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Africa’s best talent tend to leave the continent, not of their own free will, but because of the failure of the continent to provide an environment in which they can thrive and realise their potential.

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Sizwe sama Yende

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Africa’s civil societies have not been as committed in ensuring that the continent’s arts and culture became the driving force behind education, technological innovation, and funding mechanism.

This is the view of Professor Alinah Segobye, an archaeologist who is the CEO of the Human Resource Development Council in Botswana. Segobye delivered an Africa Day speech titled - From fractured pasts to liberated futures: Harnessing African heritage for African Unity and renaissance - sat University of Mpumalanga recently.

Segobye said that there had been some challenges as government had been slow in implementing the African Cultural Charter whose aim was to promote and foster a mutual understanding among nations and resist any form of cultural exclusion and oppression in Africa, and to defend minorities, their cultures, their rights, and their fundamental freedoms.

She said that ministries and departments of arts and culture were the least funded by government. “This is despite the fact that the arts and culture of the continent provides some of the richest material and technological resources in terms of ideas of intellectual and innovative productivity of the citizenry,” Segobye said.

“We have seen the music of Africa, the food ways of Africa, the religious capabilities of the continent being taken up globally but, often times, at the detriment of the producers because the IP (intellectual property) systems that we have do not come with that understanding of the importance of protecting and safeguarding that which is African.”

Segobye said this has resulted in the flight of knowledge in the form of materials by means of piracy and the flight of knowledge in the form of bodies.

She said that some of Africa’s best talent tend to leave the continent, not of their own free will, but because of the failure of the continent to provide an environment in which they can thrive and realise their potential.

“They become weakened and sometimes threatened by the various forces – sometimes it is the state, sometimes it is us, the citizenry. So, where there are no freedoms and protection of citizenry they will leave. In the main, the best artists reside outside our continent,” Segobye said.

Segobye made an example of Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela who lived in exile with their music talent, which was shoring up the liberation struggle.

“But we do know that our heritage – natural and cultural – is still important in driving the development agenda,” she said.

Segobye said that Africa needed to forget its painful past of colonialism and imperialism that robbed the continent of its rich heritage.

The history of Africa, she said, was unknown to many of Africans.  “Most of it is excluded or denied in the world of scholarship. It’s always difficult to explain to audiences how rich and how privileged the heritage of Africa is. Some of you may be familiar with the history of the northern part of Africa – especially Egypt or Sudan,” Segobye said.

“But most of you assume it is not African. It is. The scholarship of Egypt, what we call Egyptologyis taught as a western civilization subject, as classics. Our knowledge system assumes Africa is poor of knowledge of history, innovation, and technology. It is not always the case.”

Segobye said that institutions of learning should be mindful of Africa’s painful past colonialism, disputes and slave trade that devastated the continent from the 14^th century.

Segobye said the continent had lost a lot in human capabilities, natural resources and “more troublingly in recent times, intellectual capabilities developed by the African continent.”

She said the culture of peace should be continuously embedded in the education system. “Only then we can inculcate and engender a culture of mutual respect, tolerance and understanding for diversity. That does not come easily. It must be intentional that we ensure to cultivate a curriculum that ensures that we embed that education in our education system.”

Despite challenges in the present which include cyclical conflicts, natural disasters, and other calamities, Segobye said, the African continent retained its positive spirit which continually drew from rich creative and cultural capital to forge ahead.

“Expressed through creative works, technological innovation, the arts and religious forms, the passion for life of Africans is often summed up in one word – resilience,” she said.