ROUTLEDGE NEW YORK

LONDON

To the Eriman People's Libaation Front and m al1hose who, sacdcingüfe andiimb, have fought forand are still fightingfor the complete emancipat i a of the A t Í i m conruicnt. It is in light of their cnduranceand saai6cc that o u r i n t e l l d effom have any scnse or muning.

Published in 1994 by Routlcdge 29 Wcst 35 S m New York, NY 10001 Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fcmr h e London EC4P 4EE Copyright Q 1994 by Tsenay Serequeberhan Printed in the United States of America on acid free papcr.

AU rights reserved. No part of this book may be printcd or nproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or 0th- mcans, now known or hereafter invented, induding photocopying and recordin& or in any infomation storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging in Pnblication Data Serequeberhan, Tsenay, 1952The hermeneutics of African philosophy :horizon and discourse I Tsenay Serequeberhan. p. an. Indudes bibliographical referenccs and index. lSBN 0415-90801-9 ISBN 0415-90802-7 (pbk.) 1. Philosophy, African. 2. Hermeneutics. 1. Title. BS315.H36S47 1994 199'.&dc20 93-40156 CIP British Library Cataloguing infomation also available.

Tbis book S¡ aiso dcdicatcd m dic kind munory of my fathet Smquebuhan Gebragi and to my two som, Nesim-Neme= and Awate-Hayct-to thc nagic past and the hopehil Lture.

Contents

Acknowledgmencs Introduction: Philoso~hyin the Present Contutt of Africa 1.

Philosophy and Post-colonial Aíriui: Historicity and Thought

2. African Philosophy: Horizon and Diourse 3. Colonialism and the Colonued: Violence and

Counter-violencc 4. The Libuation Sauggie: Existente and Historicity

Conclusion: Africa in the Present Context of Philosophy Nom Index

Acknowledgments

For unmding discussions and enduring conaibutions not only to

thii study but to my intcllcnial development as a whole, 1m u l d like to express my gratitude M my wife and friend Nuhad Jamal. Without her assistance this bwk might never have seen the light of day. For her unfailingencouragement, confidente, and a f e of moral example and suppon, my gratitudeto my rnother Assegedctch Aradom. 1 also would like to acknowledge my friend Michael Ghebreab for long discussionscentered on questions of African freedom and on our beloved homeland, Eriuea. Thii bwk, or more accurately,most of the t h i i g a n d rescarch that ~ 0 n S t i ~its t cbasic ~ mre, was the main diunk of my Ph.D. disscrtation defended at Boston College in 1988. 1 thurfore wish to express my thanks to my mentor, Professor Oliva B h c h e m and to my two other readers, Professor William J. Richardson, S. J., and Profcssar Paul Breines. 1am most grateful for the confidente and patience they showed me. Vihiie ir is not possible to thank everyone who has, in one way or another, assisted me in the writing of this book, 1 would iike to tbank Thomas McCarthy, Roben Gooding-WiKi, Luaus Outlaw, Anthony Appiah, James Bohmann, and Reinhard Sander for helping in many and different ways.

...

independencc haa bem turneti inm a cage, with people looking at us from oumide the bars, sometimes with chantablc compassion, sometimes with g l a and delight. -Pamce Lumumba From Lumumba's last letter to his wife, Decanbu 1960

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lntrodudion

Philoso~hyin the Present Context

of Africa

For the whole universe is interconnected; if something is distorted, the other things connected with it suffer. -Wolda Heywaf Sixteenth-century Abyssinian philosopher

The title: The Hmeneutics of Afncan Philacophy: Horizon and Discourde, undustood in i a most liarai and abstract sense, points m h e interpretative character of contemporary African philosophy. In and of itself thk snys vuy little, insofar as phiiosophy is @sofa& a speciñcdculation of thc inhcrently interpretativecharacterof hurnan existence as such. Thus in rhis introduaion, as in the smdy as a whole, 1 wül progressively conaetizc and theoretically enunciate the sense and charactez of thii dry and absrract title. As is well hown the a n n "hermcneutia" derives from the name Henncs, the messcngcr-interpreter god of ancient Hellru. Just as Hermes rcndered and translatcd the messagcs of the gods, so too philosophicai hermeneuticsengages the sense of our morrality interior to the ümia and possibilities of this mortality iaelf. As Gilgamesh o€ old discovered to his dismay, it is within diese finite l i a that the possibilities of human tife are arpbred and appropriated.' Thus, from within the ümia o€ this livcd h i t d e , philosophical hermeneutia explores the possibilitiesof mortal existence. In so doing it appropnatcs the anaent rmth of myth long lost to philosophy since rhe days of Plato? Wirhin &e d i ~ o u n eof contemporuy philwpby, chis is the basic direction and saisibility o£thought opened up by Martin Hcidegger's

qeingand Time (1927) and further explored andpropounded by HansGeorg Gadamer's Tmth and Method (1960)-the two most important figures and documents of contemporary philosophical bermeneuhcs. To organically appropriate and indigenize this existentially aware philosophic thesis from within the concrete historicity of post-colonial Africa is the basic task of this study. The axiomatic point of departure for this effort is the view, first articulated by Heidegger and further developed by Gadamer, that philosophy-as, strictly speaking, with al1 things human-is an inherently interpretative undertaking grounded in the mortal existentiality of human existence. In this context horizon is the lived back-ground against which the discourse of philosophy is fore-grounded. Philosophy always presupposes and grounds its reflexive and reflective diicounein and on the actuality of a lived historico-cultural and political milieu-a specific horizon. Thus, the "hermeneutics of African phiiosophy" refers to the interpretative and rdexive presuppositional reflections grounded ui and on the actuality of our post-colonial present. To say something about the "hermeneutics of African philosophy," one at least has to explore how this discursive practice establishes itself within the horizon of post-colonial Africa. In this study, my efforts are mainly directed at doing precisely this: showing how, in progressively more concreteterms, African philosophy-even when its protagonists are not aware of it-is inherently, and cannot but be, a hermeneutic undertaking. In so doing, 1will contributemy own interpretative elucidations of and to this discourse. Properly speaking, philosophy has the peculiar charactcristic of always being implicated in its own conceptions and formulations. Whether it knows it or not, philosophy, like the proverbial spider, always spins the thread of its web out of itself. It forgets this at its own peril, at the risk of being snared by iu own mesh. Thus, as Drew is in pan about Hyland reminds us, "every philosophic speech the nature of philosophy."3 FuUy cognizant of and starting from this inescapable and krtile hermeneutic insight, what 1 hope to do is to explore the lived hermeneuticity or interpretativecharacter of African phiiosophy in terms of the dishna concems of our post-colonial present. By way of an introduction then, let me begin by looking at the thematic actualiíy of contemporary African philosophic discourse: a disnwive actuality that originates in Europuui dfotts to bener and more properly colonize Africa, both physically and spiritually.

...

Stfrom the mid- and late 19409, provoked by Father Plaadc Temples's book B a w Phikophy-pubüshed in Frcnch in 1945 and in English in 1959-then has bcen taik of African philosophy. As Henry Odua Omka has observed, discussionof and on African phiiosophy in the 1960s was dominad by the work of thii Belgian priest and his "pious' African dkiples. The present prolonged and ongoing debate in and on rhe status, nanue, and indeed thc very possibiüity of African phiiosophy dates back to the early 1970s, when challcnges to thc cthnographicand documentary hegcmony of Temples, John Mbiti, and o t h m began to be registered.' The pmcnce or abxnce of philosophy in some *honot¡fic" sense has been taken thus far by both sides of the debate as a subst?ntiation or defaultof the humaniq of African uristence. In all of this, "philosoohv" . is taatly and surreptitiody (i.e., without even the bendit of an argummt) p~vilcgcdas &e tm measurc and standard of the humanity of the humanar sub. Alona with this covert privileging of philosophy one also únds an obscure &d mther cniPitic d&h of contendiag political agendas-agendas which, iíuthecmon, haw not been, evm to thunselves and in al1 thcir consequcnccs, expiiatly declared or cvm articuiated. As Luaus Outlaw asnitely observes, this overt and rather protra~ted "scemingly" didplinary-meuiodologicaldisputeis grounded on much more substantive and rather cryptic political and philosophic issues. These iasues originatein the interna1seU-implosionof Eumuntric and logounrric phiosophic thougbt, which is constitutive of and interior to European modernity, and on the onslaught of an African philosophic discourse aimed at redecming thc humanity of the human in colonized African cxismice? In a nutshell, this is the existential and thcmatic acntaUrp of African philosophic thought m the iast quattet of the m t i e t h ceaniry. To explore Ni situatedness in the concrete is the expliat hcrmaieutic task of this snidy. in accomplishingthis, we will sce that phiiosophy, African or otherwise, is a situad critica1 and systematicinterpretative exploration of our lived historico-nild acntality. in this rcgard it is a radically presuppositiod and rcfluive ~ ~ ~ U I SinCout . case, ir is a criticd and systematk dkction on thc lived antuxdcnts of contemporiry Aíhcan exinencc and thought. This hirrhumon is m it should be, sin- the questionllig of iti

.

own groundedness and originative horizon is a concern proper m and constitutive of philosophic discourse in its very nature. As Heidegger puts it: Reflection [¡.e., philasophyl is the courage m d e the mnh of our own presuppositions and thc realm of our own goals inm the things that most desuve to be caiied in q~cstion.~

%

Tbat Heidegger hiinselfdne of the pillars of twmtieth-ccntury European thought-failed to actualize the veraaty of the above statement in hiis own actions and political involvunents does not in any way detran from the uuth of the statement itself. Rather, it saya somtthing quite odious of the political pet3OM of Heidegger and of the political and historico-cultural horizon of the Europe within and out of which he philosoph'ized. The above cannot be emphasized enough for our purposea, since we are not in any way implicated or comected 6 t h Heidegger's Eurocentric and Ger-manic political horizon and, in fact, are vehemently opposed to it by the very nature of our hermeneutic projen. Thus, al1 we need to do is to note this central differenm and appropriate out of the concrete actuaiity of our African situatedness "the courage to make the truth of our own presuppositions and the realm of our own goals into the things that most deserve m be cded in question." This then is the self-assigned hermeneunc task of this study. In this introduction 1 wiU preliminaray explore this project and in so doing map out the way that is here bnng outiined within the larger framework of contemporary African philosophic thought. Thus 1will articulate, not only a theoretic position but also and necessariiy the political and practical implications of this position. For political "neutrality" in philosophy, as in most 0th- thiigs, is at best a "harmless" naivet6, and at worst a pernicious subterfuge for hidden agendas.

