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Advances in African Economic,
Social and Political Development
Africa and
the Fourth
Industrial
Revolution
Curse or Cure?
Advances in African Economic, Social and
Political Development
Series Editors
Diery Seck, CREPOL - Center for Research on Political Economy, Dakar, Senegal
Juliet U. Elu, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA, USA
Yaw Nyarko, New York University, New York, NY, USA
Africa is emerging as a rapidly growing region, still facing major challenges, but
with a potential for significant progress – a transformation that necessitates vigorous
efforts in research and policy thinking. This book series focuses on three intricately
related key aspects of modern-day Africa: economic, social and political develop-
ment. Making use of recent theoretical and empirical advances, the series aims to
provide fresh answers to Africa’s development challenges. All the socio-political
dimensions of today’s Africa are incorporated as they unfold and new policy options
are presented. The series aims to provide a broad and interactive forum of science at
work for policymaking and to bring together African and international researchers
and experts. The series welcomes monographs and contributed volumes for an
academic and professional audience, as well as tightly edited conference proceed-
ings. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to, economic policy and trade,
regional integration, labor market policies, demographic development, social issues,
political economy and political systems, and environmental and energy issues.
All titles in the series are peer-reviewed. The book series is indexed by Scopus.
123
Editor
Everisto Benyera
Department of Political Sciences
University of South Africa
Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Contents
v
Editor and Contributors
Contributors
vii
viii Editor and Contributors
Everisto Benyera
Abstract The chapter lays the foundation for the book by broadly exploring what
Africa needs to do in order for it to turn the Fourth Industrial Revolution from being
a curse just like the past three Industrial Revolutions into a resource. Three key
components for turning the 4IR from being a curse into a resource are identified.
These are (1) ethical leadership, (2) just leadership and (3) epistemic freedom. The
chapter calls for masking the colonial contract using epistemic freedom as the first
step in ensuring that Africa looks after its national interests. Africa’s national
interests are its: (1) human capital, (2) natural capital, (3) social capital, (4) epis-
temic capital and (5) financial and built capital. Safeguarding these five capitals is a
key component in pushing back the five monopolies of colonialism and capitalism
which are monopoly over: (1) war and weapons, (2) finance, (3) natural resources,
(4) technology and (5) the media. In using epistemic independence, Africa will be
seeking to gain control of its political and economic autonomy which is important
in ensuring that the continent benefits equitably from the 4IR.
1 Introduction
In this chapter, I respond to the cardinal question: how can Africa use the Fourth
Industrial Revolution (4IR) as an opportunity to extricate itself from coloniality?
Two leading questions can be asked here: what was the fate of Africa in the past
three Industrial Revolutions and what can Africa do in order to benefit from the 4IR
and in the process use it as a vehicle for solving the African problem? Secondly,
what is the African problem which we intend to solve using the 4IR? The short
answer is that since attaining political independence, most of Africa was ruled by
pseudo-nationalist who while blindfolding their followers was in the service of
coloniality. That is what has been variously termed state capture (Grzymala-Busse
2008), executive impunity (Benyera 2015; Benyera et al. 2020; Mamdani 2002),
E. Benyera (&)
1 Preller Street, Muckleneuk, Pretoria 0003, South Africa
e-mail: [email protected]
Epistemic Freedom in Africa is about the struggle for African people to think, theorize,
interpret the world and write from where they are located, unencumbered… Thus epistemic
freedom speaks to cognitive justice. Epistemic freedom is fundamentally about the right to
think, theorize, interpret the world, develop own methodologies and write from where one
is located and unencumbered by Eurocentrism (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018b:1&3).
What key challenges will face Africa is it in the 4IR? First and foremost, the
elusiveness of epistemic freedom is a key hindrance to Africa’s autonomous par-
ticipation in the 4IR. Without epistemic freedom, Africa will participate in the 4IR
as what Achille Mbembe termed a provincialised Africa by the (former) colonisers
(Mbembe 2011). This is an existential phenomenon, wherein African countries are
taken as extensions of their (former) colonisers, a continued source of labour (brain
drain), raw materials and other necessities of the 4IR and life in the Global North.
The economies of the Global North are underwritten by Africa, and their ‘aid’ and
foreign direct investment are a small fraction of the massive benefits which they
continue to reap from Africa. Their colonial investments continue to pay off even
after the official end of colonialism. This is the crux of what has come to be known
coloniality. But what is epistemic freedom and why is it so important for Africa in
the 4IR? Ndlovu-Gatsheni postulates both the meaning and importance of epistemic
freedom.
Thus the triple processes of provincializing Europe, deprovincializing Africa and episte-
mological decolonization which frame this book constitute a drive for a restorative epis-
temic agenda and process that simultaneously addresses ontological and epistemological
issues haunting Africa. … Thus epistemic freedom speaks to cognitive justice. Epistemic
freedom is fundamentally about the right to think, theorize, interpret the world, develop
own methodologies and write from where one is located and unencumbered by
Eurocentrism (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018a:3).
I address the issue of epistemic freedom and its relevance to the 4IR in chapter
eight of this book. The 4IR is non-negotiable, and as Africa enters into this dis-
pensation, there are two broad options: to enter the 4IR in manner which turns this
moment into a resource and to have the 4IR become another curse on Africa just
4 E. Benyera
like the past three Industrial Revolutions. The most desired position is for Africa to
use the 4IR as a resource and use it to solve ‘the African problem’.
The preceding section proposed three prerequisites for Africa to participate
autonomously and independently in the 4IR. These are: firstly, seeking and
attaining epistemic independence; secondly, by having just leadership; and thirdly,
by having ethical leadership. Independence of thought, just and ethical leadership
are a sine qua non for Africa to benefit from the 4IR. Whether it is in the agri-
cultural sector where Africa suffers from perennial food shortages, or it is in the
quality of life, where Africans have one of the lowest qualities of life in the world,
or the issue of justice where Africans have suffered some of the most persistent
deep and long injustices in the world, epistemic independence, just and ethical
leadership remain overarching priorities for Africa. Injustices suffered by Africans
include being enslaved, colonised, scientifically experimented upon, genocides and
epistemicides. In order to solve these and many other problems that Africa faces
today and faced in the past, there is need for the right leadership which is auton-
omous, especially one that is autonomous from the West and the East, i.e. auton-
omous from the (former) colonisers on the one hand and Russia and China on the
other hand.
This is not a call for Africa to isolate itself in the 4IR, but a call for Africa to
think and act from Africa and for Africans. Today, Africa thinks from various
places such as but not limited to France for Francophone countries, the UK for
Anglophone Africa, from Portugal for Lusophony Africa and variously from
Russia, China, the USA and rarely from Johannesburg, Lusaka, Kinshasa or Addis
Ababa. In this regard, the greatest threats to Africa in the 4IR are the local elites,
their cartels and networks which were aptly characterised by Artwell Nhemachena
as networks of coloniality (Nhemachena 2018). The rationale for colonialism was
not the occupation of the land but the occupation of the episteme and setting up of
colonial networks resulting in the nefarious coloniality of networks and networks of
coloniality. So devastating are networks of coloniality that Nhemachena noted.
Colonisation was about the establishment of imperial networks. Networks of imperial
academies were created; networks of imperial polities were established; networks of
imperial economies were established; networks of imperial health institutions were estab-
lished; networks of imperial armies were established; networks of imperial communication
were established. Networks were and are central to neo imperialism (Nhemachena 2018:1).
