The river, the city and a dream: African urban imaginaries

Amira Osman (Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria)

In the “Return to Sinnar” by the Sudanese poet Mohammed Abd El Hay, the complexity of the African city is portrayed as a place where the lost ones return “Singing in one tongue, Praying in another”, further expressing the triple heritage of Ali Mazrui in “the Africans”. Abd al Hay proclaims that he is: “A pagan who worships the land, A blind Sufi who worships miracles and the fire of the God”. A western-dominant narrative portrays much of what Africa has to offer as backward and insignificant. A colonised mindset leads many Africans to deny the value of their own heritage. Many “progressive” Sudanese deny the value of “Sinnar” as an idea and a place.

Yet, Sudanese urbanism is unique; almost every urban centre was established around a centre of religious learning. The distinctive conical dome of a shaykh’s burial place can sometimes be found at the centre of even small villages. The yearly “plastering” festival at the Djenne mosque in Mali is a unifying feature and a symbol. The fact that the built form of the mosque changes with every replastering is an expression of community building and shared ownership that is at odds with western and modernist perceptions of architectures that are fixed, conceptualised in the mind of one person and preserved as “precious” or “unchanging” heritage in a, perhaps rigid understanding of “conservation”?

The decision not to build is an architectural decision. The sufi “halaqa” – a circle of worshipers in an open space – exemplifies the fluidity and gracefulness of simple, daily acts of place-making.

The decision to build is an architectural decision. Building culture, technology, design and space are never neutral. Everything we do is value-based. How we build, where we build, how we make decisions about our cities and neighbourhoods says something about our belief systems.

In Africa, the religious leader sometimes has more prominence than the political leader and urban centres were many times established by a shaykh of a Sufi sect and often where there was previously no settlement. The homogeneity and the lack of variety in built form and colour is related to unwritten social compacts, simplicity in physical expression, cycles in the use of space and, sometimes, a respect for Sufi values of frugality. Historically, in northern Sudan, spaces were more mono-functional; with the advent of Muslim Arabs, spaces became more multi-functional. Nomadic patterns are still found in the use of space within the home and in streets and open spaces.

If we look beyond the dominant narratives, big government and big capital, we will find highly evolved grass-root initiatives; these governance systems and financial support systems and decision-making mechanisms may be the answers to conceptualising an alternative future where the focus is on decentralised, and local systems of innovation rather than grand political gestures. These types of systems emerged strongly in South African cities during the covid-19 crisis; many times the first point of call for city migrants is a religious centre, and these played a vital role during the pandemic.

We may apply a different lens and see African cities for what they are: sites of incredible creativity.