The texts presently constituting African phiiosophy have a rather equivoca1 orientation. These texts focus either on documenting the world-views (Le., tbe "iived" but non-articulated philosophies) of etbnic Africans or on philosophically engaging African problems and concerns. The theoretic hesitation unbodied in this equivocation has been the point of contention around which the debate in cantemporary

African philosophy has unfolded thw far. Ncediesr m say, this "either/ or" is mt &ed or insaibed Ui the heavcns but, thus far, this is how the debate has dmloped. Fmm the ou- it is important to note that the innocuous simpliaty of this hesitation h& a bundle of matious and enigmatic political and philosophic wnms. This indecision vacülates amund the central-theomic and practical-question reguding the basic charactcr of collremporaryAfneaa philosophicwork: 1s it to be an ethnographic and antiquarian documentation of ethaic African world-views, or a systemicphilosophic cxploration of thc pmblans and conderiving úom thc history and concrete actuality of p-t-day Afnca? In the wo& of Kwasi Wdu,we k v 6 on rhc one hand, a 'semianrhropologifal paraphrase of African uaditionnl belids."' In stark distinaionto thia antiquníipnism,whicb Pauün Hountondji has derogatody labeleti 'Ethnophilosophy," we have, on the other hand, the views of: Windu, Hountondji, Pcter Bodunrin, and Heruy Odera Oruka-the s e l f - d e s i schoolof hfessional Phiiofophy-whidi, in so many words, ppse a Use and b h d dichotomy between a supposedly 'mic univmalistic" philosophy and the "dturaUy partinilaristic" indigenous thought of traditional Africa.' In thii view, Africa has thw far "innocently" been either prephilosophical or nonphilosophifal. T h m authors who consciously label their p i t i o n the "school of Professianal Philosophy," with the cxaption of Oruka, see themselves as among the earliest pioncers of Afncan philosophic thoughr. in this rather gratuitously self-flattering peíspective, African phiilosophy is menly a "geographic designationn9whidi, pmperly spePl
It is reverent in that it is radically open and susceptible to that which is preserved in its own cultural heritage. On theother hand, it is u i t i d of tradition to the extent that the cultural elements that have been presewed in it have ossiiied and are a concrete hiiderance to the requirements of contemporary existence. l ñ i s fruitful tension between esteem and criticism, when properly cultivated, constitutes the critical cutting edge of African philosophical hermeneutics. In chis respect, Kwame Gyekye's distinction and canecption of "uaditional African philosophy" and "modem [or, more amirately, contemporq] African philosophyn-in which the lamer is candtuted by its critical relation to the former, in terms and in the context of contemporary problems and concerns-is v n y insightful." Por 1116mately, as Gyekye correctly points out, "philosophy is essentialiy a l and tradition cultural phenomenon; it is part of the c d t ~ u aexpecience of a people."'3 For us contemporary Africans, this "cuitural cxperience" is marked and, in fundamental ways saiaured by our expenence of and conkontation with colonialism and neomlonialism. Thus, as Okere has dwnonstrated. in terms of the ~historidtv -~ ... ,-of -~ u r o ~ e thought an and the contempo& discourse of African philosophy, the hermeneutics of African philosophy or African philosophical hermeneuucs sees itself, on the leve1 of theory, as the critical-reamive appropriation and continuation of Aff~canemanapatory hopes and aspirations." As Frantz Fanon pointedly obsewed in 1955 in the context of hii native Martinique, the concrete political process of anticotonial confrontation and political emancipation is a "metaphysical e~~erience."'~ It is the lived historicity of this 'metaphysical experience" that the hermeneutics of contemporary African philosophy makes the object of its reflexive discourse. Thii is also what Amilcar Cabra1 refers to as the "return to the s~urce"'~ in and out of the lived context of the African liberation struggle. From what has been said thus far then, the locus of philosophic retlection and reflexivity is the concrete actuality and the phenomenal hiioricity of lived existence. In contrast, what is unacceptahle in both of the previous perspectives is that, in a strange sort of way, the seemingly contrary positions of Ethnophilosophy and Professional Phiiosophy implicitly share the "prejudice that views Africa as primitive and with a purely mythical mentality."" On the one hand, Ethnophiiosophy does so by inadvertently valorizing essentialist stereotypical notions of Africa and Africans. The best example of this is Leopold Sedar Senghor's oft quoted rernark-a standard of Ethnophilosophy-that "reason is hellenic and emotion is negro.'" Professional Philosophy, on the other hand, is --

implicared in the "prejudice that views Afnca as primitive" by universalizing, as ontologicallynormative, the specific metaphysical singuiarity of ~ u r o ~ e amodunity. n Regarding both of these seemingiy "conuary" and equally unpalatable positions Marcien Towa witcs: The durgec to w h i A ú b n p h ' i p h y is currmtly ex+ is that of a reai blockagc. The ethnophilosophus saive to ocdudc and replace ir with lhQr eonecnled aedo. [Onthc other hand] . .scientias [¡.e., s a a d s t i d y auented philoropbcnl and e p ~ L @ ~ dismiss it ovedy in thc name of scimce or the commenrnry on saence."

.

He furthcr notes that:

nie cutmt of diought rcprcsented by P. Hounmnd')i Dr., Pri,fessional Philmphy] daea not ocdude %can thought, it openly exdudes it, m the name of sciatificity, as not in the least pcctinmr.m -

~

~

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~

Bryond thi double 'blockage" by ocdusion (Ethnophilosophy) and exclusion (ProfessionalPhilosophy)contemporary African philosophy is c o n d y oriented toward thinking the problems and concems rhat atise fmm the lived actuality of post-colonial 'independent" Africa. 'iñus, &e s i ~ a t e dhistoriaty out of which it is b e i g secretcd is the essential object of its own retlexive and reflective conanis. As Towa correaly points out, phiiosophy is: 'Iñc thought ofthecsamtiol,thc methodical andcriticalexamination

of that whidi, in the theomicnl ordu ot in the practica1 ordet, hns.or should bave for humaniy a supremc importancc. Sudi is philosophy in its abstraa and enurely general essmce?' The geaerality of this essence is speaficd by the differentiated pammlarity-culturai, hiitorical, and political-within which a philosophic diseourse is anidated. Philosophic discourse secures its wncems by systematically anidating the issues and probing the questions of its lived horizon. It is this situatedness itself which serves as its horizon, in and on which it is foregrounded as a discoutse on its own levd of theoretic absuaction. Phiiosophicretlection is thus a grasping and ucploring of grounding conaimed at the enhnnment, perpetuation, or critique of its own lived aauality. In othct words, and quite precisely:

one has to see that any particular phümphy is dways elaborated by philosophtrswho are not themsdvca abskactionq but are bcings of flesh and booes who bclong to a wntincnt, m a particular cuihue, and to a s p d c períod for a particular philosophcr to really philosophize is necessarily m examine in a aitical and methodic manncr the wsential problems of his miiieu and of his puiod. He will thus elaborate a philosophy that is in an cxpliat or impliat relation with his times and his miiieu.=

...

For us-contemporary Africans-the "timewand the 'milieu" within which thc discourse of African phiisophy is elaborated i8 the actuaüty of our post-colonial enigmatic present. To think the his~ricityand presence of this situatednessrneans m concretely query the conaadictions of our post-colonial and "independcnt" Africa, M canstimte, out of our "essential pmblems," the central and guiding questions of African philosophic thought. In our speciíic political and historic context and beyond the ratha sterile dispute berween Ethnophilosophy and its sacntisticaitics, it is important to note that the concerns of contemporaty African philosophy are focused on the possibiity of overcomingthe misery and political impomice of our present post-colonial situation. The veraaty of this conviction is grounded on the fact that for Afnca and Africans today the question against which life is staked is that of the political, economic, and dturaluristential survival of the wntinent. For ultimately, in the rneasured words of Antonio Gramsa: The philosophy of an historical epoch [Le., in our use, post-aolonid Africa] is . .. nothing othcr than the "history' of that epoch itaclf. .. .Hiscory and philosophy are in this s w u indivisibk: ~ they form a bloc.* Hence, in its impotent acmality, post-colonial Africa poses the challenge of self-transformationand &e concrete acnializationof its prcsent chimerical "indcpendencc." On the leve1 of thought this pus into question the inherited and taken for g a n d self-con&tion of African "Liberationn as the guise and mask of nnxolonialism. It does so, furthermore, in view of the suffering millions that have been victimized by the lived actuality as opposed to the hoped for ideality of an "independent" Africa. It is in tbis pninful gap berween ideality and actuaiity that the hemeneutics of African philoaophy ñnds its source and the locus of im concerns. This is also the gap it hopes to surmount on its own lcvel

of theorctic reflection. As Aim¿ %aire has insightfully obsavcd, "more and more the old négrimde is tuming into a corp~c."~'But the new "n¿grimden is yet to be bom and in this historical intcrlude, African humanity is anxious and does not ñnd i d f at home. It is this felt anwicty, thii absence, this gap betwcen actPurUty and Lfeafiiy which today calls forth and motivates the struggle, at various levels and in diffaing fonns, against -1onialism, and simultaneously, out of the ucigenaes of this struggle, provokes the reflections of African philosophical hcmieneutics. In terma of al1 that ha#been aaid thus far, the diallenge of our postcolonial situation ia grounded in the failed actuaiity of the p m m k of African indepaidence. 1t ir, in the words of Kwame Anthony Appiah, the manifenation of "a fundamentalm o l t against the endlaa miscry of the lnsr t h i y y e a ~ . "Thirty ~ years ago, in the section of Tbe Wrctchcd of tbc Eurth entided "The Pitfalls of National Consciousness," Fanon had acfuntely anticipad the proper analysis for thae decades of acisrcntid misay and political impotaia in üke ~ P D M T , out of the acigcnaes of thc struggle against Portuguese wlonialism, Cabnl, twenty-six years ago, &ed catcgoridy that: We do not & exploimtim or arploimr with the colour of m ' s skina; wc do not want any urploitntion in our aunmes, not even by black peapleU The remedy that both of &ese thinkers suggcst-as appropriate thai as now-out of the speciíiaty of their respective conis that, in Fanon's words, we 'm over a new leaf" and 'work out new wnceptsn" and in so d o i g invent the concrete actuality of our own existente. in t h i i g the his~riatyout of which it is bciig semeted, African philosophy is conaetcly engaged in doing prcQsely thisworking out "new amapts." in rccognizing the simatednas of our own Lived historicity as the proper objccc of rdlection for African philosophic thought, we have actively inheritcd and made our o-within the context of the pment-the u of y a unrealid grounding concuns of thc diswune of the African libcration struggle. To this cxtcnt and speciíifauy, the hermeneutics of contemponry African philosophy or African p h k sophical hermeneutics is a critical appropriation of the emancipamry possibiliti~of thL discoune. Let me d u d e thia inaoduction, then, by very briefly o u t l i g the thematic structwe and expositionallayout of thii study as a whole.