Local elites have mastered the art of misrepresenting and appropriation. They
misrepresent the problems of the majority as if they are their own problems and end
up being the sole local beneficiaries of the (post)colony as testified by the luxurious
lives they live and the many millions of dollars which they stashed in offshore
accounts. They are also good at appropriating local resources in a manner which
can only be classified as primitive accumulation. There are African elites who are
richer than the countries which they lead. This is financial gluttony at its best.
Devoid of epistemic freedom, an ethical and just leadership which thinks from
and for Africa, the 4IR will become a curse unto Africa. The many 4IR-related
technologies will not be used to eradicate tropical diseases, end poverty, enhance
On the Elusiveness of Epistemic Freedom in Africa … 5
food security and hold leaders to account. On the contrary, the 4IR will be another
avenue for the local elites to loot Africa and enrich themselves. The rare earth
minerals that are predominantly found in Africa will certainly be a key target for
these local elites to loot. In order to protect themselves from both local and global
citizens, local elites usually connive with foreign multinational corporations with
whom they enter into clandestine agreements, wherein the local elites are protected
from accountability by foreign governments in exchange for certain resources
which these companies will then ruthlessly extract from Africa. It is a typical
win-win scenario for the local elites and the foreign multinational corporations and
their governments. This is the highest form of injustice which Africans suffer and
will continue to suffer if the leadership trajectory does not change. How then do
Africans change the leadership trajectory of their continent?
One of the greatest colonial heists ever pulled by the colonisers was to the theft
of Africa’s history, to borrow from Goody (2009), and with it Africa’s episte-
mologies. The real essence of the colonial project was not to occupy the land, but to
displace African epistemologies and replace them with those of the colonisers.
Using the epistemologies of the colonisers as the premise for Africa’s thought
processes became a form of coloniality of being, hence the continued asymmetrical
power relations between the (former) colonised and the (former) colonisers long
after the physical departure of the colonisers. Stated differently, the greatest
achievement of colonialism was to embed the colonial logic into the African
mentality so that this logic became self-reproducing and normal.
The indelible mark of the coloniser is omnipresent in Africa (Mtapuri and
Benyera 2019). It is visible in African cultures, laws, education and even identity,
with Africans accepting labels such as Lusophone Africans, Francophone Africans,
Anglophone Africans or some other colonially acquired identities. Besides per-
petuating coloniality, the continued use of these colonially created identities and
identity markers retards continental unity which is a prerequisite for Africa’s
autonomous participation in the 4IR. The expectation was that with the attainment
of political independence, the first thing that Africans would do was to shade off the
colonially inscribed identities and divisions. This failed when the nationalists,
referred to as the Monrovia bloc, prevailed over the continentalists, also known as
the Casablanca bloc or the Brazzaville bloc (Uzoigwe 2014). The failure of the
continentalists to prevail is attributable to the lack of epistemic freedom in Africa.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni rightly pointed to epistemic freedom as the right type of
freedom for Africa to seek first ahead of all others such as but not limited to
political and economic freedom (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018a). The idea of sequencing
freedoms such as that political freedom is acquired first, followed by economic
freedom, and then epistemic freedom has failed such that epistemic freedom must
be sought urgently and immediately, Ndlovu-Gatsheni rightly posits. Armed with
epistemic freedom, some of the symptoms of the problems of the (post)colony
which have been mistaken for the problems will be solvable. However, epistemic
freedom alone is not adequate to drive Africa forward in the 4IR, and it needs to be
complemented with a just and ethical leadership.
6 E. Benyera
We have to admit that Africa lacks something. Africa lacks three cardinal things:
(1) just leadership, (2) ethical leadership and (3) epistemic freedom (Benyera et al.
2020; Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018b). Generally, Africa lacks intellectuals and philoso-
phers who think for and from Africa.
The absence of epistemic freedom in Africa has been well explored in leader-
ship, and its position as a sine qua non for Africa’s autonomous development was
well argued (Benyera et al. 2020; Fernandes 2018; Hinchliffe 2018;
Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018b, c; Velleman 2016). Suffice to mention that the chief
causality of the absence of epistemic freedom in Africa is that Africa’s most bril-
liant minds are among those educated in the Global North. Upon their return to
Africa and elsewhere in the Global South, they become a kind of native informers
as they act as extensions of the Global North’s epistemologies. When it comes to
leadership in Africa, the Global North will generally support such western educated
elites to lead Africa. This was the case with the presidency in Ivory Coast when
Alessandro Ouattara, a former World Bank technocrat, was supported by the Global
North to assume the leadership of that country after the demise of Laurent Gbagbo.
When these western educated elites return to Africa, their preferred interventions
are western-centric because that is all they know. This exacerbates Africa's
marginality in the global economy as this entrenches coloniality. In the absence of
the three, any economic intervention presented as developing Africa will actually be
pacifying Africans while continuing to benefit the (former) colonisers. This
includes the Economic Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) and many other
forms of what Zambian economist Moyo (2009) termed dead aid and the resultant
international and domestic debt accumulated by Africa over years. African leaders
who lack epistemic freedoms resort to borrowing as their default management and
leadership style. They borrow money, ideas, technology and even solutions to local
problems. With Africa still stuck in the political independence euphoria, and with
economic independence seemingly drifting away each year, what can Africa do on
these two fronts. Remember, the colonial strategy was to steadily release political
power while simultaneously and proportionally increasing their stranglehold on
economic power. The result is that Africa has governments in office and as opposed
to the desired governments in power.
Besides the seeking and attainment of epistemic freedom, just and ethical leader-
ship, attention must be paid to Africa's political and economic independence.
Specifically, which of the two must Africa prioritise and what is the proper
On the Elusiveness of Epistemic Freedom in Africa … 7
their problems and design the solutions. The current problems with Africa are that
local problems are solved using imported methods and epistemologies. A simple
example is the abuse of Marxism as a solution to many of Africa's theoretical and
existential problems. Karl Marx and Frederick Angels never visited Africa. Their
theories were never intended to solve African problems.
A lot has been said and written about Africa's fit in the 4IR (Ayentimi and Burgess
2019; Knott-Craig 2018; Markowitz 2019; Nalubega and Uwizeyimana 2019;
Naudé 2017). The current diagnosis is important because it enables the right pre-
scriptions to be made. The summary presented in this book is that Africa suffers
from coloniality and the lack of epistemic independence. The solution to Africa’s
coloniality problems is therefore to be found in seeking first and foremost epistemic
independence. But how do we seek and obtain epistemic independence in Africa?
The most efficacious way of seeking, establishing and maintaining epistemic
independence is through active citizenry. I postulate active citizenry is a panacea to
Africa’s lack of epistemic independence for the reasons outlined below.
The deployment of active citizenry is the best decolonial way of getting back
Africa’s epistemic independence. Active citizenry is the best way for Africa to
claim its epistemic independence because it is useful in undoing the damages done
by coloniality, especially coloniality of being and coloniality of knowledge. But
what is active citizenry? Like most concept, active citizenry is a very contested
term. For Bryony Hoskins, active citizenry
… is frequently used to describe citizens that engage in a broad range of activities that
promote and sustain democracy. These actions include civil society activities such as
protesting and collecting petitions, community activities such as volunteering, and con-
ventional political engagement such as voting or campaigning for elections. In addition to
participation, there is a normative value element to active citizenship. Active citizenship
usually refers to participation that requires respect for others and that does not contravene
human rights and democracy (Hoskins 2014).
