A Brave New World in Berlin

Berlin has always been regarded as a world-class metropolis à la the great Austrian moviemaker Fritz Lang but I didn’t know what to expect when I spent a month as a co2libri visiting fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum Moder ner Orient (ZMO), a research institute in the city. I resided in the leafy suburb of Nikolassee that provided considerable solitude and comfort for intellectual reflection. Nikolassee is definitely a far cry from the hustle and bustle of your average world-class city. One would imagine that a metropolis of the future would be fairly populated by quasi-, or rather, pseudo-sentient cyborgs. It would also imply desensitised algorithms, the end of terracentrism, earth-shaking eschatological apocalypses, the modalities of AI, and high-tech post-industrial dystopia in which the meaning and purpose of what is considered to be “human” would have been stretched beyond all imaginings. Indeed we’ve ushered in a (post-) Babylonian new world order.

On November 20, 2024, an international conference organised by the Berlin University Alliance (BUA) on academic freedom and themes revolving around borderless academic collaboration drew participants from Britain, Kenya, Mozambique, Ghana, Nigeria and Asia. The conference, which was held in the cool and clinical interiors of the Berlin Institute for Critical Inquiry, focused on “Negotiating Scientific Cooperation in an Unequal World” as its main subject matter. The gathering at the event was not too large, which provided for a really intimate experience. Keynote speakers struggled to offer a visual superhighway of what “the university of the future” would look like. Almost immediately, a genuinely philosophical problem unfurled. Specifically, the tussle between universals and particulars, or the same/other distinction in which issues of cultural diversity and equally implacable regimes of homogenisation and standardisation jostle for dominance. In this epoch, as with other similar eras, we can expect the commingling of normal science, abnormal science, pseudo-science, philosophic disputation and wild, imaginative flights of fantasy.

Perhaps even more than the academic delegates at the conference, a short drama interlude best captured the spirit of the Orwellian brave new world. And the scenario, proffered by two starkly attired thespians in orange overalls, isn’t quite pretty. It is austere and arguably bleak. In George Orwell’s futurist novel, 1984, we are confronted by the omnipresent surveillance of Big Brother, the deep state with its enormous spatial reach, and the accompanying moral panics caused by an overwhelming sense of human superfluity. Such spatiality is now being complemented by psychological depth and manipulation. The human would be reduced to an inconsequential speck or organism while institutions of power and hegemony would attain the apex of a totalitarian (d)evolution. Understandably, the merely human has been superseded by post-humanism.

I had left Berlin when Stefan Kupien, an old colleague from African philosophical circles, and co-author of a book on Paulin J. Hountondji – Paulin Hountondji: African Philosophy as Critical Univeersalism (2019) – disclosed to me that he now had a job with BUA, working on the management aspect of scientific development as well as the ethics of AI. This sounded quite familiar to me, having worked previously with colleagues dealing with similar issues in Cape Town.

In various ways, presentations attempted to navigate the gulf between globality and locality. Keynote speaker Patricio Langa of Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique spouted a flurry of statistics illustrating the problems of scientific research in Africa and concluded that the huge challenge continues to be the hindrance caused by extraversion as first theorised in economics by Egypt’s Samir Amin and then in philosophy by the Beninese thinker, Paulin Hountondji. Adenike Adebukola Akinsemolo from Nigeria offered captivating accounts of the struggles of women dwelling in riverine areas against the ravages of climate change in her country. To bring home the lopsidedness of the global system, Phoebe Sanchez made fervent calls for decolonial vigilance and critique in building a more equitable global order.

As if to poke at the very limits of academic freedom, there were unequivocal denunciations of Zionist Israel in its ongoing purge of the people of Palestine. It was mentioned that, ordinarily, anyone who dared to do so outside the confines of the conference would be promptly blackballed. It appeared there were indeed quite vocal friends of Palestine at the conference.

In spite of these fundamental challenges, the goal of the organisers of the event was to ensure cooperation between European tertiary institutions and universities in the developing world. Undoubtedly, the commemorative moment of the conference was the adoption of the “African Charter for Transformative Research Collaborations”.

