A Manifesto for Transhumanism in Africa
By Leo Igwe
This piece outlines transhumanist visions and aspirations for Africa. It is not another declaration of transhumanist ethos. What is stated here has broadly been captured in earlier declarations. This piece is rather a restatement of transhumanist intent with an emphasis on Africa. Or better it is a transhumanist proposition from an African perspective. This piece urges Africans including African scholars, politicians, technocrats, African schools, colleges, universities, African companies, and research centers to get involved in the promotion and furtherance of transhumanist values. Emerging technologies are rapidly changing the world and its future. Ideas that once belonged to science fiction are becoming part of everyday life. And Africa must not recuse itself from this exciting endeavor and adventure. Africans need to be a part of this wave of transformation and overcoming. Africans must become active participants and contributors to this historic process; they cannot be passive observers of emerging technological possibilities in this 21st century.
Too often discourses on Africa valorize the past and stress with nostalgia some fictitious ‘glorious days of yore. Africa is presented as estranged from the notion of science, progress, modernity, and technological transformation. Contact with the west or anything western or eastern is seen as a form of corruption or pollution of the ‘authentic Africa’. Narratives of slavery and racism, colonialism and neocolonialism, imperialism, conquest, and annexation by other parts of the world overshadow and overwhelm debates on African prospects and possibilities. Africa is presented as if the continent could only be understood through the prism of the past, of colonization, or in reference to the west, to other-than-African paradigms, or within the framework of Eurocentrism, not Afrocentric modes of thought.
Mainstream discussions about Africa are suffused with exoticism and romanticism. In trying to make sense of the ‘strange’ African continent and its peoples, western anthropologists portrayed Africa as other than the West or other than the white; they designated Africa as a dark and backward continent populated by natives whose cosmology was magic and witchcraft based. Western scholars placed anything African within an us-them analytic frame. And in reaction, African scholars largely glorify, glamorize, and uncritically present African cultures and religions; they take intellectual refuge in espousing alternative science, other-than-western science, logic, and philosophies which are often not too different from pseudoscience, fringe philosophies, and paranormal idioms. These models of explaining and understanding Africa-and anything African- reflect positively and progressively on the region, its peoples, and prospects.
A philosophical outlook based on overcoming human limitations through the ethical use of emerging technologies requires a shift in thinking about Africa. Situating the radical and disruptive impact of technologies in contemporary Africa is a futuristic endeavor that demands envisioning Africa looking forward, not backward, exploring possible futures not being fixated, obsessed, and held hostage by its primitive pasts. Transhumanism entails challenging and questioning the traditional idea of humanity including the idea of Ubuntu and Ujamaa, the concepts nwanne and nwanna in Igbo cosmology, and reimagining the notion of African humanity. So it is necessary to begin to re-explain and re-envision Africa in futurist philosophical forms. This futuristic endeavor requires placing a critique of Africa or anything African on the same analytic plane as critiques of other regions and cultures of the world.
As in other societies, the transcendentalist impulse lurks in African cultures and societal formations. This impulse has been expressed in the quest for immortality, paradise, and the longing to acquire and exercise superhuman abilities including immunity to any harm (gunshots or accidents), death, disability, or diseases. For instance, in parts of Nigeria, there is a concept of Odighi eshi, which literally means ‘of no effect’. Across African cultures, narratives of superhuman abilities and defiance of human biological and physical limitations exist. However, beyond human impulses have largely been framed in mythical, otherworldly, and metaphysical terms.
But the emergence of science and technology has occasioned a rethinking of these sentiments and aspirations. It has opened up the space to imagine the possibility and plausibility of achieving beyond human capabilities and of realizing physical immortality and earthly paradise through the deployment of technologies including artificial intelligence, nanotechnologies, and bioengineering facilities.
Transhumanism envisions the transformation of Africa from a continent that is characterized by poverty, hunger, disease, and death into a secular paradise or better an extension of a global secular paradise. The deployment of emerging technologies would provide cutting-edge technoscientific responses that could cure these ills, and banish suffering, as we know it.