Active citizenry belongs to one of Verba and Almond’s the three main political
cultures: parochial political culture, subject and participatory political culture
(Verba and Almond 1963). It is part of participation political culture in the opposite
of subject political culture in which citizens are not active participants in the
political processes of their polity. Active citizenry restores the agency of local
communities and in the process empowering them and presenting them not as a
problem to be solved but as communities with problems which they can solve. The
other added advantages of active citizenry are that it ensures fairness and inclu-
sivity, thereby addressing the challenges of social coercion and equity.
Firstly and foremost, the state which is the main problem in post-colonial Africa
is a colonial creation, created to enforce colonial desires and still working to
achieve and maintain colonial objectives such as but not limited to keeping Africa
On the Elusiveness of Epistemic Freedom in Africa … 9
report on their behalf to the next political office until they reach such an office as a
member of parliament or a minister. This system needs to be escalated until it
reaches the highest office which is that of the president or prime minister.
This need not be done in a belligerent and confrontational manner as African
elites and tyrants will take any opportunity to suppress and in the worst-case
scenarios misrepresent such arrangements. African political elites are found of
dodging public accountability by blaming the proverbial third forces and enemies
within instead of addressing the genuine concerns of their constituencies.
Community desires must be presented as complementary to the formal government
structures and an aide to the work which the government is doing in local com-
munities. I am aware of the different circumstances and conditions across Africa
and how this proposed model of active citizenry is not a one-size-fits-all. It is put
here as a starting point for communities to begin tinkering with how they can seek
autonomous just and ethical leadership.
Active citizenry enhances local accountability and helps in the fight against
autocracy, executive impunity other vices such as corruption. All these can be
attained through Ubuntu as the base philosophy for designing, implementing,
monitoring and evaluating active citizenry. Africa has been judged based on foreign
models of monitoring and evaluation. This had the impact of negating the
embeddedness of most phenomena such as human rights. When I argue that the 4IR
can enhance human rights in Africa, I conceptualise human rights from a decolonial
perspective which is to be born to live and to die a life devoid of humiliation (Shivji
2019:6–7). This is way different from the orthodox conceptualisation of human
rights which puts them in terms of generations where there are first-generation,
second-generation and third-generation human rights, etc. Ubuntu is the common
denominator for designing, implementing and monitoring active citizenry in Africa,
and the common denominator is that of one the other. Ubuntu means seeing the
other in yourself in a reciprocal manner: you are because I am. In this case, I see the
other the same way I see myself. Ubuntu is self-authenticating, and by authenticated
the self and the other, this has the effect of reversing the colonial processes of
doubting the humanity of the colonised.
This is different from the notion of the human which was inaugurated in early
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe. In this colonial view of the human, the
human is conceptualised as the civilised, Christian, predominantly male Caucasian
who is the opposite of the Easterners, the Heathens, Saracens and the colonisable,
dispensable black (Benyera et al. 2018; Mignolo 2009). The sum total of what
became known as the Anthropos is that they have a very low ontological density
and a humanity which can be doubted (Maldonado-Torres 2007, 2018).
The 4IR is not going to be the last Industrial Revolution. While Africa cannot
solve all its problems in the 4IR, it needs to take this as a propitious moment to set
in motion programmes to solve the African problem. Lessons from other civilisa-
tions such as the Chinese include the need and paramount importance of setting
long term (50 to 100 year) national goals which will consistently guide generations.
This is also termed the national interest. Africans must agree on what constitute
their national interest and then consistently seek to attend that over generations to
On the Elusiveness of Epistemic Freedom in Africa … 11
come. Mistakes will be made, lessons will be learnt, but Africa needs to that which
will make its citizens live a better-quality life, a life devoid of humiliation. This is
our definition of human rights: being born, living and dying a life devoid of any
humiliation.
So what constitutes Africa’s national interest. There are five aspects that con-
stitute Africa’s national interest. These are its: (1) natural capital, (2) human capital,
(3) epistemological capital, (4) social capital, (5) built and financial capital. These
five capitals constitute the protection of Africa’s national interest.
It is not accidental that these five capitals were the target of the colonial project.
For Samir Amin, they constitute the five monopolies of capitalism (Amin 1997,
2001). Colonialism has managed to outlive decolonisation because it monopolises
the following aspect of life: new technologies, the monetary standard and inter-
national financial flows, access to the planet’s natural resources, the media and
weapons of mass destruction (Amin 1998:26).
For Ali Mazrui, colonialism was the processes of forcing Africa and other parts
of the (formerly) colonised world into a Western scientific system of western
legalistic institutions and laws, capitalism, western-centric moral values and lan-
guages, western-centric epistemologies. There is a direct link between these
western-centric institutions which Africa was forced into and the resultant five
monopolies of capitalism and the five capitals which I am advocating to constitute
the core of Africa’s national interest.
This book was born out of the need to debate the fate of Africa in the 4IR. The
responses to the call were divided into two predominant camps; one advocating that
that the 4IR will be a curse to Africa just like the past three Industrial Revolutions.
The other camp was of the view that it is upon us as Africans to turn our fortunes
around by among others turning the 4IR into a resource. We then decided to
document our various inputs and viewpoints, divergent as they were, not as an end
in themselves but as a way of initiating debate among Africans on how we see
ourselves participating in the 4IR.
The debate is not exhausted in this book. It is far too complex and huge to be
exhausted in just one book. In a revolution like the 4IR, the act of demystifying
certain myths, unpacking and exposing falsehoods, and proposing remedial action
in themselves become revolutionary actions. In writing this book, we borrow from
an old Turkish proverb. It states that ‘the forest was shrinking, but the trees kept
voting for the Axe for the Axe was clever and convinced the Trees that because his
handle was made of wood, he was one of them’. Africa keeps trusting and utilising
the epistemologies which are killing it.
An African perspective to the past three Industrial Revolutions is that they were
nothing short of a complete humiliation for Africa. The First Industrial Revolution
resulted in the steam engine being propelled to ‘harvest’ slaves from Africa in what
12 E. Benyera
became known as the transatlantic slave trade. Euro North America was developed
on the sweat and blood of slaves. Today, their economies are flourishing as a result
of the work that was done by the slaves in developing and building those econo-
mies. Even the much-touted vaccine technology was taken from an African slave
who told their slave–master in the USA how they used to take the blood of an
infected person and inject it into uninfected members of the community as a way of
controlling pandemics. The story of how an African slave enlightened the
Americans on vaccine technology was well captured by Isabel Wilkerson in these
words:
Cotton Mather was a Puritan minister and lay scientist in Boston and had come into
possession of an African man named Onesimus. The enslaved African told of a procedure
he had undergone back in his homeland that protected him from this illness. People in West
Africa had discovered that they could fend off contagions by inoculating themselves with a
specimen of fluid from an infected person. Mather was intrigued by the idea Onesimus de-
scribed. He researched it and decided to call it “variolation.” It would become the precursor
to immunization and “the Holy Grail of smallpox prevention for Western doctors and
scientists,” wrote the medical ethicist and author Harriet A. Washington (Wilkerson
2020:231).