During my fellowship, I presented a talk at ZMO on “Two African Thinkers in the Climate of Decoloniality”. My presentation dwelled on the work of Kwasi Wiredu (Ghana) and Paulin Hountondji (Benin) in establishing two distinct and yet interrelated kinds of legacies in late 20^th century African philosophy. Wiredu formulated a theory of conceptual decolonisation which in my view is one of the most cogent approaches in decoloniality. Moreso, it incorporates a programme of comparative linguistics as well as cultural analysis. On the other hand, Hountondji’s ideas on ethnophilosophy, unanimism, endogenous knowledge, scientific dependency and global knowledge production are no less instructive.

I was to attend a seminar – that was ultimately postponed – titled, “Practices of power, practices of thought: anthropology of intellectual life in the sultanate of Oman”, that was to be delivered by Mehdi Ayachi at ZMO. Ayachi is concerned with the role, status and possibilities offered to the public intellectual by the sultanate of Oman. Typically, if she is dependent upon the state for her livelihood and well-being, then she is naturally constrained to promote the official narratives of the nation-building project in order to enjoy the material and symbolic benefits that come with doing so. If, on the other hand, she chooses to adopt an independent stance and becomes a critic of both state and society, her status becomes more precarious as she attempts to navigate the pitfalls of shame and dishonour. This scenario particularly resonates with the options available to the public intellectual in Africa where she is confronted by the possibility of repression, incarceration and sometimes even, death meted out by the state. The travails of Amilcar Cabral, Wole Soyinka, Fabian Eboussi-Boulaga, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Ken Saro Wiwa are some of the well-known cases on the continent. I was compelled to contemplate this all-too-familiar reality notwithstanding being present in a post-industrial context.

Nikolassee, where I was accommodated, could pass for a philosopher’s retreat. Perhaps Martin Heidegger wouldn’t have winced too much at the discomfort of having to descend from his secluded hill to visit the neighbourhood.

I went on short excursions to glean parts of Berlin that provided opportunities for gaiety, sightseeing and refreshment away from the usual highbrow pursuits. At evenings, the elderly walk their well-groomed dogs without leashes. Much younger folk go for early evening jogs around the undulating neighbourhood – even in winter – amid magisterial trees and leafy vegetation.

I received quite a few invitations to lunch and dinner, some of which I couldn’t attend for one reason or the other. A month is quite a short period to be able to meet different people within our research network and beyond.

One evening, I went shopping with Kai Kresse, my host, his wife Joy, and their three sons, Oscar, Otto and Pascal. The boys politely suggested to me a few elements on contemporary style. They all did so with admirable panache. Joy busied herself with items that would keep the entire family smiling and contented. After all Christmas was just around the corner.

Later on during the same evening, Kai and Joy took me to areas around the wall that had divided Berlin before 1989. It felt like a truly historic moment. We visited shops that produced hand-crafted items: wristwatches, shoes, bags, hats and other mementos that serve as reminders of the more delectable side of Berlin. And finally, we bonded even further over hot water garnished with lemon, honey and ginger at a bar in which a singer regaled us with the guitar and lovely R&B hits. There were achingly beautiful renditions of songs by Sting, Phil Collins and Prince.

We also visited a courtyard lined with artists’ studios where the walls were covered with graffiti like a punk-era subway station. And there, bang in the middle of ultra-futurist Berlin, was a lane of anti-capitalist, individualistic creativity. Indeed, a sliver of genuine earthiness that acted as a rage against the ceaseless grind of the machine.

Kai and family surpassed this experience by hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for a cast of international guests from the Philippines, United States, Romania, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Denmark and, of course, Africa. Dessert was probably the most elaborate course of the lavish dinner. Assorted chocolates, rich pies and cream topped with strawberries. This isn’t to say the two huge turkeys specially prepared for the occasion were any less impressive.

I sat next to a filmmaker, Carla Gunnesch, whose husband served as a distributor of her movies. Bertil, her partner, had visited some of the most spectacular places in the world such as Chile and Brazil but remains a true European at heart as he informs me. Perhaps to underscore his European sense of identity, he revealed that he had successfully transitioned from a Catholic to an atheist. He beams with enormous pride and a sense of accomplishment when he announces his atheism. My conversation with Carla, on the other hand, was brief. Nonetheless, she didn’t fail to make an impression on me as a feisty super-achiever. She emphasised that she doesn’t make feature films but documentaries, one of which explores the plight of illegal migrants in Europe.

If we are attempting to grapple with the dilemmas of scientific cooperation in a chronically unequal world, perhaps it is always best that we begin by jointly extending a simple hand of genuine friendship. In this apparently simple gesture of humanism, miles of understanding can truly be gained.