Africa, instead of finding in the use of Communication and Information Technologies a means of as well solving the problem of its insulation on the internal level (national and regional) as on the external level (international), seems to be unaware of this movement of revival. A very serious fact attest it: the Africans constitute only 1% of the world cyber-community. In Senegal for example, as in majority of the countries of the african continent, there is a certain number of bolts, such as the bad information flow, which handicap the initiative. The cultural action in such a context deeply affected. A paramount report is that the men of culture generally and the creators of aesthetic goods particularly, because of their lack of means, are the first victims of the enclavement of our continent. One of the major challenges resides in the management of the communication. Vis-avis with the inexistence of adequate cultural program on a national and continental scale, force is to recognize material and/or moral misery of the men of culture. The authorities more than ever are challenged. 

A global analysis of the cultural system pushes us to produce an ultimate cry of distress: it is high time to deliver the men of culture of the slow death to which misery exposes them. In a new world context characterized by the tendency to regrouping, with the formation of great sets in all sectors of activity, the man of culture, in the poor countries generally, is left with himself. Cut off in the peripheries from the human condition, this man struggles. And, pushed by the instinct of survival, he is imprison in this barren cutting off, engrossing stoically of a strange image, if foreign with the idea that he had always done of him. Pathology! A socio-cultural action is essential to leave the African men of culture the dead end. As regards the question of cultural industries, we noted there too hat there is a beam of factors which converge to lead to the marginalization of the creators of aesthetic goods. We do not have the claim to treat them all here. Only, in a practical way, we will direct our analysis towards the communication system. Let us note once again that the african cultural medium suffers, among other things, of the bad information flow. 

The market of art, because of its informal nature and of its economic weakness, does not allow to the creators of aesthetic goods to sell their productions suitably. This involves a double loss. Creators of aesthetic goods, to face the depreciation whose they are the object at the local level, direct themselves towards the western markets. And from this point of view of search for outlets, the tourists constitue privileged customers. These foreign customers, conscious of the precariousness of the living condition of the creators, misuse these one. The creators, because of the informal character of the cultural sector, are thus in the center of a very intense operating system. The wild mercenary attitude in the field of art, as lived in Africa, also constitutes a true cultural and economic « bleeding ». The works of art sold (not to say sold off) by this way, with a foreign prevalence, fly away and disappear without leaving traces. This plague is the painful consequence of amalgam which ended up being anchored deeply in the consciences, the disorganization of the cultural system helping. The destitution of the men of culture and the creators of aesthetic goods incites us to ask us other questions: How to break with the marginalization of men of culture and creators?Is it necessary to adopt a new communication policy and to take part in better doing the marketing of the african cultures?  

The management of the image should be at the beginning and the end of any cultural action. To leave the men of culture and the african cultures of the dead end, it seems necessary to us to start by making the culture accessible. Because it is contradictory, even paradoxical, that african cultural industries, in spite of their richness and their diversity, are MARGINAL at the international level. The traditional supports (art gallery, shops of antiquity, fairs ...) showed their limit in the promotion of arts and the cultures in Africa. The problem of the diffusion remains whole. Communication and Information Technologies, without idealizing them, because of their accesibility , offer real and priceless opportunities. It is in that besides that they constitute an effective alternative for the diffusion and the development of the cultural products and industries. And instead of replacing the old supports, the supports multimedia (as the cultural websites) can lead to their reinforcement by creation of virtual galleries, press-book electronic and by a promotion of electronic publishing (presentation of texts of fiction and publication of reference documents drawn from the traditional cultural inheritance. The numerical one is a chance for Africa. From its accessibility, the Web is a tool which could make easy the promotion of the local cultures and also the exchanges leading to the integration of the people inside the continent. Each day more than one billion Net surfers are connected on the « mother of all networks » (Internet). The presence on such a network offers priceless communication opportunities. However, as we have noted it, the Africans seem to be unaware of this strategic stake. And in a context of Globalization, Internet can become for Africa an additional handicap. The Africans will be exposed even to very harmful radiations of the productions of Western propaganda. The factitious comfort « of the position of eternal consumers of ideas and practices » is in phase to worsen cultural alienation. The very negative economic consequences, rising from absence of the innovative and effective response for more consequent positioning from the cultures and cultural productions coming from the Continent, are real.

Papa Oumar Fall  12.10.2003