Africa: Reclaiming Heritage in Cyberspace

Photos

Africa: Reclaiming Heritage in Cyberspace

see larger image

uploaded by akwerius

So, with all the excitement about Second Life, blogging, .net and
Web 2.0 one might just lose balance or get a little dizzy at first upon
moving to Silicon Valley. The pace is fast here, and the myth is that
everyone remains connected all of the time. But, can they really? With
global conferences happening virtually, marches and rallies being
organized exclusively through computer-mediated communications, one
might quickly miss out on a lot just for not being in the loop.
The WLAN loop that is, relayed via transfer protocol and smart data
packets. But what of those individuals, or worse yet entire regions,
that are not so techno-privileged as people living here in San
Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area?

In this post, I focus on what might seem to some as a tangential
issue regarding the Internet digital divide. Although we traditionally
have pointed to access as being one of the main inhibiting factors in
facilitating greater adoption of new media technologies in low-income
countries/neighborhoods, there is a socio-cultural, hence ideological,
fact to this whole dilemma that is rarely touched upon, in my opinion.
And that is at the level of content. For all the talk about what the
Internet promises for developing regions, there still isn’t relatively
much content out there in cyberspace on Africa or written in African
languages for example. The consequences of this are quite subtle, but
nonetheless potentially devastating. The gradual loss of concepts,
history and cultural pride become real threats for a people unable to
control its means of cultural production. In a place where the oral
tradition has been the enduring mode of transmitting knowledge, the
digitization of information into rich media formats (audio, digital
video) may in the end provide African societies with cheaper, more
effective and culturally-resonant alternatives to preserving/creating
media than the print or celluloid film culture of yester-years.

Given the misrepresentation too often suffered by Our Beloved Land (Merita) in the hands of Western media (see Conrad’s Heart of Darkness),
the day is already at hand where generations of children grow up with a
dampened or damaged self-esteem and community respect. As much of this
is, unfortunately, due to some of the images fed to/consumed by them
via commercial media outlets (films, videos, games, comics etc), I see
the surging research and investment in digital media for learning as a
unique opportunity to redress the balance. By connecting people of
African descent in real communities (here in the States or elsewhere around the world) doing work towards a common goal, although communicating using virtual
channels, I believe there can be a space for voices to organize for
individual and community education through sharing (stories, knowledge,
wisdom, tradition, heritage).

As a poet, I am primarily concerned with notions of self and
identity, which I consider to be the true beginnings of race, politics
and culture. As individuals, are we solely born in a world structured
along preexisting structures and patterns, forever bound to conform to
its (mis)representation of our identity? Or do we rather exist as
ideological agents, legitimate co-authors of our racial, political and
cultural realities? Language is at the basis of our perception and
experience of reality, in fact, as we find in the naming of children at
birth, for example. In the beginning, each one is spoken into being.
Over time, we accept as objective facts of our being external
representations that helped construct our identity (often fragmented
for that very same reason). Thus, to critically discuss race, politics
and culture, it is necessary to carefully look at the role that
language plays in (in)forming our selfhood. The personal is indeed
political!