Chapter 1examines the groundingrelation that philosophic thought has with the actuaLty out of which it is artídated. This question is explored in terms of the theorcric and lived rcality out of which the retlections of African philosophic thought are produced. Chapter 2, by way of further substantiating this point, explores the thematic connection of the discourse of the M c a n liberation struggle to the contemporary discussions in &can philoaophy. The chapter presenta a critical discussion and a critique of M c a n philosophy which is focused on its thematic ünka to the failings and thmretic shonwmings of the discourse of the A f n w liberation strugglc Thus these first two chapters critidy explore the mediated and mediating refiexive role of African philosophy in and out of the conof its own lived situatedness. In this rcgard they are an attcstation to the lived hermeneuticity of the contemporary discourse of African philosophy. Chapter 3 examines the dialectic of colonialist violence and the emancipatory counter-violena it evokes and the vital rale played by this process in terminating not only the physical but the culturalexistential presence of the colonizer in the colonized. The central concem of this chapter is to show that violence has an indispensable and saucturing function in both the pmcess of casting the colonizer and the colonized and in the contrary effort aimed at molding the humanity of the human in the colonized and, no les, in the colonlzcr. Chapter 4 examines the process by which the AfRcan liberation struggle, both against colonialism and neocolonialism, is a worlddisdosing phenomenon that offers the possibility of conaetely redaiming and establishing the histoncity of African cxiwnce in the contemporary world. It is an ucploration of the c o n M process by which the Bemg (i.e., the freedom) of African existcna (ir., its historieity) can be redaimed and established annv out of the cxigenaes of the present. Thus these last two chapters are humeneutic elucidations of the possibility of African freedom that take theu point of departure from positive aspects of the African liberation suqgle. Specifically, hese chapters are grounded on the seminal and hermeneutically insighthil works of Frantz Fanon and A m i l a Cabrd. The effort of &ese last two chapters is not merely to restate ideas, but to tbhk further the concems incamated in these ideas by aitically and edectically pressing

into service, for this purpose, insights derived and culled from the European philosophic tradition. The reader should thus not be surprised to find, throughout thii study, positive refcrences and appropriationq as well as critical reiections of the Eumpean philosophic tradition. For ultimately, as Come1 West corredy points out, this obsessive (Afrocenmc?)effort to bracket Europe at al1 costs is itself &e product of ouc encounter with and interiority to E ~ r o ~ To e ? be ~ a Westernized African in today's postcolonial Africa means ultimately to be markedhranded-in one way or another-by the histoical urperience of Europcan colonialism. We should not uy m 'hide" from this aü ptrvasive element of our modtrn Afcican historiaty. Rathet., our efforts m surmount ir must begin by facing up to and confronting this enigmatic actuality. Thii &en is the hermeneutic task of thii study, for ultimately the antidote is always locami in the poisonl ln all of this, followingFanon and Cabral, 1take my methodologieal cue from the "various attitudes that &e Negro [African] adopts in contact with whitc civiliati~n."~ Thus, in sum, the phaiomenality of African cxistaice rnarkal by colonialism and bludgeod by neocoloniaiism is the central fofus of my hermcneutical cxplorations. It is not, howevcr, the lived psychopathology of &e enwunvrs but the emancipamry possibiliti~inscribed in them that is my main concem. The conclusion will thus prrtent, as its titie niggesu, the obverse of this introductíon. It wül bridly state, in vi- of the terrain o€ connmporary philoaophy, the destru~~rllig possibdities of A.w philosophic thought. For to effectively be a hcxmncutic suppl-t w the cnduring effom against colonialiim and neocolonialism is, simultaneously, to engage in the systematicenlargemuirand wmpbunding of the fissures and contradictions inmior to the Eumccntric and univeraalistic tracütion of Westem mctaphysi~s.'~After all, when aü is said and done, this is the lived heritage which bumessed and g m &cal and mctaphysical endorsement to the ucpansionist advenhus of a colonialit Europe.

Philosophy and Post-colonial Africa Historicity and Thought

For one thing, nothing could be done without friends and loyal companions, and such men were not easy to find ready at hand, since our city wos no longer administered according to the standards and pmctices of our fothers. -Plato Leíier VII, 325d

'

For us, contemporary Afrieans, thc condition that has resultedfrom the colonial obliteration of the "standards and practices of our fa&m,' to use Plato's words, and the consequent neocolonial inermess of our contemporary situation is the nccessary point of departure for any warthwhile or meaningful phiiosophic engagmient. Thus, the closing yean o€the twentieth ccntury are bound to be for Afnca and Afncans a time of prolongcd, decp rctlection and self-examination. Having achieved political 'indcpcndence," for the most pan, we now need to take stock of the victorica, defcpts, and compromises that constinitc and infom our enigmatic p-t The conccrn with ihii fclt and lived situation seems to be the ccntral focus of postalonial African literature and inteuecnial work as a whole. In faa, contemporary dnielopmentsin African philoaophy are themselves interior to this i n t e l l d productivity and ocaipy a place of fundpmental importan= in it' Howwer, what has been said thus far norwithstanding, Marcien Towa has corrcctly observed that Africi will no
14/ Philorophy ond Post-colonial A f r h

Philosophy ond Postdonial AfrkallS

a profound thinking of its esaential pmblems, that is to say, to philosophical refiection.'

regarding the promise and thc actuaiity of the immediatepost-colonial African situation.' For as Enrique Dussel points out:

In endorsing Towa's observation, we impose on ourselvesthe responsibility of properly articulating what these "essential problems" might be and of spelling out the role of "philosophical reflection" in the situation of the present. It was in the guise of introduang the "maturity" of the modern age that European colonialism imposed on Africa its present subordinate status. Thus, to be able to transand thk deplorable situation we contemporary Africans need to mnfront the question of our "maturity" at its most fundamental level-on the plane of philosophic reflection. In this initial chapter, 1 will articulate the situated historicity of contemporary African philosophy as the critica1 self-reflection of a concrete totality: post-colonial Africa. In doing so, 1 will establish the parameters within which, in my view, A& can "elevate itself resolutely to a profound thinking of its essential problems." It is only thus that it can self-consciouslyconfront the question of its historie, cultural, political, and economic subordinate status or "manuity' imposed on it by colonialism, which to this day defines, in all spheres of life, the situation of the present.

As far back as 1958, Frantz Fanon had correctlypointedout, without the benefit of hiidsight and úom within the lived actuality of the African liberation struggle, that Tbc twentieth century, when the futurelook~~ b a d o n l y be remembered as the era of atomic discovcrics and interplannary explorations. The second upheaval of this period, unquestionably, is the conquest by the peoples of the lands that belong to them.'

But the future will also note-as we do today in the last decade of the twentieth centuq-that the "mnquest by the peoples of the lands that belong to themn was a much more mmplicated and protracted struggle than it first appeared to be.' When "the future looks back on itWthat is, on Fanon's present and out (1990s) immediate post-colonial past-it wiU register a rather harsh disillusionmmt and disappointment

heroa of neocolonial cmancipation worked in an ambiguous political sphm. Mahamu Gandhi in India, Abdcl Namr in Egypt, and Paaioc Lumumba in the Congo drram of emanapation but are not aware that their nations will [soon] pass k m thc han& of England, France, or Belgium into the hands of ?he UMted Statcs!

'he

Today, in the last decade of the twentieth cenhiry, the United States is the dominant supapower and the harbinger of a 'new world order' dominated by the West ( i t , NATO).' In fa*, paraphrasing Lmin and Nknimah, one could describe this 'new world order* as the latest, if not the highest, stage of neocolonialism in which thc United Statcs, undcr the guise of the United Nations, niles the world, and sman bombs enfom "international law." In thii context, the prolongntion of existhg socieeconomicsauctures and world relatio~hips,daiving as thae do from the colonial pcriod and the world capMist smcnue, must ineviably, without a change, produce in Mnca a vast intcmational slum.'

In fact, the 1970s and thc 1980s have already been for Africa a period of "endemic faminen9orchesaated by the criminal incompemice and political subsmience of African governments-m European, North Amuican, and Soviet interesa. Tbus, irony of ironics, the offiaal inheritors of the legaq o£the Afncan libcration saiggle today preside over-or, more appropriately, dicta-the neocolonial demise of the continent. This is the paradox and 'dark" enigma of contemporary Africa. It is appropriate then for the dosing decade of the twentieth century to be a period of introspection and self-examination. For the naive mid-cenhuy euphoria of "liberationn and "freedomn has a m e to naught. It has been callously dashed onthe hiimrically languidviolence o£ neocolonialism. These very terms, "liherationn and "freedom"the proud, clear, and popular slogansof yesterday's anti-colonial struggle-are mday's opaque, obscure, and ambiguous enigma. In the midst of famine, politicai terror, Weatcrn or Eastcrn ("demomticn or 'socialist," as the case may be) müitary intccventions, "liberation' and "fresdom" have become the wods with which Occidentalpowa impc riously p d a h i e military might and politiul preuninencc.

.

16/ Philosaphy ond Po*-coloniol Airica

Phaomphy and Pod-caWiIA f h 117

In conuast to the recent past (i.e., the period of armed anti-colonial liberation stmggles), mday it is in &ese very temis that post-colonial "independent" Africa misunderstands itsdf. What seemed m be dear and unambiguoushas become o b s c u ~and opaque. Thus the lethargic inertness of neocolonialism passes for the acniality of "fmdom" and "liberation." To explore and decipher the sourceof this vucing Umisunderstanding" is the proper task of contemporary African phüosophy. For it is only by chauenging and contcsting this situation at its source that Africa can put behind it the subordinate status imposed on it by European colonialism and perpetuared by neocolonialism. As Wans-Georg Gadamer, the father of contemporary philosophical hermeneutics puts it, it is precisely this negative situationof 'misunderstandinf and the estrangement of meaning within the lived contart of a tradition (i.e., a speciñc historicalness) which is &e originative moment of hermeneutics as a particular philosophic orientation. For Gadamer, "understanding becomes a s p h l taskonly when misunderstandings have arisen."" What Gadamer is here enunaating is the groundiig insight of the tradition of philosophical hmeneutics within which he operates." This insight is an old, ewn if at tima neglectcd, truth of philosophy that is abundantly epitomized in the originative moments of Plato's dialogues (which occupy a central paradigmatic place in Gadamer's work) and is categorically affirmed by Hegel when he writes that: "Diremption is the source of the need forphil~sophy."~~ In our case, the veracity of the above is codrmed by the indisputable historical and violent diremption effected by colonialism and the continued "misunderscanding" of our situation perpetuared by neocolonialism which calls forth and provokes thought in post-colonial Africa." It is in this regard, then, that the propu task of philosophy in Africa is that of systematically daborating a radical hermeneutics of the contemporary African situation. Having asserted the central and deíining claim of this study, we now have to confront Gadamer's strong reservations on this point and the rather contcntious r e m k s of the African historian and philosopber Emest Wamba-Dia-Wamba.

...

Gadamer forcefully affirms that 'hermeneutics has [now] become fashionable and every interpretation [today, 19771 wants m cal1 itself 'hermeneutical.' "" On the other hand, Wamba rheroricaUy asks, almost a decade later, in 1983: Why is hermeneutics "understood by

our Africanphilosophers" as the correct response "to the phiiosophical quation in Africa?"" From these remarks, espeaally from Wamba's obsewations, we can surmise that a hermeneutical orientation, br better or for worse, has already taken root within the indigenous soil of thc discome of contanporary African p h i l o s ~ ~ h ~ . ' ~ The net rhmrical effett of these strong remarks, however (exprssed, as they are, from within diffuing philosophical paradigms: phiosophid hermeneuticsandan 'Africanid" Marxism-Leninism), is m queaion the validity of the 'nkage" of hemeneutics to African philosophy. G a h e r chacgcs that hermeneutics is now in vogue and points to a faddish fashionablenesswithout substance. Wamba, on the other hand, following hi rhctorieal question and without in any way philmphidly accaunting foc the ideological bent of his own cies m European thought, strongiy suggests that a hermeneutical position in African philosophy la& 'authcntiaty" and does not escape neowlonialism: European tutelage in the realm of theory. The validity-both phiosophic m d political-of the 'link" bemeen hermeneuticsand African phiiosophy is thus in donbt. Given the name of my concems-named by the title: The Hennmcutics of Africlm Philosophy: Horkon aad Discourse-it is necessary and beneñaal in this initial chapter, to begin by presenting a sustained defense against this dwble, if disparate, atta&. in so doing 1wül formulate the q u e tion of hermeneutics (my mponse m Gadamer) and of the hermeneutiaty of contemporary African philosophy (my response to Wamba) by concretdy exploring the way in which phiosophic discome itself originaas k m and is organically liked to the concrete conditionsofuristcnec and the üfe-practices of thc horizon withii and out of which it is formulared.1will also show, in the process of amcularingthe above and in line with my subtide, that this hermeneutical undeaakuig cannot but be a poütically commitred and hismrically specific critical self-refldon that stems fmm the negativity of out post-colonial present.

