Tech firms from the U.S. and China are competing to dominate the African Stack. Although we assume that this reflects a new type of colonialism, this colonial perspective reflects a certain Western bias. As pan-Africanism is rising and stable dynamic countries have emerged, especially smaller African countries will increasingly detach from the American and Chinese layers of the Stacks.
The Africa Stack is largely dominated by American and Chinese technology firms. Such competition has led many commentators to speak of a new type of colonialism. Based on the fact that Africa’s place within planetary computation is still highly focused on its rare minerals, there is certainly merit to this argument. But to look at Africa merely from a colonial perspective is also indicative of a Western bias. To understand current developments, we need a new way to think about Africa. For one thing, authors like Thornton and Diop show that we could adopt a pan-African perspective to think about Africa. Although it is true that Africa is a huge and diverse continent, the colonial period exacerbated divisions as Europeans used tribal cultures to “divide and conquer”. In fact, some pan-African traditions (such as the Ubuntu philosophy and languages) point to a certain type of African unity, which is now being revived by the African Union and infrastructure investment.
First, we have to understand that Sub-Saharan Africa is largely still in an early phase of modernization. This manifests itself in different ways. Economically, as most countries are struggling to build up manufacturing industries or suffer from “premature deindustrialization”, only a few countries have entered the phase of “take-off” to reach a GDP per capita level of around $8000 (most notably, South Africa and Botswana). Moreover, African societies are still struggling to develop a modern political order, market economies and cities (only a few countries have stable democracies, non-corrupt regimes and livable cities). The corruption, violence and terrorism that plague many parts of Africa indicate that Africans are struggling to embed their traditions in a modern context. Another example of this is the attempt to link African traditions of panpsychism and animism to modern ICT such as IoT. Rather than providing a fruitful foundation for technological innovation, this reflects attempts to disprove Africa’s backwardness, which is indicative of societies that struggle to give their traditions a place in the modern world.
However, these optimistic responses to modernity do point to a more positive future for African societies. In the coming years, African momentum may increasingly grow in the places we least expect it. Africa’s regional powerhouses have struggled in recent years. In Nigeria and South Africa, the largest economies of Africa, reform efforts have stalled, growth has stagnated and corruption plagues the political order. But meanwhile, their smaller counterparts are becoming more dynamic. In western Africa, Ghana has long been a champion of pan-Africanism, a stable and democratic country since 1992, and its GDP per capita is catching up to that of Nigeria. In southern Africa, Botswana is the most stable democratic country at one of the highest levels of GDP per capita. In eastern Africa, Ethiopia is reemerging as an important regional leader (the recent Boeing disaster reflected the high status of Ethiopia’s airliner). All of these smaller countries are more successfully fusing their traditions with modernity.
All in all, these African societies that are strengthening political institutions and growing more innovative, will increasingly try to build their own layers in the Stack. Although this will not happen in the short term, it will eventually disrupt the American and Chinese Stacks. Indeed, Tanzania and Uganda are already taxing the American Stack. Growing African unity, which will be boosted by the coming free trade area of the African Union, will add further momentum to an African Stack. Traditions of pan-Africanism, which the African Union will increasingly try to propagate, could point to a new type of African cosmotechnics, rooted in ancient traditions. As such, Africans will increasingly shed their colonial legacy of a reserved attitude towards international cooperation, which is already apparent in the rise of the American and Chinese Stacks, the growing clout of the African Union and free trade agreements.