So, transhumanists wax with optimism about the future of Africa, of humanity, and the world especially the potential of enhancing human beings and profoundly transforming their bodily, emotional, and cognitive abilities.
In the case of Africa, transhumanists envision a qualitative leap in living conditions including extended life and health span for Africans. They imagine a continent that is populated by technologically enhanced or modified humans or hybrids that resist malaria, HIV/AIDs, and other infectious diseases.
But it is not everyone that is enthused by the outlook of a transformed future for humanity as envisaged by transhumanists. Some people have misgivings about these radical visions, possibilities, and aspirations. They are disinclined towards the idea that the transhumanist promise would free Africa from the throes of hunger, death, and disease. Some argue that the vision of radically improved human health and extended life span is misplaced and could yield dystopian scenarios. They think that the deployment of emerging technologies would worsen global inequalities and that Africa would be worst off as a result of the devastating impact of these technologies. The conservatives claim that the emergence and convergence of technologies would not change the bio-political and technopolitical situation that has consigned African nations to the lower echelons of the global power ladder. They stress that existing technologies have occasioned a gap between Africa and the rest of the world, and emerging technologies would not bridge this gap. Instead, they are of the view that the proposed secular paradise is another utopia, a secular utopia.
They are of the notion that emerging technologies would further disadvantage the African continent and reinforce the divide between Africa and the rest of the globe. Thus transhumanism would face opposition from anti-western ideologies, self-styled custodians of African culture, and religious fanatics who regard the human enhancement project as tampering with the sacredness of life or trespassing into the abode of the ‘divine’. But these conservatives offer no better alternatives and solutions to the problems facing the African continent in this 21st century.
Transhumanism is a technoprogressive outlook predicated on an ethical application of emerging technologies. At the same time, transhumanists are not unaware of the harmful and destructive outcomes of reckless and irresponsible deployment of technologies. Transhumanism is not a mere utopia; it is a philosophy characterized by optimism, but tempered with realism. Transhumanism is a positive outlook driven by the notion that these technologies could and will be used for the greater good of humanity, in this case, Africa. In fact, if there is a part of the world that is in dire need of emerging technologies and its promises to address its problems and challenges, it is the continent of Africa.
It must be noted that new scientific discoveries and technological innovations have always elicited fears and anxieties. Alarmists use scare tactics and misinformation to discourage, oppose or resist the introduction of new technologies. In fact, technological progress has been realized despite projected fears and anxieties over its potential risks and dangers to humanity. Incidentally, this angst about the new applies -and will apply- to the socio-cultural movement of transhumanism in Africa.
Fortunately, as in the case of other regions of the world, emerging technologies are making inroads in some African countries and gradually ushering in a transitional phase to post-humanity. In fact, transhumanism may signal an end to the racial designation of human beings and racism. The transhumanist movement could mark an end to identity politics, as we know it, because in the transhumanist world, what counts is not one’s race or color of one’s skin but technological ability.
Furthermore, data banks, which make available repository information that could help achieve a better understanding and management of diseases and other threats to human life and survival, have been established in many African countries. While there are genuine concerns that these data banks could fall into wrong hands and be used to hack or harm Africans, transhumanists envision that these information depots would be responsibly used and managed to ensure more qualitative life and health for Africans. African governments and peoples need to have significant control of these data banks and how they are managed. Mechanisms should be put in place to check abuses and the misuse of data by governments and corporate bodies.
Artificial intelligence and robotic technology have been deployed to improve health care in Rwanda and other African countries. And in the coming months and years, Africa will witness more deployment of these technologies and other projects that could cure death, enable physical immortality and improve health and life span for Africans. In all, Africa’s slow and steady progress in the use and application of emerging technologies has begun and will continue. Transhumanism, which maintains that limitations and miserable living conditions that have persisted could be overcome through ethical application of technologies, is set to radically transform Africa, Africa’s futures, cultures, philosophies, and religions.