Needless to mention that the actual inventor Onesimus, the ‘slave’ is never
acknowledged like Louis Pasteur who is now heralded as a lifesaving scientist who
discovered vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurisation.
The Second Industrial Revolution resulted in the colonisation of Africa as the
colonisers sought new markets and (free) raw materials for their booming industries
which had suddenly embraced mass production technologies. The third industrial
revolution resulted in coloniality for us in Africa. Colonialism simply mutated into
a resilient phenomenon that hides in systems institutions and laws. Powerful nations
no longer directly subjugate and loot Africa, and they use institutions such as the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the World Trade Organization
(WTO), the International Criminal Court (ICC), among other many multilateral
institutions which act as instruments of foreign policy for the powerful nations of
the Global North including the five permanent members of the United Nations
Security Council (UNSC).
While other parts of the world celebrate the 4IR and its concomitant parapher-
nalia such as the Internet of things, for all intents and purposes, African economies
are still stuck in the First and Second Industrial Revolutions as most of African
countries are still characterised by subsistence agriculture and other modes of life
which were last experienced in Euro North America over centuries ago. The
question today is how can a continent still stuck in the First and Second Industrial
Revolutions be incorporated in the 4IR? The reason resides partly in how Africa is
bound in a colonial contract by the (former) colonisers (Benyera 2020). This
colonial contact can only be undone one Africans acquire and deploy epistemic
independence.
The first step for Africa is to recognise the omnipresence of coloniality that the
decolonisation processes were not an end in themselves but a means towards an
end, which is to gain economic and epistemic freedom. Without epistemic and
On the Elusiveness of Epistemic Freedom in Africa … 13
economic freedom, Africa cannot participate in the 4IR as an equal member of the
international community. Instead, it will participate as a source of cheap if not free
resources such as but not limited to natural resources especially rare earth minerals
and human resources. Stated differently, if Africa does not claim epistemic freedom,
it will continue to underwrite and sponsor the economies of the Global North.
This was well articulated by Walter Rodney theorised about How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa (Rodney 1973). The thesis was extended to How Africa
developed Europe (Mhango 2018). The First, Second and Third Industrial
Revolutions were from an African perspective, episodes of pillaging and plundering
Africa for the development of the Global North. Epistemic freedom is a prerequisite
for Africans to realise this phenomenon. Only after the colonial contract has been
unmasked can coloniality be fully comprehended, addressed and redressed.
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On the Elusiveness of Epistemic Freedom in Africa … 15
Hlulani Mdingi
Abstract The Fourth Industrial Revolution has been pedestalized as the greatest
leap of human intellect. 4IR does not hide the serious destruction to traditional
approaches to the sciences (theoretical and applied), technology, economics, poli-
tics, and human psychology. The rise of robotics change of the workplace,
biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and the change in human beings seem
extremely noble and worthy of celebration. However, the greatest neglect in this
“great” leap is that of human beings who for centuries have remained engulfed in a
contestation and defense of their humanity by the same superpowers that are
holding countries and continents at gunpoint—convert or die! The Third World
becomes subservient to the dominant change in societies. Issues of politics, the land
question, the centuries of the exploitation of resources, and the debt owed to the
oppressed and absolute destruction of worldviews, which have evolved over mil-
lennia’s are expected to change and be forgotten. In short, the 4IR despite the
language of technology and science often presented by geeks is extremely political.
This paper seeks to argue that the projection of (white) human “intellect” has and
continues to ignore the humanity and intelligence of blacks/oppressed. They rather
favor artificial intelligence and robotics than correct the previously disembodiment
of the oppressed, ontologically, politically, cultural, and physiologically. 4IR is a
prerogative of “superpowers” meant to replace the oppressed and continues the
project of the rulers of the world. The paper seeks to point out the nuances of 4IR,
however, reflecting 4IR political implication for the oppressed who are the majority
in the world.
H. Mdingi (&)
Faculty of Theology and Religion, Department of Systematic and Historical Theology,
University of Pretoria, Room 1-44 Hatfield, Pretoria, South Africa
1 Introduction
The Fourth Industrial Revolution in South Africa and Africa has been discussed
within the realm of technology and its influence on future architectural design,
economies, medicine, and politics. However, there is no deep discussion around
the prospects or perils on the human side, little attention is paid on the issue of
singularity, which is tied to concepts of human physiology and intellect in the areas
of transhumanism, posthumanism robotics, and the deep cultural and political
implications for the human. Moreover, the question and concerns of those who have
been already deemed subhuman and disembodied through colonialism, imperial-
ism, and institutional racism are thoroughly ignored. 4IR is part of the continuum of
western modernity, black liberation, and black liberation theology should note that
modernity has not been bequeathed to us rather it has been imposed on us. The
“savage,” “native,” and “heathen” enters modernity and postmodernism with a
contested humanity. Western technological development is confronted with the
legacies of dehumanization in the Third World. With this consideration, racism is
not just a historical act but its profound power lies in its ontic role is restructuring
the human from an ontological level. It is a context where the modern enterprise
leaves us no hope except a direct adoption of the conception of life and force a
historical euthanasia of our worldviews. Racism is ontic and reflection of racism in
an age of technology requires a deep solidarity of the oppressed from an ontological
and political premise. West (1999: 115) was prophetic in his articulation that the
‘age of globalization, science, applied biology, global financial networks of com-
puterized transactions and technological innovations will make racism outdated and
irrelevant’. The paper contends that robotics, transhumanism, posthumanism, and
AI truly undermine the humanity of the oppressed.
The rise of 4IR is a political project decorated with sophisticated intents claiming
to improve the world. 4IR is a threat to the role of the true human being who lay
stacked on the ground, ignored by globalization, and is to be ignored by technology.
Schwab (2018) noted that there will blurring of the lines (singularity) by emerging
technology, which will make it impossible to distinguish synthetic from biological
material and this blurring encapsulates humans. As such, the future of humanity
lays undefined for the future. This lack of definition is amplified for blacks who
through the legacy of white supremacy have been dehumanized, landless, and poor.
The disembodiment of the oppressed depicts the living conditions of the poor but
also reflects the emptiness and disembodiment of the oppressor. Aime Cesaire
(1972: 2) asserts:
“First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the colonizer,
to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to
buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism…” It
can be postulated then that the techno-economic-political direction easily shuns the
importance of an ontic expression of the being of the oppressed. An expression
renders meaning and teleos, which is the liberation of the oppressed. Fanon (1963:
168) argues:
20 H. Mdingi
When we consider efforts made to carry out the cultural estrangement so characteristic of
the colonial epoch, we realize that nothing has been left to chance and that the total result
looked for by colonial domination was indeed to convince the natives that colonialism came
to lighten their darkness. The effect consciously sought by colonialism was to drive into the
natives’ heads the idea that if the settlers were to leave; they would at once fall back into
barbarism, degradation, and bestiality.
The subject of race and robotics is motivated by the role that technology will play in
the new modes of human definitions and conceptions. This is a reflection on the
other side of 4IR, the question of human conception. For black theology and
liberation theologies, the human being rediscovered after disembowelment and
dehumanization is central to who and how one exists. The area of robotics is one
area that points to the looming darkness that lies ahead for human beings. The role
of artificial neural networks (ANN), various forms of artificial intelligence, the
theory of singularity and the human physiological aesthetics endowed to robotics
reflect the idolatry contained in western technological and scientific progress. Ideals
and physical representation of the idol gods finally obtain mobility through the
intelligence of its makers. The makers of the modern age reflect white prerogatives.
