Globalizing African Cinema? cont'd.

So then, understood as egalitarian internationalism – what others call ‘the other globalization’ or ‘glocalization’ –, I believe Africans should claim and articulate globalization on their own terms, with all the complexities and potential contradictions involved. Global encounters predicated on exchange and not imposition, democracy and not dictatorship, trade and not export, difference and not homogenization, partnership and not competition. I think this is much more likely to sustain globalization in the long run than the current seemingly triumphant corporate-led economic globalization whose predatory practices and insatiable appetite for indiscriminate growth in a world of finite resources may not be all that sustainable. In fact, by many estimates, they may end up depleting resources and destroying environments as well as peoples and cultures. The latter is of particular significance for people who have been historically subjected to and have been struggling against imperial regimes and now have to contend with the leveling force of the technologically super-empowered cultural industries of the sole remaining super-power, the US, as well as the globalizing structures under its control.

What options and strategies are available for people, Africans and African filmmakers and artists in the face of a seemingly triumphant globalization shot through with a large dose of Americanisms? Capitulation? Engagement? Rejection? At what costs and benefits? These are questions which do not yield simple answers. It seems to me, on the whole, that responses, thus far, favor critical and selective engagement. Few are those opting for total uncritical capitulation, rejection and disengagement, the vigor of the discourse in favor of the latter two, notwithstanding. The reasons for such choices immerse us into the complexities and diversities of African encounters and experiences with the myriad forces of globalization. I can offer only a sketch here.

The surrender of African sovereignty to global institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF is one of the prominent themes in African political and economic affairs of the last two decades. This surrender – some call it constructive engagement – in the form of institution of economic structural adjustment programs, has given new life to the fundamental tenets of economic globalization – privatization, elimination of subsidies, deregulation, opening the economy to free trade, free circulation of goods and services of all kinds, competition, downsizing, etc. Weak and dependent economies, opportunism, greed and just plain helplessness, in some cases, have pushed many African governments to acquiesce in various ways to the dictates of such global institutions, placing them even more at the mercy of economic globalization. The resulting social, political, economic and cultural havoc and dislocations of such practices in Africa are too well known by now. Less apparent, though, may be the impact of such on African culture industries, particularly, cinema. 
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