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Africa needs a proactive philosophical outlook that accords a central place to humanity rather than divinity, a need that cannot be over-emphasized.

First and foremost, the Humanist world view will help correct many of the misconceptions and misperceptions of Africa and Africans by non-Africans, and sometimes by Africans themselves. Some of these misguided notions include the view that Africa is a dark continent, inhabited by apes and monkeys, and that African people – the blacks – are an inferior race.

For several centuries Africa was portrayed by Western scholarship as a land of primitive humans, natives and pagans. Many people in the Western world still apparently believe that Africans have tails and live in trees. Africa has long been regarded as a continent without history, culture, poetry, science, or civilization. Africans were said to lack the capacity to think in abstract terms, to philosophize, reason, or solve mathematical problems.

Hugh Trevor-Roper, former Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University had this to say concerning African history: “Maybe in future there will be African history, but at the moment there is none... There is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness and darkness is not a subject of history.” The British philosopher David Hume asserted that among people of colour “are to be found no ingenious manufactures... no arts, no sciences”. According to the German Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, “Africa is not a historical continent; it shows neither change nor development”, and its black peoples “are capable of neither development nor education. As we see them today so they have always been.” Another prominent intellectual opinion was that of Richard Burton’s London Anthropological Society, which held that the Negro “mentally remains a child” and the related view, popularized by Christian missionaries, of the African as “half devil, half child”, an adaptation of the noble savage of the French philosophes.

Yet Africa is the birthplace of humanity. Thanks to the research of the Leakey family and others in East Africa, we now know that this is the place where Homo sapiens first emerged. The African continent gave birth to civilizations such as that of Pharaonic Egypt, and kingdoms and empires waxed and waned for millennia until finally eclipsed by the rise of the Roman Empire. What is seen today as Western civilization – science, technology, or philosophy – has African origins and significant African inputs which have gone unrecognized because of racial bias, arrogance, ignorance, and prejudice.

Unfortunately, these mistaken beliefs about Africa have served the interests of the continent’s invaders, missionaries, jihadists and colonizers. They have been used to justify a multitude of atrocities: slavery, racism, colonialism, apartheid, oppression, exploitation, dispossession, deprivation, denudation and the dehumanization of Africans and people of African descent. Humanism is thus needed to help address the lingering legacy of interracial, intercontinental and intergenerational injustice and inequity that have marked Africa’s relationship with the rest of the world.

Secondly, Humanism will provide a veritable framework for Africans to tackle, resolve and overcome their problems and difficulties. Today, human beings possess the means through science and technology to ameliorate the human condition, and to advance human happiness and well being. But most people in Africa are living and languishing in palpable poverty, hunger, misery, ignorance, and disease. With over 800 million people, Africa contributes only 1% of global Gross Domestic Product and less than 3% of international trade. In spite of its abundant human and natural resources, Africa has remained the poorest region with 49 of its countries classified as least developed. About half of Africa’s population live on less than $1 per day while the mortality rate of children under five years of age is 140 per 1,000 and life expectancy at birth only 54 years. Only 58% of the African population have access to safe water, and the literacy rate for people over 15 is 41%.

Armed conflicts often with tribal and religious dimensions have claimed millions of lives, disrupting and shattering the livelihoods of tens of millions in Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Congo DRC, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Uganda. Drought, famine and flood have disrupted food production, causing more hunger, starvation and malnutrition. Diseases like malaria, cholera, tuberculosis, polio, and HIV-AIDS are ravaging the continent.

Overwhelmed by crippling debts, most African economies are worse off today than they were during the colonial years. Harmful traditional practices and taboos such as female genital mutilation, ritual killing, ‘witch’ killing, and the Osu caste system, informed by superstition, occultism, and mysticism, have taken an enormous toll on progress towards emancipation of the African spirit. In the face of problems, Africans invoke the supernatural. They flee from applying their

‘unaided’ reason and intelligence. They depend on God and rely on the ‘powers’ of spirits, deities, juju, charms and witchcraft.

Throughout history, religious mercenaries – evangelical Christians and Islamic jihadists who seek to convert Africans to alien faiths – have invaded the black continent. They preach submission to the wills of their gods and salvation in the afterlife as answers to Africa’s problems. Yet Africa’s problems still remain and in fact have grown and multiplied. Christianity and Islam have remained impotent in the face of Africa’s troubles. Instead the two religions have contributed to Africa’s woes, to its stagnation, alienation, and general underdevelopment. Indeed Christianity and Islam have thrived and flourished while Africans suffer, starve, and die. Christianity and Islam did not prevent the evils of slavery, colonialism and apartheid in Africa. Christianity did not prevent the genocide in Rwanda, the war in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Congo DRC. A rebel group in Northern Uganda is fighting to overthrow the government of Yoweri Museveni and enthrone a government based on the Ten Commandments.

Millions of Africans have lost their lives to holy wars like the Jihad of Uthman Dan Fodio, and to sectarian clashes and religious bloodletting in Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, and Sudan.

All in all, religions have failed Africa. Religions have corrupted Africa. The supernatural faiths have greatly undermined Africa’s quest for freedom, emancipation, and progress.

Africa’s foremost Humanist, Tai Solarin, echoed the view when he said “The worst bane of African development is chronic dependence on the deity to solve all earthly problems”.

The tendency has been for most people to despair for Africa and its future. In pessimism, some have dismissed the continent as a ‘basket case’ and ‘forgetful of the world and by the world forgot’. But it is wrong to despair for Africa. In fact it is wrong to despair for any race, continent, or people. Because where there are human beings, there is hope, there is a future.

There is a lot of hope for Africa. Africa’s future is replete with limitless opportunities, possibilities, and promises. But to realize these promises, Africans must cultivate and embrace the Humanist virtues of self-help, self-reliance, courage, and critical thinking. African people must be weaned from their congenital fear and reliance on the unknown – fate, god, spirits, juju, and charms. Instead, they must learn to believe in themselves, given that, quoting Humanist Manifesto II, ‘No Deity will save us, we must save ourselves’. Humanists believe that the only way for Africa to ameliorate the human condition and achieve sustainable growth and development is to tackle poverty, ignorance, diseases, and other problems through the use and application of reason, science, critical intelligence and cooperative efforts. Humanism can help Africans achieve the good life, affluence, happiness, and prosperity in the here and now, and not in the hereafter. The Humanist outlook will facilitate the realization of African Enlightenment, intellectual awakening, and renaissance.

So, early in this 21st century the African continent is in dire need of Humanism. And it is against this background that we must commend the decision of the Executive Committee of IHEU to sponsor and co- organize Humanist events in Africa this year. These events will feature meetings and conferences in Uganda and Nigeria. In Uganda, IHEU will be holding its General Assembly, and sponsoring the meeting of the Ugandan Humanists and the inauguration of the African Humanist Alliance. In Nigeria, IHEU will be co- organizing with the Nigerian Humanist Movement an international conference in honour of Africa’s Godless Hero, Tai Solarin, who died ten years ago. We must also salute the youth wing of IHEU, the International Humanist and Ethical Youth Organization, for bringing its conference to Africa. Humanism will be of immense benefit to African youth, who want to live a life of purpose, meaning, and dignity.

All these events hold a lot of promise for organized Humanism in Africa and in the world. They are sure to launch a new era in the history of African Humanism and international Humanist cooperation. I am therefore inviting all IHEU member organizations and individual supporters to be part of these history-making events. I look forward to receiving you in Africa.

Leo Igwe is IHEU Growth and Development Representative for Sub-Saharan Africa.