The hcnneneutiaty of contanporary African phiiosophy-as is the case with the hermeneuticity of phüosophical discourse as such-consiso of the intcrplay of horizon and discoursc. This interplay is growided on the concrete and lived historicalnessof a specific horizon. The tcrms "horizon" and "discoune," are here used in a rather speaal-

18/ Philosophy ond Post-cdonmlAfm.

Philosophy ond Posi-coloniol Aiticall9

ized sense. Horizon designates the historico-hermennitical and politico-cultural miiieu within and out of which specific discourses (philosophic, artistic, scientific, etc.) are articulated. It is the overall existential space within and out of which they occur. Dicourse, on the other hand, refers to these articulated concerns interior to the concrete conditions-of-existence made possible by and interna1 to a specific horizon." The discourse of modern European philosophy, beginning with Descartes, for example, originates in the concerns arising from the hodzon of modern science. Out of these concems, associared with thc names of Galileo and Newton, the discourse of modern philosophy is articulated." It is these concerns that provoked and made possible Kant's Copemican Revolution in philosophy and enshrined the subjectivity of the subject as the originative moment of reflection for modern European thought. In like manner, but within a radicaily different horimn, the philosophic discourses of the sixteenth-cennuy Abyssinian phdosophu Zar'a Ya'aqob and his disaple Walda Heywat are grounded in the iived concerns of their day. Unlike their Empean counterparts, thc Abyssinian thinkers are concerned with questions of piety and the nature of faith in the context of the acure crisis of Abyssinian Christianity, in confrontation with thc subversive work of j d t missionaries and aggressive Catholicism. Religiosity, in its differing and thus bewildering claims, manifestations, and contradictory instantiations, is the singular and deíining concern of Zar'a Ya'aqob's and Walda Heywat's thinking.lP In oui case, on the other hand, it is ndther the thcoreticalexigenas of modern science, nor the crisis of faith in confrontationwith a foreign and aggressive piety that provokes thought. Rather, it is h e poiiticoexistential crisis interior to the honzon of post-colonial Africa which brings forth the concerns and originates the theoretic space for the discourse of contemporary African philosophy. in ea& case then, it is out of the concerns and needs of a speci6c horimn that a particular philosophic discourse is articulated. For as Elungu Pene Elungu p u s it:

zon]" which is "their own cultural [and historical] background."" Elungu and Okere articulate, in slightly differing formulations, the sameinsight: philosophic discouse is a reflexiveand reflective rsponse to the fdt crisis of a lived and concrete horizon. In view of the above then, m interpretatively engage the present situation in terms of what Africa 'has beennn-both in its ambiguous pre-colonial "gratness"" as weU as in its colonial and neocolonial demisc-is the propu hermeneutical task of African philosophical thought. This interpretativeexploration, furthermore, has m be undutaken in view of the future of fmdom toward which Africa aspire* as ucemplified by its undaunred scniggle, and in spite of aU its faiigs, against coloniaiism and neocoloniaüsm. This histotically saturated, explorative self-dedon is thc baoiccharacter of philosophy, whether consciously íe~~gnizcd as sudi or not, and constitutes the explicit sclfawareness of humcneutics as a philosophic orientation." This then is the radical hermeneutic task of contemporary African phdosophy in view of the contradiecory and y a fecund legaq of the African iiberation smig%e. Radical, because snch a task is concerned with exploring and exposing the mt-soof the contradictionsof our paradoxifal present. Hennencutical, because such a grounding exploration cannot but be a consmt and ongoing interpretative and ranterpníative task u n d e d e n in view of the failures and succ&ss of our history as AfRcans in the contemporary world. As Okonda Okolo puts it:

It is often during periods of permrbation rhar the human bang is cailed on to affirm and ar the same time vdfy the unfatbomable depth from w h q e springs his action on the world, on himself and on others.1° in a similar way Theophilus Okere points out that the variow dis-

courses of philosophy are "dictated by the non-philosophy [Le., hori-

The cultural [hismric]memory is ccvclssly renewed retmanively by new dkovaies. Ourpnn, by rnntlliudymodifyingimlf throngh our dkoverin, invitu us m new appmpriations; rhese appmpriations Lad us mward a bam gnsp of our idmtity.2< in thii respect, thm, thc hermeneutical task of conternporary African

phdosophy is itsdf interior to the üved and continuous prof selfunderscanding indigmous to a particular hitoricalness, to a speafic identity. It is thii perpetua1proccss of lived self-understanding, peculiar and interna1 to human e*stence as such, that philosophical hermeneutics consaously articulates and cultivates. Moreover, this is the concrete actualityof the contemporary discourse of African philosopby insofar as it is concerned with overcoming the diremptions and misunderstandiagsof present-dayAfrica-what Wiredu and Hountondjirespectively ism"26refer m as the 'anachronisrnn of our situation and the "foikiorof out theoretic efforts.

20 / Philorophy ond Post-colonial Afico

Philo~phyond Post-colonial A k 121

The fundamental orientation of this iaherently interpretativeundertaking is aimed at disclosing a fume in congntence with the humanity of the human in African existence. But one might and indeed should ask at this point: What exactly does humanity mean in thii contuct? In this regard I take my cue not from Leopold Sedar Scnghor's essentialist humanism of "negroness" (Ndgntude), but from Martin Heidegger's ontological and phmomenological fonnulation (itself the product of a systematic hermeneutic of modern European existence), that 'the substance of man [the human being] is existenyn2' or, put differently, "The 'essence' [Wesen] of this entity Les in its 'to be' [Zu-sein]."" Heidegger's personal political languidity and Euracentric anti-switic racist views notwith~tanding,~ his formulation of the Being (Sejn) of the human being is grounded in the particular ontological speáficity of the temporalizing ecstatic phenomenality of human existen~e.'~To the extent that we recognize both Europe and Africa as sites of human historical becoming, the ontological explorations of the "to be" of human existence, which Heidegger undutakes fmm within the ontic confines of European modernity, can also be posed from within the ontic confines of other cultures and histories." in hii destrucnuingreading of the tradition of European mctaphysics, staaing from the lived ecstatic phenomenality of human life, Heidegger assects-against the ossified and ossifying ontotheological wnceptions of human existen-that human reality (Dasein) is not a present-at-hand substance or entity, but the lived fluidity/actuatity of its own existmce. in thii radical destnictive hemmeutic critique of the metaphysical tradition, Heidegger explores-in Being and Time and in his later works-the "to be" [Zu-sein] of European modernity. Seen from the perspective of Heidegger's Being-question, and the grounding ontic-ontological destrucfivc analysis that derives from it, the modern world is caught in the snare of the Gc-steU (en-fiaming) of modern technology. Thus, the evocations of Heidegger's Beingquestion are aimed at salvaging the "to be" (i.e., the essential nonsubstantial substance) of European modemity fmm the beguili snare of technological catasvophe. To the very end, Heideggcr's efforts were dominated by and directed against this obstinate Ge-stell, and ocicntai toward the striving "to prepare the possibility of a transfonned abode of man in the world."" We too-the ex-colonial subjects of this ensnared and ensnaring Europe-suffer from this Ge-stell. But for us this Siniation of enframing is mediated, instituted, and imposed thmugh the pecaiaunce of neocolonialism as the continued inuusion of European hegemony

in present-day Africa. niis hegcmony-beyond the overt violence of coioniaiismand in a much more eftectivcmanner-instimtes and establishes itself from withii and reproduces and perpemates our subordinate status in the wntcmporary world. Thus, for us to appropnate the "to be" of our hiiricalness means to wnfront European neocolonial subjugation: the politics of economic, cultural, and scientific subordination. The insidious nature of neooolonialism is that it internally repliares-in an indigmous guis-what previously was imposed from the outside by the urdusive and expliat use of violence. In vicw of the above &en, and u d i e Heidegger, for us, the question of our existen* of out 'to be," is an inherently political question. To neglect the politics of chis question, in our case, is to disregard the question itself. For, when we ask or reflect on our own humanity, when we examine the actuality, the "substance of our existence" as human beings, there wc fuid and are wnfronted by an intemalized imperious Europe dominant over the mntradimry remains of our own indigmt and subjccted indiguibusness. It is in this manner that &e Ge-stell of m o d a technology shows itself, and is m d m d in the fom of political domination. As Warnba puts it:

This is why the expatcianpnonnel, from impuiaüst countrk~,are more at enre in thae mtionai [Afriem]mte sm-, functioniag as if they werc made by, md for, that pemnnel, than are the majority of the natives who have m bear [and support] these smictures'nprrssive hiernrdllcdwaght. Inthaeconditions,co be i n t d i pt,rasonabk, donal, civilired, etc, is m be receprive to, rnd m huidon iecordhg m, the Iogic and mtionalirp governhg thae [n«ñ~Ioniai] ani-" pgiwmic obscene duplication of E u r o ~ i Africa n and as Afncp-ri the actual and mnccetc duplifity which negativdy wnstinites and witiveiy saucnues the nonhistoriatyof neocolonialism-its historidstential inermes. In this manna the technoaatic Gc-m11 of European modunitywmpounded by and in the fom of political, eamomic, cultural, and hirtoricai dominan-is impósed on us, the exsolonial subjects of imperial Eutopc. In thc name and in the guise of technologiul and scimtik ' a a s ~ " Eumpe i m p o ~ son un its hegemonic poüticai and culnual control. We are thus afflicted by pmxy. Precisdy for thii

22 / Philosophy ond Post-colonial Afnco

Phiiowphy and Port-coloniol Africa 123

reason, a concrete hermeneutics of the existentialicy of our cxistence, in order to be adequate, has to confront the aeniaüty of our present. For the "veracity" of tbis present is the historical dupliuty of neocolonialism, which is lived and concretely actualized in and through our e~istence.~ In this context the culture of the former colonial power is the ground and the accepted source of hegcmonic cultural, tedinicaleconomic, and historico-political dominante. This is the historical and cultural estrangement, intemal to our situation, that Fanon systematicaiiyinspected as early as 1952in B k k Skin, White Masks. It is the estranged and estranging tragic legacy of the European "civilizing missionn to the world. As Basil Davidson points out, the African anti-colonial struggle did not only expel the physical presence of colonialism, but it also put in

oniy by humeneutieally plowing (¡.e., turning over) and r a d i d y subvutine the theoraic wacc of the post-colonial African simarian, with the c o k c t e historicit; of o u r o G most distinctiveexistential actuaiicy that African phiüaaophic rctlection can be pan of thc praaical and theorcticeffon aimed at conaetely redaiming the freedom and actuality of the continat. In the words of Antonio Gramsu:

question the smoothly borrowed assumptionsof thc add hybrids [¡.c., Europeanized Africans] about the opposition of 'European dvilization" to "African barbarism.'" Indeed, beyond the physical combat to expel coloniaüsm, contemporary Africa finds itself confronted and hhdered, at evuy turn, by that which this mmbat has put in question without fundamentally and decisively eradicating. Thus, present-day African reaiities are constimted partly by the bybrid remnants of the colonial and pre-colonial p a s t a s embodied at every leve1 in the ossified neocolonial instimtional forms of wntunporary Africa and in the pathologically n;gative self-awareness of Europeanized Africans-and partiy by the varied forms of struggle aimed at actualizing the possibility of an autonomous and free Africa in the wntext of the wntemporary world. Thesc struggles, hirthermore, are not homogenous in their ideologicalor theoretic orimtation. Along with the Africanist essentialismof Smghor, we have Nkrumah's Marxism-Leninism, as weU as the historically and hemmeutially astute theoretic perspectives articulated by Fanon and Cabral. A11 this and more is the méiange that constinttes the lived actuality of postcolonial Africa! Broadly speaking &en, thii is the enigmatic and paradoxical inheritance of African "independence": the Siniation of the present. It is the "ambiguous adventuren of Africa that Cheikh Hamidou Kane articuiates so well in his seminal novel of the same title. The inscminative tilling of Africa's "ambiguous adwnture" with the Occident M thus the central concem of contemporay African phiiosophy. It is

