Tinaye Agere
Gibson Nyikadzino
“Without such intellectual resistance, the continent risks losing its digital sovereignty and becoming further entangled in exploitative global systems. It appears Africans, in the name of modernity, are not looking beyond the interests of big tech companies, and are excited with ongoing development. This is a continuation of exploitative relationships and domination in an area where Africans are rarely contributing.”
THE narrative of Africa’s history, present challenges and future opportunities has often been shaped by external perspectives, frequently placing responsibility for its predicament on Africans themselves.
However, the interpretation of key historical and contemporary phenomena — such as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), the Transatlantic Slave Trade and colonialism — varies greatly depending on the storyteller’s experiences and motivations.
Today, a new chapter in Africa’s struggle is unfolding through the data economy. Big tech companies, acting as modern-day colonisers, are exploiting Africa not for its mineral resources but for its data. This new form of exploitation, driven by international cartels, colonial networks and multinational technology firms, seeks to dominate the continent’s digital landscape.
Big tech companies should be recognised for what they are: agents of Western corporate capitalism and exploitation. Through information and communication technologies (ICTs), they aim to programme consumer behaviour, shape global narratives and strengthen asymmetrical relations between the Global North and South.
This is particularly evident in Africa, where weak or non-existent regulatory frameworks leave the continent vulnerable to unchecked data harvesting. The profitable extraction of the human experience in all its layers and facets is now on the rise. Decolonial scholars describe this emerging phenomenon as the “coloniality of data” or “colonisation by data”. Historically, when capitalism becomes exhausted, it reinvents itself.
In Africa, it started off through slavery. When slavery was abolished, it reinvented itself into colonialism. When colonialism was defeated in Africa, the mode it is now using is technology as advocated by big data firms. It continues to adapt while perpetuating old inequalities.Today, datafication provides a convenient facade for the perpetuation of historical injustices and prejudices under the guise of modernity. For example, individual people’s voices have become difficult to hear as older public knowledge is outsourced to corporate operations for profit.These tech corporations are thus engaging in new kinds of exploration, expansion, exploitation and extermination, which is resulting in the emergence of a new capitalist mode of production.
Though this new form of colonialism is still in its early stages, it is unclear how it will evolve. At the infancy of the new colonial regime using datafication, Africans need to find new forms of thinking, either post-colonial and decolonial thinking techniques to create not only counter-histories, but also establish alternative interpretations of a contemporary social order that is keen on disadvantaging the developing world.
Global South countries, on the other hand, continue to push, unsuspectingly, the “life-changing technologies”, as informed by the artificial intelligence (AI) narrative, urging both public and private sector institutions to embrace them. It is critical to understand whose interests big data firms will serve, as those pushing the “coloniality of data” narrative are descendants of people who assembled at the Berlin Colonial Conference from 1884 to 1885 to carve out Africa among themselves. Africans need to interrogate ways in which capitalism and colonialism are rebranding, thus bringing an imbalance in global power relations.
Without such intellectual resistance, the continent risks losing its digital sovereignty and becoming further entangled in exploitative global systems. It appears Africans, in the name of modernity, are not looking beyond the interests of big tech companies, and are excited about the ongoing development. This is a continuation of exploitative relationships and domination in an area where Africans are rarely contributing.
At the height of the debate around the “coloniality of data”, African countries and their citizens have merely been consumers in the direction that Global North countries are presenting them in the name of opportunities, hence failing to stand up for the African cause.
This is something that people need to engage in at a politically conscious level, as big tech companies are now defining everything.
They are coming out with the model, they are developing gadgets and they control the software. They are only harvesting ideas and thinking, and also programming people’s minds to be consumerist.
It only takes a conscious effort by Africans to engage with big tech issues, without which the doctrine of self-rule and sovereignty might evade the continent. African leaders must foster ideological engagement with their citizens to build cooperation and resist this new wave of colonialism. Strong institutions and investments in scientific research, innovation and technological development are essential to safeguarding Africa’s digital sovereignty.
The complexity and depth of contemporary data collection surpass earlier violations of individual privacy, with profound implications for national sovereignty. Above all, technologies are reshaping the engagement of states.
This explains why experts have raised concern over the “space race” going on between China and the United States.
Technology remains the principal tool for promoting economic growth and national security, too, because historically, scientific breakthroughs resulted in the industrial revolution, which built the current global order.
The 4IR is not balanced in terms of Global North-Global South relations. Technologically advanced nations continue to exploit the South for their economic and military power to establish domination over less-advanced states of the world, resulting in a global hierarchy that mostly favours the former. With modern tools like AI, social media platforms and the cloud empire, they continue doing so.
All is being done for purposes of profit, when Global South countries and Africa are continually suppressed. It is not enough to raise high the rhetoric that “Africa is big” in global politics when in practical terms little is done to project being this “big”.
A country or region’s ranking in the global hierarchy correlates with its scientific and technology skills. Africa needs more investments in innovation, research, technology, science and development to be strong economically, politically and militarily to avoid exploitation in the name of modernity.
As Alfred Thayer Mahan, a well-known naval strategist, once said, in a globalised economy, those with a technological advantage will govern the world.
Africans need to rethink their importance in the world hierarchy to advance their interests.
Gibson Nyikadzino is a politics and international affairs analyst. Contact: [email protected]
Online Reporter