Dehumanising and De-Africanising Public Diplomacy: A Philosophico-Cultural Perspective on the Digitalisation of African Diplomacy

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic brought to the fore not only the centrality of Western digital technologies, but also a number of philosophico-cultural issues. Two of such cultural issues in the domain of digital diplomacy have been the de-Africanisation and dehumanisation of African digital diplomacy. These two issues have partly stemmed from the popular African myth that cybercultures in general and the digitalisation of African diplomacy in particular are disruptive forces that could negatively affect the traditional African values that have since independence been upheld by African governments in their conduct of public diplomacy. A related theory states that digitalisation may only de-humanise and de-Africanise public diplomacy. Using secondary sources and critical observations, this chapter examines the extent to which the above-mentioned fears are justified. The chapter specifically explores how digitalisation could affect specific African traditional values. It also examines the extent to which digitisation is susceptible to de-humanise or/and de-Africanise African public diplomacy.