How far Behind the Developed World African Countries Really Are

Kenya's most prominent writer, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Cheikh Anta Diop, the Senegalese who is often called the champion of African identity, and the less known Simon Kapwepwe, a politician in the first Zambian republic who later turned to writing, have one thing in common. Each, in his own way, figured out how far behind western nations, or the developed world, Africa really was, and knew what had to be done to "open up the minds" of Africans in a manner known of people in developed countries. These men knew Africa had to go through a rite of passage of sorts, without which setting the continent on a path to attaining its own dynamic culture, capable of standing its own in this system, was impossible.

All three men chose to write in their own mother tongue, after starting out writing in English in the case of Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Simon Kapwepwe, compiling a dictionary in his own mother tongue in the case of Cheikh Anta Diop. This need to use a local language, even when it cost them in terms of local and international exposure, provides us with an indirect clue to the step that Africa requires to take in order to be able to cope in this system. Explaining what this is from the onset is not a very good idea without first delving into issues that require comprehension for the point to sink in.

There is a misunderstanding, caused by a hangover from a period when Europeans in the main line of the study of foreign cultures saw existing native societies in the world as prototypes of their own "primitive ancestors", fossilized remains, so to speak, of stages of development that western Europe had once gone through. This was a time when cultural anthropologists and social scientists regarded the modern west as the latest point in a line of progress that was single and unilinear, on which all other people of the world could be fitted as illustrations, as it were, of western man's own past.

This euro-centric thinking has for the most part been eradicated as the west got better informed, but only for those in the main line of study and others who came accross the knowledge through research. Little has been done to change this standpoint among the common masses. It is therefore a common occurence for people to interpret time given in estimations to mean one culture is in the exact same state in which another was as many years ago. If you asked how far behind the western world Africa is, most people would say 100 years.

Social scientists who know what they are doing are estimating how long it will take to transform, for example, Africa's economic system into a likeness of the western model, rather than placing the continent on an evolutionary ladder with Europe at the top. The amount of time is usually calculated using items that differ with subject matter, the most applied of which include technology, industrialization, economic system, and culture.

Culture is unique, the odd one in this list because, when it is understood to be a comparison between shared bases of social interaction, it includes the first three items. Though it is the most used of all in this sense, it is the most inacurate and misleading. The admission has to be made culture does not easily lend itself to comparison or ranking. It may be possible to know the state of a culture, to be able to tell whether some cultural practice or trait in one is better than that in another, but problematic to apply this to the totality of the culture, unless there is an attempt to show interrelation.

It is possible to say the Zulus have better morals, but wrong to assume their whole culture is more advanced than another because it is the nurturing environment - unless one can show how other aspects are working to make the morals better, if this can be the proof the totality is better. It is even more inappropriate to estimate how many years Zulu culture is more advanced than another, if by this we mean to approximate the number of years it will take for another to catch up. Such comparison is only possible where cultures are always exact replicas that follow a set pattern of development, and some are delayed versions (prototypes) of others. Even if this was the way reality works, we would still only be able to make rough estimates and accept they could never be accurately fulfilled due to factors with the potential to delay or speed up development, attempts to include these unknown factors in the calculation notwithstanding.

The term culture can now also be used to refer to smaller segments of society, for example business culture, political culture, or to the system or mode of social provisioning. Where the system is concerned, African countries seldom have a single, or predominant one. Most countries have a combination of the tradition based, the command, and the market driven (also called free enterprise economy). This mixture of systems is a situation quite unlike Europe at any time in its history. In the west, groups advanced from one predominant system to another, for example from feudalism to capitalism or socialism. The modern African system, or even political culture, may in large part be imposed from Europe, but differs from it in many respects because of this. There is also the fact Afrca has adopted the worst aspects of capitalism. All this makes it impossible to trace the African incarnation of a western system to some period in the west's past when there is no European parallel. Talking of Africa as behind Europe by a number of years in terms of the system becomes illogical in this case because Africa just isn't in any position or place that the west has been. It is in fact hovering between semblances of cultures that have had the most influence on this continent, never really being a carbon copy of one at a past date.

Industrialization and technology are better items to use in estimating the time required for one culture to catch up, but also have their shortcomings. For example, there is always going to be a difference between how developed a group is and their potential for development if there were no inhibiting factors. I have in mind known factors working to prevent a group from doing better than they are able to with what they already have, for example unfair terms of trade, cheaper foreign products that stunt local production, poverty, and so on.

Another factor is the known paucity on funding third world governments put into Science, Technology and Innovation (STI's), compared to western countries. The most reliable approximations of STI activity are patent filings. When they are correlated to Research and Development expenditure, the worst performers internationally are also the worst spenders. According to data compiled by the World Intellectual Patent Office (WIPO) in 2006, Africa was the worst performer. With the exception of Kenya (71 patents) and the island of Madagascar (44 patents), all patent offices in African countries recorded zero filings from locals. Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Chad and a few other places saw more patents filed by foreign nationals than the total from Kenya and Madagascar which, for such a big continent, is much less than underpopulated Iceland.

If it were really possible to equate standards, and it were true that Africa is at the same level of development as Europe 100 years ago, then the creativity and inventiveness Europe entered the 20th century with would be evident in Africa today. 100 years ago was the time in Europe when motorized vehicles had already been invented, when the Wright brothers had already made their first flight, when Nicolai Tesla had already filed his patent for a basic radio. This was a time when Europeans were inventing radar, when the printing press, the paper, the machine gun, had long since been invented.

The STI activity that characterized Europe 100 years ago is nowhere near that seen in Africa today. Africa could only be considered at par with Europe 100 years ago if it was assumed there are factors preventing Africa from showing its potential, such as lack of investment by African governments in Research and Development.

That fact of the matter remains it is not possible to find Africa in any developed country's past by any of the criteria mentioned before, except in fragments. There is actually something else that I have not mentioned thus far, an item we can apply to this case that will enable us to pinpoint Africa's position with regards developed countries accurately, that will also help us know what is wrong with Africa today, why the continent is performing so poorly. This item will enable insight that will take us more than two thousand years into the past, to the efforts of Socrates, Plato and the like, efforts to which Simon Kapwepwe comes very close if not equals. We will find the answer in Greece, 2000 years ago, without this implying Africa is as many years behind the west, or that it will take as much time to catch up. The hint as to what this is comes from an unlikely source.

Nobel Laureate Gumar Myrdal concluded in his major development study, Asian Drama, that institutions and attitudes are the most important factors in economic development/progress, a factor extensively illustrated in Africa. I concur wholeheartedly with him on this. Though Myrdal does not show how attitudes and institutions are related, which would have helped make the solution easier to see, we can do the math ourselves. Attitudes build institutions, and though institutions impact attitudes, they can be considered more the means rather than the end in itself. It is therefore to attitudes that we must look in order to know where in time a group is in relation no another, as well as why a given group is failing when compared to others.

There is indeed an era in western history more important than others, an era without which the creativity that characterises the western world would have been impossible. The foundations for this culture (civilization) were laid then. This happens to be the step that African has not taken, a step as prerequisite to mature entry into this western system as knowing the alphabet is a prerequisite to learning how to read, a rite of passage without which the system will remain alien. Keep in mind as we go along the undeniable reality I have already inferred above that this system, even if a mere variant, imposed on Africa through conquest, is the one the continent lives by.

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