African Studies

It would not be correct to think that the kind of leadership in present day Africa has no bearing on the past. This applies to both political and religious kind of leadership and inclusive of various levels of leaderships. Regardless of the kind of leadership (political or religious) or the level of leadership, e.g., head of state or head of a family, there are indications that traditional concept of leadership in Africa is still prevalent in present day concept of leadership. In this article the goal is to identify the leadership concept in Africa during the primitive years of the development of the continent. In the process it will also be shown how the people developed this concept. As a case study, special attention will be given to Sierra Leone because of her uniqueness in being an African country founded by Western powers.

INDIGENOUS CONCEPT OF LEADERSHIP IN AFRICA

In his discussion on early civilization, F. K. Buah in his book, ‘Ancient World’, made this observation; “After a while men saw that it was not safe to have their homes scattered about and began to build them near each other in the same place. This is how village life began. Where there are more than two families staying in the area, there must be someone who will look after the common good of the people. The headman is generally the first person who had settled in the village, or he was the bravest of the people who lived there. He was to rule these people by a council made up of the oldest and wisest men in the village.” From these words of F. K. Buah, a background to the development of leadership is brought into focus. It can be observed that whilst Western countries have developed greatly into cosmopolitan cities, a much larger part of Africa portrayed early and typical village settings. Two things can be pointed out from the citation above concerning the way leaders were recognized in the past: first, they were recognized in terms of age or the time period one has been in a particular area; second, they were recognized because of some personal qualities or achievements.

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Whether we like to admit it or not, there’s something in the human heart that’s drawn to darkness and chaos. You know that superhuman hearing you suddenly get when car tires screech in the distance? Or the strange glee you feel when the Joker blows up a hospital in his finest nurse’s uniform? This mischievous tendency, which Edgar Allen Poe famously referred to the “imp of the perverse,” sits just below the surface of most people’s everyday lives. Perhaps our love of violent entertainment – be it action movies, video games, death metal, or the roughly seven thousand television crime series currently on the air – can be seen as a sort of collective catharsis for societies that struggle with the question of what it means to be civilized.

For a select few people in any society, however, the imp of the perverse proves much more persuasive than the angel on our shoulder. What is bound to be this summer’s wickedly cathartic blockbuster chronicles the exploits of one such group of men. Starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, “Public Enemies” tells the story of the 1930′s most notorious American bank robbers during what later became known as the “public enemy era.” What catches our attention about this film – aside from the amazing theme song provided by Otis Taylor, or the fact that Depp seems to have pulled a Dorian Gray on his biological clock – is that it offers us a glimpse into the What If of our own psyches. Jerking the wheel violently to the left on the freeway? Yes, it really is that easy.

Even more interesting, perhaps, are the questions such stories raise about what drives people to the behavioral fringe. After all, “Public Enemies” is set during the Great Depression, which, despite what recent news may have you believe, remains far and away the worst economic downturn in American history. For a better sense of just how desperate things got, keep in mind that in 1933 (right smack in the middle of the public enemy era), over 100,000 Americans applied to immigrate to Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union. Yes, applied. Heck, even African colonial subjects in the Cameroons put on a fundraiser for impoverished US citizens – and successfully collected almost four million dollars in aid. (Picture a Cameroonian Bono leading the charge to feed starving Americans.) With this in mind, one could argue that bankrobbing is simply an extreme example of the ends to which people are driven in times of need.

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