The African Renaissance Call As a Strategy For Socio-Cultural and Economic Transformation: A Critical Analysis of Cultural and Ideological Issues

Abstract

The main task of this article is to interrogate the meaning and content of the concept of culture as a phenomenological and ideological concept in human history, and to demonstrate how it is linked to the development or non-development of the marginalized communities within the African continent. Equally important, the article identifies the processes of alienation and the marginalization of African cultural heritage by the ideological designs and practices of colonialism and the apartheid ideology. It highlights the importance of the African Renaissance call as a socio-cultural, political and economic strategy for transformation in post-1994 South Africa, and a movement to motivate Africa into moving forward and realising its true potential in the context of globalization and its marginalizing tendencies.