Tbe beginning of a &cal claboration is the awarensr oí diat which d y is, that is m say a %nowing of one's self" as a product of the pof histoy that haa utúolded thua hr md which has left in p u m l a M t y of traces m I I d without the bae& of an invenmry. It is necessary UUtiaUy to undcrtake such an invcntory. Noten. Onecannotseparatephilosophyfrom thebiatory of p h ü m phy and culture k m the hiaory of dnue. In a more di- and fitting or proper ou\se, it is not possible m be philophus, dmt ir, m have a aiticaüy mhmnt conaption of the wodd, without a oonseiousners of its histwiaty, of the phlse of devclopmat reprc oented by ic nnd of che fan that it is in conuadiction with other conceptions or with dunmts of other conccpti~ns?~ In this rcgard, Añican phüosophy can be true to its own historicitythe historicalness of conumporary Africa out of wbich ic is b e i g secrcted and spun-by concretely exploring and wnfronting the 'infinity of traces" lek by colonialism and the mduring rernains of the pn-colonial past. It is, in this manner, a "knowing of one's self" and an explorative "inventory" aimed at appropriating that which is possible in the context of a specific history. As Gramsu pum it, 'phiiosophy is the critique and the surpassing [nrpcrmmto, Le., thc Hegelian notion of sublation] of reügion and of common sense and in this way it coincides with 'good sense' [buon s m o ] which is co~ntetpoisodtocomaon~nsc."~~~~ ir so,inasmuch as the "religion" of the mass and a historically specific *common sase" are thc dmrally distinctivc self-awareness of a people that s t m ir,~historic and p o l i t i f ~ ~ ~ n o m Urisunce ic i n t e d to its traditions. Phiiosophy is thus this uitical and explorative engagement of one's own cu1turd spdfiaty and lived historicalness. It is a c r i t i d y aware explorative appropriation of our C U ~ N Ipolitical, ~ ~ , and hismrical arisknce. In v i m of &e above, contemporary African phioeophy has to be conceived as a radically originative hermaeutics of the pandoxical

24/ Philosophy and Po&-colonialAfn'm

Philosophy and Pastolonial Afn'ca l l

and yet fecund post-colonial present. It is the ardmt effort to redaim the African experience of Being-the historiaty of the various moda of Afcican existente-frorn within the wotld-historical contací of the present, i.e., the implosion of European modunity. In other wordp, it is an attempt to explore and conaetely reappropriw what this modernity closed off at the dawn of its own originative moment of history: the violent self-inception of its own historical adization." Inthii regard, the herrneneutics of connmporary Afncan philosophy or African philosophicalhermeneutia is a thinking of new b e g h i n a bom out of our enigmatic political Uemancipation*and the historid and political crisis of European modernity-the long-awaited weakming, if not the demise, of our subjugators. As Okolo sagaaowly points out:

and lived conñncs of one's tradition or concrete historicahess, how prccisely d o s the hameneuticaliy oriented phiosopher engage the particular tradition or hiaoricalncss withim which and out of which phiiosophig occurs? In diis regard, in An Introduction m Metaphysics, Hcideggcr wntes:

In Afnca, the interest in hemieneutico also ariaea out o£dK redity of crisis: a gcneralized identity crisis dueto &e prescnec of a a forcign and dominating tradition-and the necessity for a selfaftümation in the f o n s t d o n of an authcntic cnlture and tradition."

In the paragraph that precedes the sentence just quoted, Okolo points out that in Europe, the "birth and current revival of the hermeneutic movement" is linked to crises: "the crisis of sdf-idcntity in Guman romanticisrn," and the "crisis of Europe confrontedwith a technicized [technicisesl world and language," which Heideggw, among othcrs, "felt . . . as the forgetting of Being."" in ea& case then, m d in terms of differing traditions, the herrneneuticiíy of philosophy is grounded on the theoretic effort to reconstnict and appropriatc meaning withii the parameters of a lived inheritance and aadition that has become estranged and crisis prone. in other words, philosophic discourse does not just happen; rather, it is the acticulation of retienive concerns interior to a negativity arising out of the horizon of a spaciac cultural and historical totality within which iris located and framed." For philosophic reflection, the lived lüe concerns of a mime, a history, a tradition, serve as the source and bedrodc on which its own herrneneuticity is grounded. Thus, phiosophic discourse is the rhetorically effective enunciation-the bringing to uttetancbof the historicity of existente out of and within a specific hismficalness. For as Okolo emphatically affirms, ultimateiy, "hermeneutics [philosophy] exists only in particular traditions."" in view of the fact that one dwells and is immured within the bounds

one, the kewhicb ;unply ralres ova a perspcnive into whidi it has hUm, because chis -ve, di¡ iine of sight, prrsma itulf ns wlf-evidcnt.or the intcrprrutionwhich questionstbe - inmiüarand . .---cunomnry pcmpdve mp m boáom, because conceivablyand indeed ~ u d i y h4e of dght does not lead to what is in need of beig seen.'' ~~

from

In other words, the philosopherI'itupretcr who works out of rhe context of the present, as it relates to and arises out of a s p e d c tradition,should not passively adhete to what is given by that tradition. Rather, the relation to tradition is an open-ended encounter in which what is expliatly preserved and impliatly betrayed by tradition is revealed. But how or from what vancage point is the "customary pcrspectiven to be questioned from "top to bottom'? This ia not done shifaly and arbiaarity, nor is ir done by diliging to a Sysnm sei up IU a nom, but in and out of bistoricalneceuiy

(Nokumdigkcit), out of &e nnd (Not) of hiirical being-thcn." It is imperative for us to note that by "hiiorical being-there," Heidegger means the conaete and factual (ontic) situation in which human bcings find themselves (i.e., the actual lived situation of an individual or a group) within thc confine and possibilitie of a specific aadition. In other words, "historical being-there" (i.e., a specific pecson or a historical comniunity of pmons) always becomes what it is by projecting itself out of its effective past, its lived inheritance. Its "destinyn is thus always what comes out of irself, its 'has been," out of the prospea of its hiitory and the possibilitie of its generation. As Okolo wplains, "destiny" is here understmd as the

implacable givm [acniatity] of a people and of an individual, but it b also a task of the túture for a people and br an individual. It is the thrend of tradition and of intcrp~etations.~

26 1Phibophy and Postsdonial AfrKa It is in a constant process of self-interpretationand ongoing re-interpretations that a history, a people (and an individual within the confines of a people and a generation), constitutesitself and proj- its htmre/ destiny-the yet-to-be of its lived presence. Taking Heidegger's Being md Time as his bmchmark, Gadamer refers to the actuality o£"historical behg-there," in its encounter with tradition, as the "effective-historical consciousness." For Gadamer the "effective-historical consciousness" or the hermeneutical encounter with tradition is open to the uadition's claim to mth. In this acounter, traditionlhistory &e., the wrirten or oral pasr) is not muMed but allowed to challenge the cenainties of the present. n i e interprmr or philosopher in this situation-the embodimmt of the 'effcctiwhistorical consciousness"-is in a questioningand yet rrle~seddisposition to that whidi the past holds in its independenceand the autonomy of its possibilities. This openness and willingness to risk the standpoint of the present is the critica1moment and the moment of critique in tbe htrmmeutical uicounter with tradition. The undecided and risky character of the hermeaeuticd situation, furthermore, arises out of the concrete 'nacd [Notl" of the actudity of esuangemat, out of which tradition, as &e historicalness of the present, is explored and engaged." As 1 have already pointed out, for us contemporary Africans, that which impels us to thought is precisely the estranged acniality of ourpresent dcriving from tbe colonial expecience, the specüic particalarhy of our hiitory. Thus, it is in view of the inert presence of neocolonialism-the diremptions and misunderstandings consequent on colonidim-that a radical hemeneutics becomes the proper task of contemporary AfÍican philosophy. It is necessary at this point to confront squarely the huidamental problem of this whole explication: How can one guard against the political dangers latent in an open-endcd and radically interpretative relation with a particular and spccific tradition exdusively guided by thc "need [Notl" of the contemporarymoment of historyl 01as Drew Hyland puts it, how is "the 'ontic' [concrete, political, and historical] question of good and evil" to be settled?" One can only say that it is the "effective-hismry,'" to use Gadamer's term, the history that makes itself felt and saturates the lived presence and acniality o£ the present (in our case, the emanapatory promise and failure of the African liberation suuggle)that acts as the normative standard whicb projects a funire/des&y as the actuaiity of its yet-tobe. This effenive past, this felt presence of history, itself is derived

Philowphy and Post-colonial Afnca 127

fmm and simultancously consti~ttsour hermeneutical appropriation of the heritagc that we project as o w funire. in other words, if "bistorical beii-there" (¡.e., the concretely situated puson in community) projects itself out of its past (i.e., out of that which marks &e prcscnt by its presence whik being appropriated by it as its concraely felt "effedve-history"), it follows that the cmancipatory aspirations of this effcctive past have a dtfining and normatively determining rclation to our f ú ~ r e our , destiay. As Okolo unequivocally points out, our hennninitid oituation ir that of thc brmerly mlonized, thc o p p d that of the ~ m l l o p e dstru&g , for more jus
28 / Philosophy ond Post-colonial Africo

Philorophy and Post-colonial AfrKa 129

our countries we are giving our livcs, in the preaent aontun of international legality, for the ideal which the UN itself has defiaed in its Charter, in its resolutions, and in particular in its molution on demloniaüsation.J3

no one can any longer live by the simple carrying out of what he himself is." in the sunmess of thii global future, however, we the formerly colonited, 'al1 of us, Hindus, Chiicsc, South Americans, Negrocs, Arabs, aü of us, awkward and piaful, we the under-deve\oped, who feel ourselves to be clumsy in a world of perfect mechanical adjustmcnts," have to reclaim and conaetely teiIIstitute the hiitoriaty of our own udstence?' ni¡is the "justicen and 'jusmess" that originates out of the disappointcd possibilitics of our past, from whcncc we projea a future. A future in the unequivocal mgnition of the mulaverse that wnstitutes our-thus far dmied-hiitorical and cultural speaficity (i.c., our humanity) will become the basis for global eanhly mtidafity. Thus, hceding Fanon's insightfd words, we leaw behiid Old Ewpe, with d its uanscmdcncal and empty d e s to "M~II,"'~and with Nicusche we "rnnrrin faithfil to the earth.""

