I Thank You.

©2001 Pitiki Ntuli