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Looking to Africa

By Akio Nishiura
Soka University students and SGI President Ikeda welcome Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa (center) with a traditional Tanzanian song (December 1998)   [©Seikyo Shimbun]

Africa's ability to determine her own destiny has been severely limited for much of modern history by often brutal restraints imposed from outside the continent: the slave trade, colonialism, neocolonialism, the proxy wars between the Western and Eastern blocs during the Cold War and Structural Adjustment Programs. As Daisaku Ikeda, the founder of Soka University, has put it, "Africa is not a poor continent. It was made poor by rapacious exploitation. It is not underdeveloped. Its natural development was impeded, like a person whose arms and legs have been severed."

Recent developments in Africa have begun to make vivid the promise of Africa's future. Along with democratization of many formerly one-party states and military governments in the last decade, we have seen a number of bold and visionary initiatives by African leaders such as the call for an African Renaissance, the Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Programme (MAP), the Omega Plan and the New African Initiative.

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), a common economic and development policy for the newly established African Union (AU), could be described as the fruit of these efforts. One of the innovative features of NEPAD is the adoption by AU member states of a peer review mechanism. These developments all represent a triumph for self-determination: Africa taking its destiny into its own hands.

Continent of 21st Century

Daisaku Ikeda has for decades advocated his belief that the 21st century will be "the Century of Africa." He has described this belief as growing from a recognition of the vast potential of Africa. Based on this perspective he has, over many decades, sought out and held dialogues with Africans, from diplomats and statesmen to educators, artists, writers and ordinary citizens.

He has given poetic expression to his perspective in an essay, as follows:

"By 'the Century of Africa' I meant the century in which those who have suffered the most will be the happiest, the century in which those who have suffered the greatest humiliation and indignity will walk proud and tall, with their heads held high. There will be new leading actors in the drama of human history. Those whom the world has oppressed the most will become those who carry the world into the future."

In my interpretation, Mr. Ikeda's perspective suggests two important points. First, we cannot achieve peace in the world without solving Africa's problems. It is poverty and the frustration and discontent to which it gives rise which spawns fundamentalism and violence, for example; and the dire consequences of failing to confront the HIV/ AIDS pandemic can hardly be overstated. It is imperative that we mobilize our efforts.

Second, we can and should look more seriously toward Africa in our search for solutions to global deadlocks, such as the seemingly intractable Palestinian issue and the Iraq war. South Africa's almost miraculous success in achieving national reconciliation after decades of apartheid violence holds out great hope to the world in this regard.

Furthermore, Africa's great cultural and spiritual wealth is an invaluable resource from which humanity should benefit. The values and attitudes of tolerance, mutual help and positive thinking which I believe to be rooted in Africa's oral- and community-based culture, are the values that the world needs today.

Mr. Ikeda's view is that the wisdom to unite people, to harmonize people with nature, and to illuminate the eternal aspect of life can be found in Africa. In calling for mutual respect among people and in international affairs, he describes the importance of changing attitudes:

"The time has come when the entire world will learn from the energy, the strength and the wisdom of Africa, which never lost the joyful pulse of life in spite of all that was taken from it by others. I am not talking about a patronizing attitude of 'helping countries that are backward.' That is a colonial way of thinking, the idea of bringing civilization to savages. I am talking about living together as members of the same human family."

Seeds of Friendship

My own interest in Africa was inspired by encountering Mr. Ikeda's ideas when I was a student. The focus on Africa at Soka University is in many ways unique in a country where not many universities even offer African Studies. Each year more than 1,000 Soka University students take subjects relating to Africa (Swahili language and African Studies). Moreover, the university has exchange programs for staff and students with universities in Kenya, Ghana, Egypt and South Africa.

A Swahili speech contest has been held annually since 1990, organized by the student Pan-African Friendship Society. This contest provides a good opportunity for the public to learn about not only the Swahili language but also African culture. Inspired by Mr. Ikeda's vision and their interactions at the university, many Soka graduates have gone to live and work in Africa or found work related to Africa, pursuing an ideal espoused at the university of "living together and learning from Africa."

Akio Nishiura is associate professor of African Studies and Economics at Soka University in Japan. He spent several years in Kenya and South Africa conducting research on poverty reduction through industrial development.

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