The sciences are now becoming great threats, conveyer belts of idolatry, and
self-deification. Modern technology of 4IR challenges the value of the human
being.
Viccini and Brazal (2015) note that the transhumanist and posthumanist believe
that technology will allow humans to overcome their bodily limitations. As humans
are transformed into cyborgs. Viccini and Brazal use the movie
Transcendence, especially its biblical parallels of a human mind uploaded to a
computer and the role artificial intelligence or superintelligence will play in the
future. Viccini and Brazal (2015: 149) assert:
In the movie, the concept of transcendence and the biblical healing imagery evoke their
profoundly theological matrix. But the divine and the human are both replaced by tech-
nology’s power and control. Technology’s promise of transcendence, by technologically
resurrecting mind and body, as well as radically benefiting human life on the planet, hides
the computer’s uncontrollable will to power that points toward the destruction of human
existence on earth.
of the Machine. A second Machine Age was ushered in after World War II, a renewed burst
of technological dreaming after the decline of the modernist faith in technology.
A more radical voice, which directly attacks the deep aspects of this reflection of
newfound humanity proposed by transhumanists, comes from the Eastern
Orthodox. Gallaher (2019: 200–201) asserts:
Transhumanism is Satanic. When I write this, I am not being provocative, let alone vaguely
metaphorical. It is meant literally and with the strongest realism. This ideology, alterna-
tively, new ‘religion’ or ‘religious philosophy’, of transhumanism, from an Eastern
Orthodox perspective, is a systematic elaboration of what various Russian religious thinkers
following Dostoevsky called the Luciferian ‘religion’ of ‘Mangodhood’ chelovekobozh-
estvo and chelovekobozhie) which is characterized by self-worship or the self-deification of
humanity.
Mangodhood, it was held, with the man-god or superman as its climax, was
Satanic in structure and inspiration. It is the mirror inverse of salvation, which is
called, in Patristic teaching, theosis, or theopoiesis (divinization/deification).
The radical critique from the Eastern Orthodox seeks to raise the question of
human arrogance, sinfulness, and imperfection, which makes this “great stride”
premature for a fallen creature. A creature seeks to assume divine inheritance before
they are ready for it and “seizing divinity from God” (Gallaher 2019: 201). It is
significant for Gallaher to discuss transhumanism within the perspective of human
teleology and Christian theology. Jorjani (2020) has discussed transhumanism and
technological singularity1 from the perspective of its roots of Russian mysticism.
Together with its close connotations to Greek mythology, Zoroastrianism theology,
alchemy, and androgynous theology also found in the Palestinian Talmud. The
mysticism and non-materialistic inspiration of transhumanism underpins the various
explanation from the west of seeking to be architectures of being human or cor-
rectors of the flaws of current human beings. It is this idolatry that serves as the
roots of deep ontological abandonment and disembodiment of the human being.
Sauter argues:
In Western Civilization, human beings are absorbed by the world of technology and
bureaucracy, by an impressive and oppressive administration of life and its turning of
reality into a made and manageable product. We are under pressure to produce, bring about,
form, and register something. Only that which we thus set forth is a reality for us and
others. It certainly cannot be denied that, because of all this, our being human is distorted
and the protest against this is justified. But the attitude taken by many theologians in the
face of this is little more than the expressionistic escape into a counterculture, into a world
where unruled activity and free associations are dominating (Sauter 1996: 80).
For black theology, the role and appreciation of human physiology and the mind
are of importance as blacks and people of color have endured oppression, which
disembodies human aesthetics, land, and human intellect. The importance of a
proper definition and use of intelligence should become a testimony to the value of
humans, organisms, nature, and knowing the limits of science. Liberation and
1
Jeffrey Mishlove discusses singularity with Jason Reza Jorjani on The New Thinking Allowed.
Race and Robotics: Black Theology in the Digital Age 23
having to live in a just and equitable world reflects intelligence turned into wisdom
and becoming a driving soul for future civilization. The basis of epistemological
reflection should usher in new discoveries that are guided by justice and humanity
with a humane face (Biko 1978). Thus, bound by a radical position of a humane
presence means that our technological advancements are entrenched in the harsh
realities of the modern and postmodern world. Western civilization through the
success of the scientific revolution and having been the dominant driving force of
technological advancement is embalmed by the history of dehumanization, market
capitalism, and oppression.
The great danger of transhumanism, posthumanism, AI, and robotics is that it
continues the process of disembowelment of the oppressed. The change in human
physic has been noted by Viccini and Brazal (2015: 149) in the somatic changes
that have been produced by mobile phones. Technology geared around human
bodily engagement through touch, vision, and hearing. This somatic change
informs a techno-gnostic spirituality:
In the Silicon Valley of the early 1990s, the merging of spirituality with new media
technologies stressed that salvation occurred by departing from the body (or the “meat”)
and joining the “immaterial sphere” of cyberspace. Referred to as cybergnosis, the virtual
space was perceived as a sacred sphere where people, transformed into virtual beings, can
escape the mortal body and triumph over alienation. Gnostic New Agers see the person as
basically spiritual and the Internet as a tool to discover truth within the inner sanctum of the
self, to turn the world into a paradise, and to connect all reality. The Internet is like a
magical medium that assists the spiritual transformation of humanity (Viccini and Brazal
2015: 150).
The actual and messiness of life is precisely where the poor and everyday people
are and where the God of the oppressed operates. This technological escape is the
legacy of the depth of alienation in a capitalist and racist society, which underpins
the atheistic and material reading of 4IR, which is the belief that nature is a
disappointment (see Gallaher 2019: 202). Furthermore, it is a rejection of human
physiology; Gallaher (2019: 202) noted that transhumanism is anti-body and
anti-creation because all of existence is data and organisms are biochemical,
electronic, and biological algorithms.
There is a shift from homo-centric to data-centric. Burdett and Lorrimar (2018:
2470–250) has stressed the importance of looking at human enhancement from an
aspect of ethics. However, they stress the importance for theologians to look at
deification anew. This point is important because, whether in the area of robotics
24 H. Mdingi
and white humanoids, such as Sophia, with human aesthetics there is a deep reality
of self-deification of a race. However, deification, which comes with a geopolitical
context, Godless society/future, military power, and great leaps of technological
intelligence points to a greater threat posed by deification. Lipps (2019: 1–2)
asserts:
As modern technology continues its inexorable advance, we will begin to see the afore-
mentioned radically new understandings of what it means to be human play out in the
concrete realities of our lives. The sorts of dilemmas envisioned by science fiction writers
are going to be faced by everyday humans soon enough. The point of this essay is to
characterize the two most important poles of this debate. On the one hand, we will have the
ultimately Christian notion of humanity based in the imago dei, whose end state is cate-
gorized by theosis, defined as radical participation in the life of God. On the other hand, we
will have a purely technological notion of humanity which I will be calling the imago
machinae, or the “image of the machine”, whose end state is categorized by a secular
divinity, defined as the fulfillment of the will to power and often given the name
“transhumanism”.
ethnocentrism, are not necessarily dissolved but are instead rearticulated into new forms.