The struggle against neocolonialism is, furtbumore, a continuation and a hermeneutically critical reñning of this emanapatory pra& aimed at autonomy and freedom in fui1 recognition of the diffenng cultural-histoncal totalities that constitute our world. This then is the moment of critique in the hermencutical encounter with tradition and the speciiics of appropriation withii a particular historicalness. In contradistinction to Heidegger then, and with Cabral and Fanon, on an ontic leve1 it is our struggle, grounded in the spccificity of our history, which acts as the normative siwe that stcains, sifts, and negotiates out orientation to the futurc. This does not mean that we ding "to a system set up as a norm,"" nor that we are beguiled by history, wheresoever it might take usl Rathu, in releasing ourselves m the fluidity of our exisrence and of our f u m , in and out of thii fluidity we firmly resolve that the üved "necessity [Notwendigkeit]"" out of which thii h r e is being historiazed will always be r e m a bered. in so doing we persevere and sustain into the hmre the "justia" and the ''justness' of our concrete engagunents. This is how we respond to Hyland's germane question regarding "good and e~il."~' Thus, African philosophy as the hermeneutics of the post-colonial situationis the critical remembrana, itself interior to the lived emancipamry praxis of contemporary Africa, that cultivates, mediates, and revitalizes the origin or the sourcc of this emancipatory praxir as the historicity of its effcctive inheritancc. 1t is thc discounie which concretely evokes and evocatively recalls to this unancipatory tradition the "truth" of its originativedisdosure. Occasionedby thc felt and lived needs of the present, it explores the f u embedded ~ and presvved in the possibilities of the hentage of its own cnduring horizon. In so doing ir explodes the duplicity and steriiity of the neocolonial duplication of European modernity (Le., the en-framing of modem technology) and inaugurates "invention into [contemporary African] exi~tmce."~ As we shall see in chapter 4, this is how the African liberation struggle-as critically epitomized in the thinking of Fanon and Cabral-acnialues the historicity of the colonized in the p m s of thc anti-colonial struggle. in the apt words of Cheikh Hamidou Kane: "Wehave not had &e same past, you and ourselves, but we shall havc, strialy, the same íuture. The era of separate destinieshas run its course

...

The humeneutical oricntation in contanporary African philosophy or African philosophifalhermaieutics is thus thematically and historically linked to the demise of diren Europeui colonial dominante and is h e d a the dcstrwmiring of thc pcrsistmce of neocolonial he-ony in contemporary African existence. It is focused on die theoretic consummation of this demise. For the cona- mumction of Afnca beyond the mtehgeof E w p e qquires in all spheres of lüe a r&nk¡ng of the p m n r asphyxiathg inatness in terms which are conduave and congenialto Africa and itsdivuse peoples. Thisis the indispensable hermeneutic supplemcnt to the histonc and concrete proceso of 'reAfricanisation"" without which, as Cabral telis us, nothiig can be achievd As part of thc cultural and inrellechinlproduction of a diversecontinent, ihc henncmuticevocationaof the African phiiospher areinterior to thc effom of diffaing Africln peoples in "the sphere of thought" m constimteand 'keep [themselves] in existen~e."~ For the African phiiosopher the accent is on hermeneutically cxploring diese difterenea in view of thc eommon and bmding African ucpcrima in confronting Ewpcan modernity-the sharcd expaicnce of colonialism and ncocolonialism. in the commonaliry of these diftercnces we nccd to ascend to and

.. .

30 / Philosophy ond Poot-eolonial Africa forge a joint future. For beyond the inertprwnt the future stiU remains "to be di~covered."~'As Okolo fittingly observes: We have to aclmowledgethat otu cffoctsat thn,riz'mginte'pmtion and tradition are inscribcd interior to the ways and means that tradition itself secretes and utilizes for its ownpresewation, rcnewal, and perpe~ation.~' The basic task of philosophy in Africa is expliatly giving voice to this needful concern. in contributing to this henneneutical effort, on its own level of abstraction and in fuil recognition of its lived historicity, philosophy constitutes itself and fulfills its calling-to think that which evokes thought-in the situatedness of the present. To afíirm the above is to recognize that "interpretation [philosophy]presupposes a tradition, and . tradition as such is always interpreted."" This is the historicity of philosophic thought and reflaction in the contart of postcolonial Africa. For the historiuty of philosophy is always measured against its own conscious awareness-or la& thereof4f its lived presuppositions and its rootedness in a specific tradition and history. in view of al1 that has been said thus far, thcn, the discourse of African philosophy has to be grasped wrplicitiy as a radical hermeneutics of the contemporary Afncan situation. This hitorically specific situation is that out of which African philosophical humeneutia spins the thread of its reflexive reflections. Taking b point of depamue from the as of yet unhilfilled promise of A f n m "indepcndence," this hermeneutical perspective constitutes the substance of its discourse and critically appropriates as its own thc emancipatory horizon of &e theorerical and political legacy of the African liberation str~ggk.'~As Heidegger aptly puts it:

..

Philosophy will never se& to b y its 'pruuppositions," but neither may it simply admit them. It conaives thua, and it unfolds with more and more pcnetration both the pmuppositions thuaselves and that for which they are presuppositions."

-

Thus far 1have onlv, arranrred the overail structure of the 'oresuooosi--tions" that underpin the hermeneutic puspective of this study. In what follows 1 will explore W e r and substantiate the position of African philosophical hermeneutics preliminarily articulated thus h. =----E=

Afncan Philosophy Horizon and Discourse

Then there is the cose of the conquest and bnitol destruction of economic resources, by which, in certain circumstances, a whole local or nationol ecanomic development could formerly be ~ i n e d Nowadays . [the late nineteenth century] such a cose usuolly has the opposite effect, at lea* among great [European] peoples: in the long run he vonquished [+he Asiatic, the African . . . &c.] &en gains moreeconomicolly, politically and morally than the victor. -Friedrich Engels From a letter to Joseph Bloch, 1890 When the white serpent has once bitten you, you will search in vain for a remedy against ik bite. -8ahta Hagos Eritreon anti-colonialist leader, 1894

The period of world history that begins with the end of the Sccond World War has been for Africa not a period of relative peace and calm, but rather a period of accelerated war and political nimioil.' To be sure, rhcsc contlicts have not been futile. By the end of the 1960s most of Africa had achieved the status of political independcnce and the carly 1970s wimcrsed thc end of Pomigse-NATO colonililism-the oldcst Eumpean colonial empirein Africa.'nie indepaidence of Namibia in Mvch 1990, &e military-political victory of thc Eritrean reaiaancc in Muy 1991, and thc indepadencc &rmdum held in April 1993, along witb the dynamic developments in

South Africa, al1 point to the possibility that the 1990s will be &e decade in which not only European colonialism but differing forms of African colonialism and extemal domination will be totally eradicated? To this day, however, anned political confücts-in the midst of famine and "naturai" calamitie+rage on'. Grim as this picture may be, it is important to rernember that it fbnstimtu the Afcican peoples' varied and düfering struggles to deñne and cstablish their freedom.' But what are the people of Africa trying to free themselves from and what are they trying to establish? 'fiis "prior question," m use Plato's formulation,issquarcly s i t u a d in the domain of philosophy and is the central question in thc problcmatic of African freedom which wiU concem us in this chapter and in this study as a wh01e.~Al1 those whose names, a various lwels, have been associatcd with the African liberation smggle have had to seriously engage this question. Nknunah, Senghor, Lumumba, Nyerue, Césaire, Fanon, Cabral, and the literature-which for us constitutes the theoretic legacy-of the African liberation struggle as a whole (¡.e., pamphlets, programs, docummts, manifestos,novels, poems, m.), al1 be read as a sustained effort to pose and politically confront this grounding question. in this question our aim is to confront Africa in "metamorphosis."' This is necessary precisely because, without aplicitly cngaging the central concerns articulated by the theoreric andpolitical lcgacy of the African liberation sauggle, the contemporary deban in and on African philosophy ploughs this same terrain. in undertaking sudi a critica1 exploration we will locate the thematic ground of contemporary African philosophicdebate in the theoreticcul-de-sacof the African liberaaon stmggle. We 'el1 thus supplemmt the discussionof contcmporary African philosophy presented in the introductionwith its paraiiel ideological and political correlate. in order to attain some measure of succincmess if not completeness, my ucposition will be ccntered on Kwame Nknunah's Marxism-Leninism and Leopold Sedar Senghor's A M i t é (or Ndgritude) and African Socialism." These are the two poiitically contrary positions that encompass the legacy of the African liberation sauggle as a whole. The exposition will show that the theorctic positions of Muurnah and Senghor have a parallel and intrinsic affinity to the Uopposedn phiiosophicperspectives of Edinophiiosophy and ProfessionalPhilosophy. As we shall sec, these parallel positions s h w , in concrary ways, a dilapidating Eurocentric metaphysics. This theoretic b l i d spot can

be ovc~orne only by grasping thc hiitoricalness of the African situation and orienting one's thinking a~cordingly.As already indicatcd in thc introduction and in chaprer 1, this is the theoretic project of African philosophical hermencutics in the contcxt of the contemporary debate in African phiiosophy.

In mponding to the above-indicad h d a t i o n a l "prior questionn-What are the people of Africa uying to free themselves from and what are they aying to establi~h?-as far b a d 1945in Twmdc Coloniui Freedom, Kwame Nkrumah, a leading pioneer of the African anti-cdoncil struggle, had poMd and formulated rhis question in strictly cmnomic terms, out of an anti-imperialist orimtation of Marxist-luiinist inspiration.' Twenty-five years later, in Class Smggk m Afica (1970), Nkrumah addressed thii question in much the same way, but this time around in stcidy Macxist-Leninist tenns: In almort ewy African statc, nonindependmt and indepmdent gudUa strugglei s k g prepacedor has becn atabüshed as &e only

m overdirowcalonialist, neocoloniaüstor smler regimes.. .. GueriUa activities wiU ntao continue in many of the independmt rtatcs, so long aa thue is no ammpt k g made m have thc mcans of producrion owned by the rnnsscs of the Afcican pmple. Udess the leaders of thc independmt Afcican states stop paying üp oemce m s o c i s l i and go all out for saennfic sccialism they are only deferring the guerilla onset.''

in making thc above observation, Nknunab was stating what indeed was the case on the continent as a whole: at the time he wrote, there were swentcen major liberation movemmtsactivein both independent and nonindepuident Africa." nien as now, howwer, the language Nkrumah utilUcd fa& to grap ple with the historicity of the Afncan situation. By unreservedly employing the abstracr and worn out language of Marxiism-Leninisub the language of Ysaenti6c socialismn and "means of production," and by framing the problematic of African fmdom in these terms, Nknimah d u d e s the h d a t i o n a l and grounding charactcr of the quation of fnedom in Africa. Nknimah 4 1 s for 'scientificsoaalism" preasely because he thinks

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Afncan Philosophy 135

it will empower the disinherited peoples of Africa to establish the possibiity of theu freedom, which he understands to be the control of the "means of productionn by the "masses of the African people." However, in posing and framing the question in this m a m a and in the very act of formulating the question in this way, Nknimah underinterprets the problematic of African freedom, and in so doing, banishes it to being nothing more than a "Empean* economic question in the tropics. in other words, Nknimah impliatly univenalies and surreptitiously-without even the semblante of an argumcntassumes the hismric ground of European modcrnity: that the ground of "scientific socialism" is the universal ground on which and out of which economic questions as ouch are posed. Thus, the specific particularity of the African situation is relegated to oblivion. Nkrumah's formulation is basically aimed at supcrimposing a general and abstract-universal, contcxt-neutral, and value-frec-theory on a specificand particular historico-cultural siniation.Thus, the Eurocentric framework within which Nknimah posa the problematic as a whole remains unquestioned, and yet it is silcntiy and surreptitiously presupposed. In faa, it is that which grounds and slyly determines everythingl Nknunah fails to ask what s&alism or any 0th- universal, neutral, and culnue- and value-frce conceptioa of keedom conceivcd and construaed outside the concrete context of African historical existmce could mean in and for the African situation. Along with most MarxistLeninists, he fails to realize that a theory (any theory) always carries, sustains, valorizes, and constantly resuscitates within itself the traces of the originative histonc ground out of which it was initially theorized. In the case of "saentiñc socialism," this is the historic ground of the Enlightenment-the ground of European modemity which then becomes the archetype of al1 "illumination" and freedom as such. In other words, "scientific socialism" aummatically and of necessity privileges its own originative historic ground as metaphysicaiiy paradigmatic for human existence in aU of i a derivative applications." Thus, to talk of "scientific socialism" in a singular and undifferentiated way-as Nkrumah does-is to superimpose European ideas and conceptions (in the guise of "objective" theory) on the African situation. In other words, the historial and culnual spefifiaty of Africa and of the struggle for African freedom is obliterated and covered over. And this is done in the name of a "universal" and "wlue-fm" "science of historyn-historical materialism-on which the scientism of socialism is grounded.

