The conference »Platform_4« in the Goethe Institute in Lagos, held in the run-up to »documenta,« focused on African »Cities under Siege.«

What does the sentimental picture of the city as civitas that central European urbanists imagine as a sunny piazza for emancipated citizens actually mean? How »normal« is the phantasm of a civilised world, when »civil society« is characterised by informal trade and self-help, or when warlords, homeowners and private companies are in power? In other words, how does the concept of »city« look from the perspective of the Nigerian metropolis Lagos, which, it is said, will probably soon mushroom from its present population of 15 million to 24 million, thus becoming the third largest city in the world?

[b]Afro-Pessimism[/b]

Next to the runway at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, on the way to the preliminary »documenta« conference, lie rusted plane wrecks. »Cities under Siege« is the name of this last »platform« ahead of the »documenta« exhibition in Kassel. The latter's director, Nigerian-born Okwui Enwezor, would like to set up podiums filled predominantly by researchers from Africa to break through the usual pathology of decline that seems irredeemably connected with this continent. Five days long, in the air-conditioned Goethe Institute in Lagos, participants delivered reports on Freetown, Kinshasa, Johannesburg or Addis Ababa. The windows onto the lagoon remained covered for projections.

If you fly over Africa, said urban researcher AbdoulMaliq Simone, you see all sorts of cities that no one seems to talk about. On the other hand, a type of perception left over from the colonial past enshrouds better-known cities, making their everyday life and individual character invisible. To explore this, the CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa) was founded, a network of African researchers who meet up at various conference locations. But the CODESRIA is bursting at the seams, like all other pan-African endeavours so far. The split occurs along the lines of colonial languages (English, French), north and south, Islam and secular state, between emigrants and those who have stayed on.

It is often forgotten what a reasonably functioning normality is in regions that, for various reasons (economic crises, political instability, late effects of colonial exploitation), are not subject to an official order. But what form would a new, non-euphemistic definition of Africa take? The collapse of the infrastructure - according to Enwezor's theory - at the same time, gives scope to experiment and fantasy, provides a test case for social networks. However, the talk given by Jean Omasombo from Congo made it clear that the creative power of informality does not function at all times and places, something he described taking the drastic picture of a bicycle taxi in Kisangani as an example. Here, a passenger wouldn't get out even on a hill, instead insisting that he had paid in advance. Omasombo's description made it clear that an emergency economy needs a functioning sociality and inner solidarity if it is not to fail.

[b]»Bar Beach« platform[/b]

AbdoulMaliq Simone was surprised how the talks at the conference differed from the conversations at the bar that followed. So we visited another platform: namely, Sammy's on Bar Beach, from whose roof the overmodulated mixture of Missy Elliot and Oriental Disco went up to join the sheet lightning in the sky. The bloodcurdling loudspeakers come from the biggest electronics market in the whole of Africa, situated on the fringes of Lagos. Here, bargain-hunters offer left-over stock from all over the world for sale. On Bar Beach, the market stall is mobile. Chocolate bars and cigarettes are sold by the light of a torch from a handy cardboard case. Women act as waitresses or wait as sex workers on the beach. In the hotel, as well, computer students sit together, chat with one another or escort businesspeople; here, it is difficult to distinguish between a sex job and a night out.

We should have been here four years ago, says Netherlands architect Rem Koolhaas; in those days, the chaos hadn't been used up. But now, he says, a process of »gentrification« is taking place in the megalopolis. Koolhaas, a former »documenta« participant, has spent two months here altogether. With his colleague Edgar Cleijne, he strolls on Prada soles through the markets, accumulating piles of notes, digital images, video cassettes, and literature in a plastic bag. What does the cover of a Nigerian magazine say about the [i]zeitgeist[/i] of the post-colonial euphoria forty years ago? And what patterns of movement can I perceive in an aerial photo of informal markets, taken from the president's helicopter. In his study, scheduled to come out in autumn, Koolhaas praises the efficient and globally orientated informality of the markets, but also the African development of a modernity influenced by eastern European architects, for which many shiploads of concrete were brought in in the seventies. He calls the monumental National Theatre building a »fusion of Africa and modernity through Bulgarian eyes.« However, in his talk he does not mention that the African mosaics there were only put in after protests by local artists, as was noted later by a guest. Resistance and conflict seem absent in Koolhaas's evolutionary history of architecture.

[b]Go slow[/b]

Traffic in Lagos means »go slow.« As soon as the minibuses stop or the roadway gets narrow, »flying vendors« hurry over and produce a further traffic jam that is most favourable to sales. The highly efficient minibuses transport people from place to place both in the city and beyond the country's borders. Everywhere, there are imported cars with Swiss stickers, Spar advertising, Dutch writing. Import, repairs, dealing, driving, collecting money, and refuelling create employment and income. An open pipeline at a bridge serves as an unofficial petrol station. Identification with the city is very pragmatic: Make the money and run. How do people feel as Lagocians when they live up to 50 kilometres and hours apart in go-slow tempo? When we got caught in yet another traffic jam, the cars drove the exhaust fumes before them like clouds of dust or rain showers. No one lives to be old here.

And what is done with the »area boys,« these young petty criminals? They are appointed to the environment watch and made to do weeding, prune bushes and plant borders. As a result of their being put in the city's employ, Lagos in many places resembles a garden paradise. None of the squares is a piazza, but the street is a market and the stall a home. Even the railway lines are occupied. The permanence of the market, where people obviously even spend the night, makes any distinction between private and public seem absurd.

[b]Welcome to Nigeria[/b]

This city welcomes you not with crime and chaos, but with open arms. When you stroll through the omnipresent markets, you hear the well-meant call of »Whitey, Whitey,« accompanied by hissing, waves and »Welcome to Nigeria.« In Lagos, at the gateway for the Lufthansa return flight, a man in a summer shirt and tie stands checking people's papers. For two years now, the German Federal Border Guard has been checking in advance whether someone has got hold of informal papers and can now be classified as illegal. The whole procedure takes place once more at the exit onto the runway in Frankfurt airport, this time carried out by uniformed officials. When they don't check me, I ask whether I'm not black enough. »Don't be racist,« is the border guard's paradoxical answer. Welcome to Germany, return Deportation Class.

 

Translated by Tim Jones

 

---