Excluded from cyberspace are the “nobodies” or those in urban and rural regions who are
on the other side of the “digital divide,” and often bypassed by information and commu-
nication technologies, which Castells refers to as the “fourth world.”
The role of race in this imminent and inevitable future characterized by robotics
will not be restricted to optic reflection on color distinction, accumulation of wealth,
and being disadvantaged, rather racism will manifest itself by the cultural or
non-cultural imposition. Cultural imposition means the etymological reason for the
new wave of technology, which mechanically is useful but remains useless for a
lost humanity. Shoshana Zuboff2 (2019) has lamented on what she calls the Age of
Surveillance Capitalism, which comprises of data violating democracy. She also
notes that digital technology is something different from the evolution of capitalism
that brings things outside of the markets to the market. This evolution results in a
technology that has economic logic and thus seizing to be neutral. Zuboff laments
the fact of algorithms and AI that is in the business of selling possible futures to
third parties, who are multinational cooperation.
Cori Crider3 (2019a & 2019b) noted that AI cannot transcend the history and
stereotypes of white society on people of color. She notes that bias in machines and
algorithms plays an important role in predictive policing of poor and colored
communities. This policing is linked to racism and slavery from the Patty Rollers
who hunted runaway slaves and later became police who continue targeting blacks.
Data and algorithms are used by the military drawing from historical data in training
2
Shoshana Zuboff part 2 on Democracy Now 2019.
3
Cori Crider hosted The World According to AI part I and 2 on Aljazeera.
26 H. Mdingi
He further asserts: “Phillip Morris just wanted your lungs; the App Store wants
your soul.” The above assertion by Bill Maher signalized the depths of the scourge
of technology, coding, and apps currently have on human nature even before
transhumanism and full swing of robotics and humanoids. The danger of tech-
nology is not its physical structure/object or the forms of its programming.
However, the danger lies in the ontological restructuring of the operation of the
human mind, which seemingly is free to use a device, however, playing into a
deterministic reality set by programmers, cooperation, and big business. Tristan
Harris5 noted that “a handful of people working at a handful of tech companies steer
the thoughts of billions of people every day.” Harris view reflects the point of
convergence between technology and human free will. Ramsey Brown6 remarked
why are neuroscientists working in programming and coding while they understand
brain activity, nature, and habits and are thus able to manipulate people's thoughts
through the manipulation of dopamine.
Brown reveals technology’s role in the acceleration of body chemistry, which
has societal and behavioral effects. Technology poses a great threat of our time and
exposes a world beyond our nightmare, as we are confronted by nihilism, objec-
tification, and digitized relationship with existence herself. This period can be
classified as an evolution of an accepted alienation and a creation of annihilation of
useful structures that the human mind has produced. Now, the human mind is
4
Bill Maher on Friday Night HBO series entitled “Real-Time.”
5
Tristan Harris om HBO series “Real-Time.”
6
Ramsey Brown on HBO series “Real-Time.”
Race and Robotics: Black Theology in the Digital Age 27
beginning to undo societal and historical values and in the process depersonalizes
human existence within a group. Technology disembodies humanity (see Biko on
the west obsession with technological know-how). The area of robotics can be
thought of as sacrilegious idolatry practiced by cooperation, scientist, and engi-
neers, noting that unlike the gods of old who were suffering from the impediment of
being motionless, often dependent and beholden to his/her maker. The area of
robotics through artificial intelligence has given the human deity a mechanical
body, a process of mechanical incarnation, and bodily sensation of becoming
transcendent. While technological advances seem mechanic and based on algo-
rithms there is an ontic transferal of human presence. The climax of scientific
discovery and technology is knitted into a process that scientists explain as a
singularity that will make biological physiology indistinguishable with synthetic
and artificial replicated systems. Eden et al. (2012: 1) explained the singularity
hypothesis in the following manner:
Indeed, a growing number of scientists, philosophers, and forecasters insist that the
accelerating progress in disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics,
genetic engineering, and nanotechnology may lead to what they refer to as the techno-
logical singularity: an event or phase that will radically change human civilization, and
perhaps even human nature itself, before the middle of the 21st century
Eden and Gallaher point to the point of no return for science and human con-
ception. Perhaps, the dancing serpents on Medusa’s head will look into our eyes
and turn our souls into concrete. Moreover, maybe Medusa has been the symbol at
the core of western society and technology bequeathing a narrow, cold, capitalist,
and materialistic worldviews (Biko 1978: 106).
oppressed. Black theology must reflect on power and episteme and the dehuman-
ization of blacks, which has not been resolved and will not be resolved by 4IR.
Hlatshwayo (2019: 26) argues:
However, a failure to unpack the role of technologies in capitalism makes it appear as
though, in the final analysis, there are no winners or losers in the 4IR game. If current social
relations remain unchanged, the 4IR is likely to reinforce existing inequalities. Not all
countries and classes participate in the 4IR as equal partners and therefore can derive
equitable gains from their participation in it. Workers, women, and the marginalized,
especially in countries of the Global South, are most likely to be the losers. Unless action is
taken to ensure otherwise, the 4IR is most likely to deepen the existing technological,
economic, and social gaps.
The technology that will transform markets, money, and wealth in the world
through cryptocurrency furthers affirms historical injustice. The ownership of land
and resources from former and current lords remains in the hands of the few. Black
theology’s emphasis on the God of the oppressed and Biko’s (1978) position on the
deliberate need of God creating black people as black needs to refocus conception
of reading the mind of the God of the oppressed who requires us to use intelligence
as a deliberate and liberating force. The reversal of power is an act of intelligence
and reveals that no algorithmic existence can address the history of Africa and the
Third World. The imposition of a given existence, prescribed and dictated upon,
engulfs true human consciousness, especially because black physiological existence
has been removed from existence. This human consciousness, an authentic intel-
ligence, becomes the meeting place for black intelligence and the prerogatives of an
oppressed existence. The scientific and mathematical impulses, which unravel the
mysteries of the universe must be directed by the geopolitical context of the black
world. Ani (1994: 67) noted that European consciousness breeds European science,
which ultimately becomes an ideology. As such, the neglect of the humanity of
others is evident in politics, religion, and technology. The disembodiment of the
oppressed explains the comfort of the West having machines with human dispo-
sition than acknowledging others as intelligent humans. Liberation becomes the
highest form of intelligence available to oppressed humans.
The importance of the mind is central to the articulation and formulation of black
existence because of the abstract reality that is thus brought forth by ideas and
human intellect. For blacks, in their oppression and disembodiment, the mind has
been at times existing as transcendence without a body. Thus, an articulation of
liberation in bleak circumstances has been the affirmation of intelligence without a
body. However, liberation embodies intelligence and guides its operation in the
world. The trajectory of western Christianity, which spearheaded the utter neglect
of this world and the body for heaven, revealed the allegorical pronouncements of a
different embodiment. Cone (1993 & 2004) pointed out that the cry of black slaves
Race and Robotics: Black Theology in the Digital Age 29
toward heaven was not merely articulation of other worldliness rather a rejection of
a future built by a white hands. The struggle for political freedom and sovereignty is
above technological progress and analysis but rather expresses the question of the
human intellect, black intellect, in particular, existing in the world. 4IR carves an
evolution in human history built fundamentally on the political ontology of western
supremacy. In short, an ontological evolution that stems not from the suitability of
nature and species. But this is a revolution guided by the human mind—intellect
with historical privilege. We are coming in contact with what the human mind can
do. But the historical rejection of the mind and body of the oppressed negates the
unitary sense of the Human Self that is expressed in these great leaps of technology.
