Soft Power- Why Africa needs Soft Power to Progress.

You can use several strategies to be a mighty empire. You can use brute force through the military, you could use your economic power also. Let's look at the two contenders for the superpower position currently, China and the United States.

In all likelihood, China has caught up with the US economically, if you consider the purchasing power parity- PPP. However, it's still not the superpower. The reason is simple, it still doesn't have the soft power. To counter this, China is developing Chinese culture institutes - Confucius Institutes, all over the world. In it, the largest Chinese spoken language- Mandarin, is taught. Similarly, China has launched a 24 hours Television channel - CGTN, to counter the Western media stations such as BBC and CNN. China, like Africa, has long complained that it receives unfair coverage from Western media stations.

What can Africa do to leverage it's soft power? One, stop importing culture. When you listen to our urban music stations, it is only Western music that is being played. The talk on those stations is about sex, and nothing to further our culture. Even when local music is being played, it is often music that is copied from the West, with no authenticity in it. Funny thing is that musicians who sing authentic African music are more appreciated by foreigners than Africans themselves. I mean, you cannot rap like Jay Z and hope to outsmart him, how about playing the traditional African beats.

Next, we must develop our movie scene. We are being subliminally colonised by watching too many American movies. How about we develop movies that tell our own stories, wouldn't that be better. In this, at least Nigeria, with its Nollywood movie industry, is trying to tell true African realities. If supported, it could export African culture to the rest of the world. We watch their movies, but they never watch ours. And the effects are all too glaring. Our people believe that Europe and America is the land of milk and honey. Isn't that why they are willing to do anything to cross the Mediterranean sea into Europe, or spend endless years applying for the green card to America? Read More Articles. Click Here

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