The problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of how humans engage, encounter, and react to difference. I begin this article with this statement very much inspired by the great Pan Africanist intellectual, W.E.B Du Bois. Du Bois once remarked that, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” For his time, this to me was indeed an insightful and prophetic declaration of the realities of his world. However in the 21st century, as has been a reoccurring theme throughout the vastness of human history, our greatest challenge will be how this truly globalized world interacts and reacts to difference.

With the accelerated pace over the last few decades of globalization due to factors such as technological advances and the expansion of capitalist free market ideology, the world has become smaller. With this shrinkage of time and space, more people are coming into contact with people who are very different from themselves. Ideas, information, and feelings are now shared between individuals and communities which would have never happened in the past. This interaction has and will form positive as well as negative social relationships that did not exist before.

The challenge I see humans facing, whether black, white, yellow, Catholic, Muslim, homosexual, male, female, rich or poor is how we interact with each other. Today, more than any time in the past this issue is of paramount importance as mankind now has the capability, due to our technological advances, to kill each other more efficiently and effectively than ever before. In addition to this, through institutions like the media, those in power can now more easily demonize and villianize a people or idea they reject/don’t understand and influence millions in the process.

This being the case, institutions, communities and individuals around the world need to question how they react to a people/culture/tradition/lifestyle that is very unlike their own. With this being the realities of the times we live in and our foreseeable future, I wonder whether humans will be able to see that, “Our global civilization is a world heritage--not just a collection of disparate local cultures” as was said by Amartya Sen (2002). And by doing that recognize that much of what we enjoy and use today has come from someone who does not look like us, or live with us or worship the same God as us? When human beings are able to look at history and understand it as human history, not only as African, Indian or Arab history, that is when the human race as a whole will have taken the first steps to embracing difference.

Rabindranath Tagore stated that, "Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin... Let me feel with unalloyed gladness that all the great glories of man are mine." Times change and I believe in order for human beings to survive and flourish in this dynamic world, it is essential that we take to heart Tagore’s words. This can start by us looking at achievements made by Sun Tzu, Aristotle, Newton, Emperor Menelek II, Du Bois, and Nkrumah as not just Chinese, Greek, British, Ethiopian, American or Ghanaian achievements; but as human contributions to the world.

We should also understand for example, that many of the first advances in mathematics and optics came not from Isaac Newton in 17th century England, but from India and the Arab peoples between the 2nd and 6th centuries. And when we sit back and examine human history we can finally see that what has gotten us to this point of development is not just the work of “Western minds” but an accumulation and collection of world minds.

Once we can understand that, we can then look at someone who is different from us and concentrate not on what we don’t have in common, but more on what we can learn from each other. By being able to encounter difference, which can be scary and uncomfortable at times, we can move forward in the 21st century better equipped to solve global problems such as poverty, social inequality, global warming, war, and a host of other troubles together.

As for the African continent, I believe this message has a special relevance. If we are to truly form a wider African union, we need to be able to address difference in a positive and mutually constructive way. Africa’s diverse ethnicities, cultures, religions, languages, traditions and colors are its strength, not its weakness. Our multi-cultural continent is what makes being an African beautiful because although we are very different we can still build a greater union incorporating these differences.

Indeed there are fears that many Africans, both inside and outside the continent have, but these fears stem primarily in my opinion from uncertainty. Many are uncertain as to what this “greater union” will look like and fear that in assimilation their individual identities will get lost. For example, many fear that what it means to them to be a Tanzanian, or an Ovambo, will get lost in this wider African identity. As the old saying goes, “people do not like what they don’t understand, it scares them.” This is a logical fear and one that is by no means restricted to African peoples.

To this day many, many Americans (all of which I might add, with exception to Native Americans and we can argue the black American population, came to the US as immigrants and/or colonizers) feel their American identity is threatened with the influx of people to their shores from around the globe. These people fear that eventually a “melting pot” effect will occur which will erode all difference and make them, like these new people who arrive. Similar examples can be found in Europe with the steadily progression towards the creation of a greater European Union. In Britain for example, some of its citizens wish to reject the increased unity of the continent as they fear with the clause allowing freedom of movement, cheaper laborers will flow to Britain from the poorer Eastern Europe and thus British citizens fear that their jobs will be lost. So what turns out to maybe be an economical/financial concern gets construed and verbalized as a fear of losing ones identity.

So this fear is an understandable one, but let me pose a few questions to attempt to address this fear. Is it impossible for two very different peoples to come together to build something that will benefit them both? Is it impossible for the oil producing African countries to pool their oil into a common market so as to not be easily exploited by outside forces? Is it impossible for the diamond producing and coca producing countries to work together to form an OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Producing Countries) like syndicate to better control their valuable natural resources? Can African intellectuals, who indeed do exist and come from the entire spectrum of the African peoples, not come together to debate better ways for us as a people to move forward? I say no. It is not impossible and even though we as African people are very different, the possibilities for progress are limitless in co-operation but limited in antagonism.

So let us work better together, not just with other African peoples, but with the wider world that we indeed do live in and are apart of, in order to build a better world for us, others and for future generations.