The God of the oppressed makes liberation, or the articulation of liberation to be
linked to the world of the mind to build a truly egalitarian society on earth. This
society will pay attention to the importance of ordinary life (especially the
oppressed) because this ordinary life still gives grammar to our conceptions of what
it means to be human, justice, human action, and the invaluable role of being rooted
in your neighbor as an integral part of being in the world and is the primary def-
inition of being human (see Murphy and Knights (2010: 147; Waters 2006: 85).
The fatal blow to human conception, liberation, and justice is the moment of
singularity, where the “acceleration of technology” is galvanized to enter into
existence through the biosphere. The biosphere will strengthen the biopower, which
has allowed the west to dictate who lives or dies (see Mbembe 2003: 11–12). This
singularity is not mere assertions of science but the full view of a material reading
of the world, which will create humanity anew. A world that seeks to make itself the
casket of the death of God. However, a black liberation theology response that sees
the commune between God and humanity demands not just the objectives of the
oppressed in the mere now. Rather directs a need for a more redefined humanity
that emerges from the history and existential context of oppression. Images of a new
heaven and earth accompanied by the bride, the New Jerusalem (Revelation 20),
express the eschatological vision of justice and egalitarian society and humans
being rescued to heaven and brought back to earth. The material existence of human
beings makes humanity bound to earth, and as such, the context of a need for justice
in the now is guaranteed by this syllogism of being Imago Dei being here again in
the context of otherworldliness. Liberation theologies emphasize the perfection of
this fragile human body and this emphasis remains. The vision of the eschato-
logical especially the image of Christ with a physical and wounded body
remaining in the realm of metaphysics lingers in the importance of a physiological
conception of the human beyond technology and the future. The God of the
oppressed who maintains his wounds as a point of contact and recognition with the
church and the downtrodden in his coming dispels incarnation and existence of
human beings as virtual beings or transhuman. Human body-liness-ness and
30 H. Mdingi
biological creatureliness still is a perfect base of the encounter with God, justice,
human intellect and liberation. 4IR is a prerogative of whites to determine the future
for humanity. Cone (2004: 151) argues:
Black spirituals say, there is a great camp meeting in the Promised Land. That song is not
primarily about the geography of heaven but rather a message of hope in direct circum-
stances. Blacks, with their backs against the wall of slavery, were saying that evil will not
have the last word about their humanity. We have a future not made with White hands.
The final aspect of 4IR is linked to Cone position concerning a negation from the
Spirituals of inhabiting a world, existence and future made by white hands. A future
that seeks to wish and wash away black physical presence. Currently, Africa and
Third World countries, with real physical people, through technology are made to
inhabit and think of a future made by white hands. The destruction of black peo-
ple’s worldviews and the dehumanization of people of color has become
insignificant for western civilization, science, technology, and academia in partic-
ular (see West 1999) because the burden of civilization upon the Third World is
a violent encounter, which demands absolute change. This line of reasoning
extends to seeing that western paradigms negates two competing interests e.g.
oppression and liberation. This realization cannot be as vivid in South Africa than
Mandela’s visit in the 1990s at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In an
interview underlying Mandela’s position at Davos, Mandela revealed that when he
spoke about the nationalization of mines, banks, and means of production at the
conference the tension was so dense that you could cut it with a knife. White guilt
and western civilization continue to ignore the real effects of slavery, colonialism,
imperialism, and institutional racism, which are all tentacles of capitalism. 4IR can
be meaningful if liberation is the fundamental stance for Third World and if
technological advancements are politically motivated. Hlatshwayo (2019: 26) has
warned us concerning the divides, and if the WEC did not accept Mandela's pro-
posal for South Africa to develop, technology in Africa must be rooted in Africa’s
political prerogatives and valuing of human conception.
References
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Hlulani Msimelelo Mdingi holds a PhD in Systematic Theology from the University of South
Africa (UNISA) with a focus on Christian dogmatics and black liberation theology. He has worked
at UNISA in the department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology for seven years.
First, as a research assistant for two years and as lecturer and senior lecturer for the remaining five
and half years in the disciplines of theological Ethics and Systematic Theology with a focus on
ecclesiology and eschatology. He received the Global Excellence and Stature (GES) grant in 2019
and is currently a postdoctoral research fellow (PDRF) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in
the Department of Religion Studies with a focus on Black liberation theology and 4IR (Fourth
Industrial Revolution). He has published articles on liberation theology and 4IR. He also teaches
Christian liberation theologies part-time (second semester) to honours students at the University of
Johannesburg, department of Religion Studies. He has been appointed as senior lecturer at the
University of Pretoria, Faculty of Theology and Religion in the department of Systematic and
Historical Theology and will assume this position first of January 2021. He is an activist and
member of the Black Consciousness Movement United (BCMU), which infuses intellectuality and
activism for both theory and praxis. He is a founder of Theology Of Azania (TOA), a movement
that works in the community with various programs that focus on empowerment, justice and truth.
University 4.0: A Conceptual Model
for South African Universities
and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Abstract We argue that Africa has a rightful place in the 4IR. We focus on the
higher education sector (universities only), with a specific focus on South Africa.
We argue that South African universities stand to benefit from the 4IR. In order to
achieve what we term University 4.0, we propose two conceptual models, desig-
nated as the macro- and micro-models, as a blueprint for institutional renewal (the
macro-model) aligned with the envisaged demands of the 4IR. The micro-model
proposes that teaching and learning stand to benefit too. Ideally, both models should
be implemented simultaneously to provide the optimum education conditions and
preparation for each graduate. Whereas technology is the main driver and anchor of
the 4IR, some of the demands of the 4IR can be met by leadership adaptability, staff
preparedness and an awareness of the needs of the current and future student
population. Therefore, we propose these models as practical and achievable tools to
enable Africa’s young student population.
1 Introduction
This chapter draws on Lizette Wessels. 2020. How South African universities can contribute to
preparing the future workforce for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Master of Philosophy in
Higher Education. Stellenbosch University. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/
108143.
L. Wessels (&)
Department of Library and Information Services, University of South Africa, Pretoria,
South Africa
e-mail: [email protected]
J.-A. van Wyk
Department of Political Sciences, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa
predicted earlier, will continue to alter the international higher education landscape.
Changing workforce demands, now accelerated by the global pandemic and its
evolving consequences, directly impinge on universities’ qualification structures
because graduates will increasingly require new skills and expertise. The prospects
of teaching and training qualifications that are completely immersed in virtual
environments enable the reinforcement of literacies and skills that will be part of the
future workforce’s professional and personal lives (Richert et al. 2015: p. 63).
Graduates with multidisciplinary skills are increasingly valued in the workplace
(Nørgaard and Guerra 2018: p. 106). Therefore, these kinds of programmes and
qualifications may well be tailored to meet the particular requirements of the
Industry 4.0 workplace (Nørgaard and Guerra 2018: p. 108).
