Thread by @atrembath

I wasn't kidding.

#blackpanther /1

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I like good movies, comic book movies, and mass-market cultural touchstones. So obviously I was gonna like #BlackPanther

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And I was most interested in what it had to say about the legacy of colonialism and slavery, globalism and international responsibility, the refugee crisis, and race.

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But, unsurprisingly, #BlackPanther also struck an ecomodernist chord.

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I am not an expert in Africa or international development, but I have read and written a little about both.

thebreakthrough.org/index.php/prog…

thebreakthrough.org/index.php/prog…

thebreakthrough.org/index.php/prog…

#blackpanther /5

What jumps out about #Wakanda is how starkly it contrasts with popular conceptions of African societies.

Wakanda is a rich, independent, technological powerhouse of a nation deeply rooted in its own history.

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Afrofuturists have offered similar images of African accomplishment in contrast to, say, the whitewashed Lawrence of Arabia, Snow of Kilimanjaro, Out of Africa, or conflict-ridden Heart of Darkness, Black Hawk Down, etc.

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But #Wakanda also contrasts sharply with the “sustainable development,” “appropriate technology,” and, frankly, Deep Green image of an African future.

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Today, popular conceptions of Africa’s future are more influenced by E.F. Schumacher’s “appropriate technology” school and Club-of-Rome-style anti-growth vibes than they are by, say, South Korea or Thailand.

#blackpanther 9/

Africa is alleged to be the hotbed of 21st century “sustainable development,” a new model of growth less wasteful and destructive than what powered Europe, America, and the Asian tigers.

#blackpanther 10/

But “sustainable development,” at least according to its core text “Our Common Future” or the Brundtland Report (1987), insists that “a low-energy path is the best way toward a sustainable future.”

Suffice it to say, #Wakanda doesn’t look low-energy to me.

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Nor should it. Modern energy consumption uplifts humanity and spares wild nature, by relying less on harvested bioenergy and low-yield subsistence farming.

#blackpanther /12

But the low-energy vision for Africa persists.

The UN defines modern energy access at less than 5% of what the typical American or European consumes. thebreakthrough.org/index.php/prog…

#blackpanther /13

This has allowed the international NGO community to rally around plans for “energy access” in Africa that look suspiciously like enduring poverty to me.

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The late, great @calestous wrote in last year’s @TheBTI Journal of this cynical “leapfrogging” narrative. thebreakthrough.org/index.php/jour…

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Advocates talk about “leapfrogging the grid” (as if that were desirable for some reason), but it amounts to leapfrogging infrastructure, income-generating activity, urbanization, and governance.

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It’s particularly pernicious when small-scale, low-energy technologies are alleged to leapfrog the need for modern institutions and governments, as @SierraClub did here thebreakthrough.org/index.php/prog…

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I don’t think it’s malicious. I think it’s misguided.

A fantasy of “leapfrogging” advanced by some of the richest people in history who fear their privilege cannot be extended to emerging societies for environmental reasons.

#blackpanther /18

Meanwhile, modern food advocates lambast multinational, industrial agriculture and biotech. They imagine an African future of small-holder farmers, even as the move of labor off the farm has been essential in every single developed country.

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Small-holder farmers (prohibited from using biotech) living in rural communities powered by small rooftop solar panels.

This is the opposite of #Wakanda.

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13 African cities are projected to surpass New York City in size this century. mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com/post/170762363…

The future of Africa is much closer to #Wakanda than the pessimists think.

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Among other things, #ecomodernists imagine that the majority of people on this planet (i.e., non-US, non-EU) will end us choosing their own destiny, and that the rich world should not feel threatened by that.

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Here’s @charlesjkenny in the @TheBTI Journal on this “cooperative advantage” thebreakthrough.org/index.php/jour…

And us on how Asia and Africa can power a new kind of 21st century innovation thebreakthrough.org/index.php/issu…

#blackpanther /23

Anyway.

#BlackPanther’s resonance with #ecomodernism is not the film’s most important (nor, surely, deliberate) message.

But optimistic, pro-tech, anti-colonial visions of Africa’s future are elemental to both #Wakanda and #ecomodernism.

/fin