But is such a "sacnce of historyn possible? 1s this not colonialisrn in the reaim andguise of theory?Are not the people of Afria sauggling to overcome prePsely this-on aU levels, indudmg the theoreticand to establish their own autonomous initiative and self-standing fr~edom?'~ These are questions which do not ocnir to Nkrumah, and given hii Marxist-Lenini paradigm, cannot occur to him as legitimate and important questions of and for theory. It will not do m transpose European conceptions onto the African situation sin- this would not allow the diveroe peoples of A f n a their own df-standing selfdetcmination. Any and all pre-established frameworks wiU w t reticct the autonomous and historial self-instinttion that is necessary if Africa is to be free. As Aimé Césaire fomfuUy points out: 1 n m r thought for a moment that our emaaapation could come

.. ...

fmm the right-that's imposaible .our liberarion placed us on the Idt, but [m] &sed to sn the black [Mican] queaion as simply a social [cconomic]queaion after aU we are dealingwith the only r e which is denied oren the notion of humanity."

...

t

According m diese eloqucnt words of thc founding poet of Ndgrhmk, the question of African frecdom is not Usimplya social [ewnomic] question." Rather, it is a historic, ontic, and ontological question aimcd at opening up the originative hismric ground on which, in ata, the soaal and politial-the polk as the hismric space of the publi re&, to paraphraseHeidcgger-can be establishedinfreedom, that is, within the conof contemporary African historial existence. in other words, the possibiiity of African frcedom presupposes an open site which is "the historicnl place, the there in which, out of which, and for which hismry happens"" fmm within thc historicahess of the African siniation. This suggests that the African struggle for freedom cannot, as does the European Le$ simply presuppose and nart only from the political and hismric lcgacy establihcd by the European eighteenthcaitury bourga~isLiberal Democratic revolutions. Afnca, properly spcaking, is not heir to thii heritage. In other words, the nonEuropean world as a whole, prpperly speaking, is not interior to the originative historic ground on whch the aghteaith-cuiniry bourgeois Liberal Democratic revolutions are grounded. The huitage of the Enlightmment is for us a borrowed inheritance. We share in it only insofar as we are colonized and neocolonized

members of its modern European-dominated world and have been drastically affected-incorporated by conquest-into its development and globalization. Sharing in this legacy in this way, our aim is to destroy and go beyond this European-dominated disdosure of &e present-the historic space in which the battles of the Left are fought and grounded and its hopes and aspirations nourished. Our purpose is not, as it is for the European Left,aimed at hilíüling the "emanapatory" telos of European history, whatever that might be. Rather, from within our own African historicalness-which encompasses diner colonialism, its demise, and neocolonialism-we have to quarry and carve out a liberating and edüying political tradition. Our efforts are aimed at reclaiming our histories, whose destniction and obliteration is presupposed by aU the political shades-including the Lek-of European modernity. Thus, to extract and uncover that which is covered over by the historiaty of European m o d d t y , it is necessary, conversely, to undermine and cover over thehistoricgtound of European modernity. It is only thus that we will simultaneously transgress and appmpriate diis disclosure. The European Left basically fights for politico-economic demands within an already established history. It is located and arises out of a uadition and history which explicitly presupposes the desuuction of our traditions and histories. At its best, the Left and the suuggles of the European working dass are political and economic manifestations of the most radical possibilities proper to the historicalnessof European modernity.Al1 this, to be sure, does not take inm accountthe colonized non-European. Or rather, it takes account of the colonized by praupposing the necessity of colonial conquest-as a harsh hismrical p m q uisite for the dialectical completion and fulfillment of "humana (ir., European) freedom globall~. The fitst few pages of the Communist Mmúfesto, for example, hiumphantly recognize and celebrate the worldwide victory of the European bourgeoisie over non-Europeancultural and historial formations. For Marx, European feudal soaety is the zmith of, and essentially the same as, non-European traditional social formations. It is for thii reason táat in the Manifesto he dismisses both of these disparate social organizations of life in the same breath. From these well-known pages, it is cleat that for Marx and the European Lek as a whole the dass war of thc prolctariat is wagcd and historiazed on the terrain of a homopnized historicalness constituted by the worldwide hegemonicpower of the West. Just as European feudalism had m be supplanted by the modern European bourgeoisie,

h like m,the cmanupation of the intunational prolctariatand thus of 'humanityn-requircs the displacing of traditional nonEuropean social fonnations by Westcrnized indigenous societies. Marx's "hismrical logic" is impecable! As he teüs us, "philosophy is rhc head of" communist or human "anuidpation and the prolerariat is its bcmt."" The poeap of thesc words notwithstanding, it has to be noted that "phhophy" here rcfers to Eumpean thought and more strictly to German Ideaiiim, and 'prolctariat" refcrs to the European and more sttictly to the Fmch and German working dasses. Thus is Europbor certain aspects of its social and hiitorical acistcnce and thought-globaüzed. Thc ciass war of the proletariat is, furthermorq advantagcously conditioned and, in tum, ir benefiady h u i a t e s the export of capital and European giobd dominion. It is within the scope and w&es of this hinoricalners that thc Europe~npmletariat attempts to hktoricizc i U , that is, u> replace the bourgmisie and inhait its cultural-historicai legaq. Toiriheband radically aansformhransccnd, this is the basic and unifying theoraic S&-understanding of the European proletariat artidated by che vadous strandsof the Marxist tradition-but always from within die coloniPlirt parameters and presuppositions of Europ e a ~dnunl and historie hegunony. The fundamcntai aim of the African stnigglc for M o m , on the orher huid, is to disdoae M aumchthonous tradition and himry of politi~~conomic saugglcs intaior to itseif. The Afriun suuggle M f o c d on dahroning die Eumpeandominatedprescnt, withia which the Lcft functions and fccls at home, ftom within and out of the indigenous historicaüty of its own hismricainess, ¡a concrea political and cultural cxhencc. To aurodithonously ovmome the indigaice of our indigenous pliti d and h i a o r i c ~ c e - a c n t e dand peípetuated by European coloNaliam and ncocoloniali8m-is the basic and most fundamental historie task of the Mican m d e for M o m . nius, in ordcr to be t m t o itself, the m g g l e for Africui freedomhas to beginby undcrminh g and damcturing the historie ground on which thc political dismum of &e European Lcft unfolds. This, furthermore, is nota question of tactia or politid cxpediencc that could be avoided or circumventcd, but a question of confronting and being r>irc to the concrete historic situation of Africa?' Evai in postsolonial Africa, tbe suuggle against nmmlonialism is a ttruggie aimed and foaued on disdoaing the historico-political ground on which an African political tradition can be instituted within

the context of the present. To be sure, and this cannot be overemphasized, the aim is not to return to some "me," "uncontaminated," "original," African arche-as if this were possible or even desirablcbut to make possible the autonomous and thus authentic self-standing historicity of African existence in the contexc of the modern world. It is this concrete awareness of our situation that we must constantly cultivate and preserve against the seductke "universalistic" rhetoric of the European Left. This much Nkrumah fails to do. Hence, in addition to expanding-through our conaibutions-and appropriatingthe European heritage of &e Lek, the stniggle for Afcican freedom at a more fundamental leve1 is aimed at overcoming European dominanceand reclaiming the politico-histoicspace of African existence which has been oblitcrated by Ewopean colonialism. It is in tbis fundamental respect, then, that the struggle for Afcican freedom is not merely or simply a social, economic, or political "question" of the Left. To be true to its own historicalness, the African struggle has to instinite an emancipatory tradition and discourse withii which the political struggle-the smggle for African frcedom-can realize itself. At its fundament, thuefore, the suuggle for African freedom is an exploration of the interrupted historicalness of Africa and of the ways in which the historicity of this Afcican historiealness can be reclaimed and politically established." This, as we shall see in chaptu 4, is the emancipamryproject that informs and suuctures Fanon's and Cabral's thinking. Nkrumah's failure consists in his incapaaty to think through this uucial and enigmatic dimension of the problem. nie specificity and distinmive complwrity of the African situation escapes him. He views the question of African freedom in s m a economic Marxist-Leniniit terms and thus reduces the smggle to a question of economic-political control. Once reduced in this mannu, thc African suuggle for frecdom is then subsumed within the basic smcture of European social, political, and economic concuns. It becomes merciy a European problem in the "tropics," which thus requires Eumpean solutions which have been "properly" adapted to it. But can such adaptations be "properly" adopted without risking the recolonizntion and indigmceof the indigenous populace? What is the criterion and ground of the "propriayn of the "proper" in this contextl n i e African philosopher Paulin J. Hountondji points out that N h mah's thought vacillates betwem an "early" Africaaist phaae and a "later" Macxist-Leninist pcriod. By presenting what he calls a "historicist" reading of Nkrumah's work as a whole, Hountondji argues that

the 'latern Nkrumah mdorscd the Marxist-Leniniit thesis that thc struggle in Africa is nothing more than thc class suuggie of Westcrn socicties extended to the intecnational arena.'9 Being a Marxist-kninist hiiself, Hountondji preseas the above as a positive development or mattuation of Nkrumah's thought. Tbus, Hountondji shares in Nkrumah's failurc to grasp the s@city and distinctive panicularity of the African situation. Hountondji deprccates the carlier works of Nkrumah not on technical-pbilosophical grounds, but because diey intcnd-no matter how inadequately-m think Afcican pmblans fromwithii the horizm of an Africanist puspcctive. in chis respea it is Nkrumah's self-consciousl philosophical work, C o n r c k i s m (1964), which is smngly attacked.2 l ñ e inherent conuadictions of Hountondji's position are obvious however when he writes that it must nm be forgotten that Iam he [Muumah] morc and morc openly d c d d hi deginnato rdcntifk sociaiism,that is m Mnniam-lminism, &ou& of murse, witbout in any way qudiarllig the autbcntic African cuitural tradia0n.f'

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Such a statemmt is nothing more than a htile attcmpt to square the p m r b i d arde, since to subscribe to Marx's thought underswod.os 'scimtific socialism" or MPnosm-Leninism, one necessarily subscribes to an wolutionacy developmmral metaphysics of biitory-hlstorieol matecialism-that placa Afnca at the lowest rung of an evolutionary ladder of developmmt and which fulhlls its 'objcctive" and singular "human" telos in the historic wentuation of European modanity. In such a perspectivc-givcn the meaphysical struciure and logic of the discoursc-one n e d y (gwd intentions notwithstandingl) subordinares Afcica to Ewope and "solves" Afcican problmis by impoaing Empean dwdopmmtal 'formulas," conmved and gmccatcd out of the singular historic cxperimce of European modernity. 'Ibis appmach doea nothing more than replace the colonialist or neocoloNalist yoke with the yoke of the Commisar, armed 4 t h 'scim&c aosinl~m,"who aia to play out and replican in Africa the European historic and developmeatal expcriaxe 'pmperly adapd" to the tmpics. In the(~cffoitst h e g o o d - h d Comrade Commissardocsnothing more than pmlong and 'pmperly adoptn-in spite of himscif and in a new fomi-Enropun ~o~onipü«n. in view of thc above thm,"sQentiñc socialism" or Mancism-Lcninism ig in the non-European wodd, a mrhless formula of devdopment.