As Africa has a rightful place in the 4IR, this chapter proposes a model (con-
sisting of a macro- and a micro-element) for the transformation of the teaching and
learning functions of, specifically, South African universities to meet the demands
of 4IR. Thus, what is required for the establishment and sustainability of the future
African university (here, University 4.0)? In order to address this question, the
chapter proceeds as follows. The next section explains the methodological approach
and the theoretical framework of the study. Thereafter, the chapter proceeds to
answer the main research question posed herein. The argument presented proposes
and analyses two conceptual models: a macro- (Institutional Change 4.0.) model
and a micro (Teaching and Learning 4.0)-model, combining these as University 4.0
—with a view to meeting the demands of the 4IR, thus educating and preparing
students for these demands. This part of the chapter presents the elements of each
proposed model. Whereas Institutional Change 4.0, the macro-model, focuses on
institutional change, the micro-model (Teaching and Learning 4.0) focuses on
transformation required for the teaching and learning as a core university function
to prepare the future 4IR university, students and workforce. The chapter concludes
with an assessment of each model and the future implications thereof for South
African universities.
restriction on the type of study, country of origin or the sector (e.g. academic,
policy, government, etc.). The search was delimited to include only studies that
were published in English between 2014 and 2018, with a follow-up search con-
ducted in 2019 to include new studies.
Four key concepts—4IR, universities, teaching and learning, and skills—
emerged from the scoping review. Based on the scoping review, the two theoretical
approaches found to be most relevant to the 4IR and its implications for higher
education (HE) are human capital theory and human development theory (Tomer
2016: p. 31). The former originated in the 1700s when Smith (1776: p. 73) posited
that education is the basis of human capital in every society, allowing and sus-
taining economic growth. Kupe (2019: p. 1) therefore argues that universities
should contribute to the advancement and development of their societies by
investing in their graduates. This needs to be supported by teaching and learning
policies that produce excellently educated, emotionally intelligent students equip-
ped with adequate skills for the 4IR workplace (Kupe 2019: p. 1). Largely influ-
enced by Maslow’s (1943) humanistic psychological view, human development
theory focuses on improving and empowering individuals in all areas of life (as
cited in Tomer 2016: p. 4).
One of the 4IR’s imperatives is to improve and empower humanity through the
application of advanced technology. This chapter focuses on combining the said
theories in the context of HE as a human capital development sector to achieve
these imperatives. However, the HE sector in South Africa is found to be lacking,
thus leading to the rationale for this study and the proposals for University 4.0.
In proposing each model, its underpinnings, core, key concepts and structure are
presented first.
become increasingly important (Schwab 2016: p. 7). The integration and use of
these technologies for improving the efficiency of current practices form part of the
most prominent factor in the 4IR, namely digital transformation.
(a) Digital transformation
Digital transformation, the fulcrum around which 4IR operates (Eberhard et al.
2017: p. 49), is:
The changing pursuit of innovative and flexible business and operational models—driven
by emerging technologies, practices, applications, and skills—to generate new value and
opportunities for students, staff, and stakeholders (Solis 2019: p. 1).
are prepared for these exponential changes? (Krueger 2018: p. 24). South African
universities are unquestionably answerable for developing the digital literacy of
students and supporting responsible and suitable use of technology (Pellini et al.
2019: p. 12; Pollitzer 2019: p. 87). The growing importance of digital skills has a
broad impact on curriculum design, professional staff development (PSD), opera-
tional services and resources. In applying digital, data, communication and tech-
nology skills to particular workplace issues, students are expected to add value to
the workplace, making them more desirable as employees (Chetty 2018: p. 34).
The main components that bolster the competitiveness and sustainability of
future universities are technology, innovation and course offerings. As technology
evolves rapidly, the adoption thereof should be the focus of any university if it is to
remain sustainable in the 4IR (Duc 2017: p. 37). Universities are already expected
to have increasingly adopted analytical techniques and should already be using big
data retrieved from a variety of sources, devices and systems, allowing interchange
of data between universities and analysing student data aimed at making predictions
and informed decisions (Halili 2019: p. 68). Additionally, makerspaces1 should
already be integrated in the curriculum (Adams Becker et al. 2018: pp. 40–41). The
timing for the adoption of adaptive learning technologies and AI is estimated to be
within the next two years (Adams Becker et al. 2018: pp. 44–45; Butler-Adam
2018: p. 1; Hamilton 2018). The progress in these technologies, and the promises
they hold for teaching and learning, must be recognised; mixed reality and robotics
are anticipated to become more prominent within three years (Adams Becker et al.
2018: pp. 46–49; Johannessen 2018: pp. 9–13; Lent 2018: p. 218).
A new business model defining the view of technology implementation and digital
transformation must be formulated for the 4IR university (Lee et al. 2018: p. 4). The
University 4.0 will not emerge unless these innovative inferences, reformed ser-
vices and a new kind of leadership to oversee the implementation of the new
business model are generated (Abeid et al. 2018: p. 105).
(a) New Business Models
Universities urgently need new business models if they are to remain relevant and
sustainable in the 4IR (Abeid et al. 2018: p. 105). Digital disruptions have chal-
lenged existing business models to such an extent that new business models are
required (Nordin and Norman 2018: p. 5). Such innovative models will accom-
modate transformations and future innovations, while guaranteeing worthwhile
teaching and learning still relevant to students (Selamat 2017). Moreover, 4IR
business models should be innovative and distinctive, focusing on niche areas for
1
A place where students can work together on projects, share ideas, thoughts and knowledge.
38 L. Wessels and J.-A. van Wyk
Encompassed by the need to form partnerships and to collaborate with industry, the
centre of the macro-conceptual model is based on the triple helix concept of
innovation, which emerged in the 1990s (Etzkowitz (1993), and Etzkowitz and
Leydesdorff (1995)).
The triple helix concept has been revisited by many leading universities for
innovation, economic growth and building an entrepreneurial university
(Leydesdorff 2018: p. 12). University–industry–government partnerships have
produced innovative formats for the invention, transmission and application of
knowledge and technology with beneficial impacts on national competitiveness
(Miron and Gherasim 2018: p. 618). In these partnerships, each partner plays a
distinctive role at structural level: “wealth generation (by industry), novelty pro-
duction (academia), and legislation and regulation (government)” (Leydesdorff
2018: p. 1). The triple helix of university–industry–government partnerships has
undoubtedly turned into the true central subsystem of an innovation model (Kim
2017: pp. 21–22).
The adoption of the triple helix model could be beneficial for universities in
generating extra income, initiating more relevant strategic research and develop-
ment suggestions, training a highly skilled and qualified student population, and
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anéantit d’abord cette avant-garde, qui s’était imprudemment
engagée dans les steppes et puis battit à plat le gros de l’armée,
près de la petite ville de Korsoun, au mois de mai 1648. Tous les
chefs polonais tombèrent entre ses mains, la Pologne complètement
désarmée se trouva en face d’une insurrection formidable. Tout le
bassin du Dniéper se souleva ; les insurgés dévastèrent les
demeures des seigneurs, massacrèrent leurs serviteurs, les
Polonais et les Israélites.
Pour comble de malheur, mourut sur ces entrefaites le roi
Vladislas, très populaire chez les cosaques, qui s’étaient soulevés
convaincus qu’ils répondaient à son appel pour l’aider contre les
usurpations des seigneurs. Il se produisit alors une situation, à
laquelle ni les sphères gouvernementales, ni les chefs de
l’insurrection n’étaient préparés.
XXII.
L’Ukraine orientale se sépare de la
Pologne et s’unit à la Moscovie.