Kim Heller
In Dakar, Senegal, the towering fifty-metre African Renaissance Monument reaches into the heavens with a deep yearning for a new day that only those born of African struggles can fully grasp.
The African Renaissance Monument is the tallest statue in Africa, and is higher, by several meters than the world-famous Statue of Liberty in the United States. While it is a Herculean symbol of the continent's profound aspiration for freedom, unity, and self-determination, the statue nonetheless serves as a poignant reminder of the unfulfilled promise of a renaissance.
The African Renaissance Monument is a high-rise of hope far more picturesque than the African soil that lies below. The statue is somewhat grotesque in a Continent that remains unfree and whose destiny remains tethered to foreign nations.
For now, Africa is a trembling giant that has yet to rise above its colonial past to assume its majesty and assure its destiny. Foreign nations continue to clip the fate and fortune of the African Continent as severely as it did under colonialism. This is a living shrine to the power and longevity of foreign influence and control.
The African Union has placed a strong emphasis on the renewal of the Continent. There has been a tight focus on conflict resolution. A raft of solid efforts to fire up and foster sustainable economic prosperity are in play. Despite its noble efforts, grand plans and extensive policies and programmes, the Renaissance remains stillborn.
Clarion calls by leaders, including the former President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, to prioritise a politically free, economically independent, and culturally rejuvenated Africa have not silenced the guns, snuffed out conflicts and unconstitutional power grabs or put an end to poverty and economic hardships.
Cultural reclamation is nowhere in sight.
Critical levers of governance, including regional integration, and foreign relations have yet to be optimally geared and purposed to deal with current-day challenges and opportunities. Balancing the need for unity on continental issues with specific country or regional considerations remains a juggling act.
Understandably, regional bodies such as the EAS and SADC have been too preoccupied with their member states to be able to leverage continental regeneration and renewal. There is a need for reconfiguration and repurposing to serve deeply rooted peace and prosperity objectives across the Continent and foster a culture of self-dependency. This will require a radical shift of mindset.
If this fails, Africa will remain in the neverland of neo-colonialism and the uncomfortable chamber of economic and cultural subjugation. For now, foreign relations continue to be fashioned around dependency.
Heightened debt levels severely curtail self-reliance which is a necessary pre-condition for the African Renaissance. The worn-out mantra of blaming the West for the Continent's crises provides a convenient alibi for the lack of accountability and action by current-day African leaders.
It is a long-expired explanation for the limp body of lethargy and inactivity among many current African leaders and an embarrassing confession of intellectual poverty. No renaissance, whether in Europe or Africa or anywhere else in the world, can be sculptured on lofty statuettes or symbolic gestures alone.
No true renewal can be scripted on speeches by political leaders, even those that are crafted with the greatest care and finesse. Neither can such a mammoth renewal be pinned on ready-to-assemble, one-size-fits-all blueprints by the African Union.
Rather, the Renaissance will be ushered in through a tower of self-belief that stands taller and prouder than any Goliath statute. A skyrocketing intellectual liberation and sovereignty are also needed. This is a necessary antidote to poverty-ridden, colonial-infested leadership mindsets and ideologies.
In a February 2025 article in The New Times, journalist Amani Athar asks, "Can combating colonial ideology spark Africa's renaissance?" It is a profound question.
Without this ideological battle being waged and won, Africa's rebirth is impossible. Mental liberation, from the notions of inadequacy and inferiority espoused and explicit in colonial ideology, is the necessary first step in dismantling the remnants of colonial and capitalistic conquest and control, both mentally and materially.
It is in the liberated mind that the Renaissance is conceived. In this respect, intellectual liberation is a tangible and concrete act. While the African Renaissance requires large-scale material and structural reconfiguration, this can only be achieved through an almost biblical intellectual awakening.
African Renaissance requires that Africans stand tall and proud, rather than in the ever-demeaning courtesy of others. An Africa that snubs colonial ideology, methodologies, and cognitive systems is free to reimagine a truly liberated and prosperous future.
For the revolutionary thinker, Dr Frantz Fanon, reclaiming and reaffirming self-belief and intellectual control is the starting gun in a race for full and meaningful liberation.
Former President Mbeki recognised the importance of decolonising the mind to effect Africa's agency and self-determination.
In his 1996 "I Am an African" speech, he stated, “The time to redefine ourselves has come.”
Redefinition begins with and in the mind, which is the most important site of battle in the wargames of coloniality. For renowned writer and academic, Professor Kwesi Kwaa Prah, Africa’s renewal is contingent on its capacity to redefine itself on its terms, rather than through the lenses of Western narratives or institutions.
For Prah, intellectual sovereignty is not an abstract or elusive notion but a practical solution to Africa’s problems. In The African Nation: The State of the Nation (2006), he postulates that the reliance on foreign formulas by the African elite has failed Africa.
Genuine ideological victories will collapse neocolonial dependencies, fuel necessary structural changes, and inspire a redefined matrix of African-driven and continent-relevant solutions. For Prah, the African Renaissance will become a tangible reality when African leaders think and govern with sovereignty and engage with foreign nations on conditions shaped by themselves rather than those dictated by others.
The prolific decolonisation thinker and author, Ngugi wa Thiongo reminds scholars of the long chase for African Renaissance, across the ages. He also asserts how ideas are concrete rather than whimsical.
“Our intellectual ancestors taught us that "ideas, once grasped by the masses, become the material force", he writes.
The African Renaissance is not a metaphor. It cannot be conceived or constructed on the fragility of poetry or the airy flutter of grand but inept symbolism. It requires a firm breath of intellectual liberation and sovereignty. This is the life force of any renaissance. It is time to elevate thought, not statues.
* Kim Heller is a political analyst and author of No White Lies: Black Politics and White Power in South Africa.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.