Back to the Future: Returning Africa to the Technological Journey — Part 1
Preamble
Technology is growth in craftsmanship. It is defined as the acquisition of skills and “technics” of practical subjects that require manufacture.
From the beginning, Man has used technological inventions and innovations to meet the needs of life. These are food, clothing and shelter. Technology is, in itself, a means and an aid to production. Technology leads to surplus in production. We store the surplus or dispose it, hopefully at a “fair” exchange for another commodity or money. There has to be a differential between the disposer and the consumer for the exchange to happen. But if his neighbour has similar technology, there is no exchange and a distant market is sought.
Transportation and communication over long distances while in search of the necessities became another driver. However, an interesting aspect came to the fore as populations of the humanity came into contact with one another. A commodity with limited supply and a large market created scarcity. Rather than live within the means of supply, war became another driver for invention. In the cultures that had technological prowess to wage war, to subjugate “the other” and extract value became the objective of these inventions.
“War” comes in many forms and inevitably, technology that creates an advantage cannot be shared equally. Ownership is very important, creating different regimes that control the access to technology. Nuclear technology comes to mind.
Africa Today
Somewhere along the historical timeline, Africa lost the lead in technological innovation. It started in Ethiopia and the Sudan with stone tools, then to the Lower Nile and to Mesopotamia known as the “Fertile Crescent”. It is Mesopotamia that the “globalisation” of technology begun and ideas started flowing freely in the empires that came after this time. Innovation leadership moved then to Persia and Indus, to China, to Greece and Rome. During this time, the Inca and Maya were on a different trajectory but were not behind. In the “Medieval to Early Modern”, a collection of innovation happened across Central Asia to the Middle East, back to Europe then North America, then to East Asia.
My casual research was not exhaustive neither thorough but I found this interesting. We are talking about technological innovation, not civilisation. In all this sharing, where was Africa?
Africa is at an interesting crossroad. It came into the “Mobile Age” and the Africans are doing pretty well innovating to solve the unique problems that they have with this new technology. However, Africa is considered to be behind in the use of globally recognised technologies especially those that are easily discernible such as “Industrial Age” technology. For Africa to “industrialise” today, it would have to do it like the West did. Like China and India, the Africans must have control of the land and their extraction industries. Labour must be skilled in industrial technics and be urbanised. Energy must be cheap. Since these conditions are currently impossible to meet, by all indications Africa will not “industrialise” like Europe and East Asia did. It will do something else.
There is one thing that Africa has that the rest of the world want to get their hands on. The averagely young growing population. This is a future market, especially if the growth of the “middle class” is true. The young population has begun to assert itself against colonial legacies and their ageing leaders. But these Africans will need to control their resources to meet their needs first.
Will the Africans be allowed to control their own resources? Will there be resistance from the rest of the world as Africa focuses on producing for itself? How will Africa develop technology that removes the barriers that hinder social and economic development?
Click here for Part 2.