40/Aírican Philosophy But what does "development" mean in this context? No more and no less than the imposition of Westem ways and attitudcs under the guise of Liberation or "science." To paraphrase Heidegger, "development" is the global Ge-stell (en-framing) of modern tedinology playing iwLf out and being manifested as &e perpetuation of European modemity's cultural and technological dominance of the Earthu It is this Ge-stell of European dominance, manifested as the "neutrality" and "objectivityn of science and technology, that Africa must owrcome in order to reclaim and carve out the existential, historical, and political spafc in which to ground its freedom. In what has been said thus far, we have rendered the MantistLeninist interpretation of Marx's thought-namely, 'scientiíic socialism," endorsed by Nkrumah and Hountondji-questionable in tums of the "prior question" of African freedom.= It is dierefore necessary at this point to examine the polemical counterposition against which the views of the above two authors are articulated. We thus mto the Africanité or African Socialism of Senghor-the main polemical opponent of the two thinkers we have examined thus far. But what exactly is their attitude to Senghor? For Hountondji, Senghor's Aficunit4 is nothing more than a sustained effort to avoid the political questions of the anti-colonial struggle. In contrast to Aim6 Césaire, who, according m Hountondji, uses Négrfhtde for political ends, Senghor is eyaged in the systematic elaboration of "artificial cultural problems." ' Hountondji's critique of Senghor is basically an extension of his critique of the ethnographic and documentary orientation in African philosophy. Scnghor is numbered first among the secular Ethnophilosophers. Aficunit.4, along with the work of Kagame, Mbiti, and Ethnophiosophy as a whole, is-except for Temples's work-pan of thc mystifying and mystified body of literature that goes by the name "African philo~ophy."~ In other words, Hountondji's uitique of Senghor is a speafication of hi broader critique of Ethnophilosophy since Senghor himself, by his expliat aiiegiance, is an Ethnophilosopher. in l i e manner for Nkrumah, Senghor-in contrast to Julius Nyerere for example, who is also an advocate of African socialism-formulates at the bundation of his notion of African socialism a "metaphysics of knowledgen-Akicanite-which is hdamentaliy antithetical to "scienhfic soaalism."16 Thus, when in Claro Shuggle in Afica (1970) Nkrumah writes that the African bourgeoisie "for the most pan slavishly" foUows its European munterpvr with the exception of 'ertnin ideologieswhich have devdoped specificallywithii the African context

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thc most typical [of which] is the bogus mnception of 'nigRtude,' " without a doubt, he has Senghor's idea of A w i t 4 in mind?' A fcw ycars earlier, Nkrumah had dmounced the very idea of an "Aírican socialism," and &rring to Scnghor rejected al1 historicocultural particularity, embracing "scicntific sociaüsm" which he categarically affinned is grounded on universal prinaples.m in * 'African Socialism' Rcvisited" (1966) and in 'The Myth of the 'Third World' " (1968), Nkrumah systcmaticaUy opposed any form of dis~ctivcness or h i s t d c particularity. For him, such a thing as "African Socialism" is not possible, as if there could be a "socialism peculiar to Africa. . . in fact there W only one mie socialism: seientific sociali~m."~ it is imperative to eniphasii that, in rejeccing Senghor's particularism (AHaitL),Nkmmah and Hountondji reject al1 cultural-hismric distinctiveness. And yet, wichout batting an eye they endorse "scimti6c socidism": as if thii p c r p d v e was devoid of any distinctivenss and cultural-historic speciliaty. As if, in 0th- words, thii particular perspective and the historic ground (European modemity) on wbich it stands and in which it is grounded were isomorphic with 'human existencc" in the singular. As if, that is, European modernity, properly speaking, spelled the 'me" humanity of the human QS such! in order to M y grasp the mnsequences of the spell of European modernity. let us examine one last passage from N k m a h ' s " 'African Socialism' Rnrisited," a donimcnt that, unlüce some earlier w o r h of Nkrumah, is fdly endorsed by Hountondji.

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Soaalism depads on dialcctical and historical materialism, upon the viw that then ir only one nanire subject in aU its manifestations m natural iaws and that human socicty is, in this scnse, part of name and subject to its own iaws of development. It is the elidnation of fanahilnas from sodalist action that maks sociaiism scimti6c. To suppoae that here arc mbal, national or racial soaalisms is to abandon objectivity in favour of chau~inism.'~ in the above two passsges, as in pmious ones. by renouncing al1 culnual-hitoric particularity in the name of a "universalistic" social-

ism which is Uscientiíic,"Nkrumah surreptitiously universaiiies European modernity-the cultural-historic "tribal, national, or racial" ground privüeged and valorized by "dialectical and historical materialism." in endoming the absaact univcrsality of dialcctical and historical materialim Nkrumah is in etfccc and inadvertendy (ithc guise of

African Philosophy 143 this "abstracmess") doing nothing more than flag-waving for Europe. Thus, through Nkrumah and Hountondji-and in spite of their sincere African cultural nationalism-speaks the nineteenth-century evolutionist and colonialist saentism of Friedrich Engels, the lifelong friend and systematic vulgarizer of Marx's work.ll To "suppose" that there is a position bcyond allpositions isomorphic and wterminous with realitymeing as sucb is fancihiliess to end all fancy! This is, at the level of rhctoric, the theoretic b i d place of Stalism and of the leftist dictatorships of contanporary Africa. It is the delirium of a scientistic metaphysics in which Nkrumah and Hountondji are totally enguifed. In the wntext of the hismric subjugation of Africa by Europe the metaphysicsof thW Ewocentrism (s&iistic universalirm) is nothing more than colonialism in the realm and in the guise of theory. i e t us now turn to the contrary perspective a r t i d t e d by Senghor, which basically is an Ethnophilosophical position grounded on an essentialist pmticularism. As should be dear by now, the wntrary perspectives of Nknunah and Senghor antiapate and lay the thematic ground for the debate in contemporaryAfrican philosophy, which was outlined in the introduction to this study. As we shaii see, these two contradictory positions impliatly share a single Eurocentric metaphysics. In the process of probing Senghor's position, 1 will expose this hidden metaphysical contluence behind the apparait surface political antagonism. Ultimately, as 1 have already argued in the introduction, both of these parallel positions suffer from a failure m think through the concrete histonaty of the contemporary African situation.

Let us begin then by looking at how Senghor defends himself against his Marxist-Leninist detractors. Young African intellectuals who have read Mam carelessly and who are stül not altogether nired of the infcriority complex given them by thc colonizers, criticize me for having r e d d the African mode of knowlcdge to pure emotion, for having denied that there was an African *rationalitynandan Afrim nduiology. Thcy muat have read what 1 have witten as carclessly as they had rcad the scientifiesociaüsts. lt is a fact that thue is a white European civilization and a black African civilization. The question is to explain

their difierenaa and the rcasona for thae differenm, which my opponmts have not yet done?'

To be sure, the hrxist-Lcninists have, in their own way, answered this quedon. For them it h not a question of a "white" or a "bladrn aviüution marked-on the foundational level of ontological desaiption-by a qualitativediffemnce in kinds o£human exismce. Rather, for the Marxist-Leninias ir is a question of the singular and quantitatively uniform sequential unfolding of &e world-historical dialectical symbiosis of man and nature." What Senghor sees as a qualitative difference in kinds of "civilizationn between diffuing human groups-Indo-European, on the one hand, and Arab-&rber and Negro-African, on theother-the MawstLcninist aplicates u a quantitative regrcssion or pmgression, an underdevelopment or dcvelopment,in the evolution of the sequential and ontologically propcr relation of man to nature. This relation-the technical control of naturt-is ordered aefording to the singular dictates of the hismrical dialectic and of strurnral transformation. The technical control of nanuc, or the la& thereof, is therefore, for the Marxist-Leninist, rhe singular and "me" yardstick by which the progression or regression of h u m groups and humanity as a whole is hismrically gauged and tabulated. But can such "things" as the pmgression or regression of human groups be measured without prejudging the evidence in the very act of tabulating it? As we have aiceady seen in our discusion of Nkrumah andHountondji, this Eumcenaic mctaphysical isomorphism, thii scientistic Miversalism, in the guise of "univemality" and "objectivity," surreptitiously univeraaüzes Europe and subordinates Africa. i e t us now turn to Senghor, and see how he answem the "prior question" of African freedom: What are the people of Africa trying to free themselves from and what are they trying to cstablish? As aiready indicad, for Senghor, "there is a white European civilization and a black African civiüzation." It is in explaining and grasping the ontological gmunds for thii difference that Senghor answers the "prior question" of African freedom. The terms "white" and "blackn or Indo-Eumpean, on the one hand, and Berber-Arab and NegroAfrican, on the other, are not merely exterior raaal designations. Rather, thii taxonomic ordering o£ human kinds is, for Senghor, the ground on which the ontologiul diffenna, essentiality, and complementarity of human races and civiüutions h grounded3' In conduding his talk, 'Constructive Elements of a Civilization of

African Negro Inspiration" (1959, Rome) at the Second Congress of Negro-African Writers and Artists, Senghorobservcd that new "autonomous or independent States are being born in Negro Africa* and that

does not mould them into rigid patterns by climinating thc m t s and the sap: it Bows in the arteria of rhings, it weds al1 their contours to dwcll at the living heart of the real." In other words: "White reason is analyticthrough utikatiom Ncgro reason is intuitive through p d c ipationWYEuropean reason is thus discursive and utilitarian, it aims m control and aansform: The "European is empiric, the African is mysti~."~'The European

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freedom without consaousness is wone thnn slavery. .The most smking thing about the negro pmples who have been pmmoted m autonomy or independence, is pr&Iy the hck of comof most of their chiefs and their disparagment of Negro-fiun cultural value~.~' The question of African freedom resolves icself, for Senghor, into the question of how we are to "integrate Negro-Aficun valucrninto the process of gaining independence. "Thm is no qucstion,' saysSengbor, "of rwiving thepast, of livingin a Negro-African museum, the question is to inspire this world, here and now. with the values of out past.'" But what are these values? As Senghor had pointed out in, 'The Spirit of Civiluation or the Laws of African Negro Culnirc" (1956, Paris), a central tcxt presented at the First Congress of Negro-African Writers and Artists, these values are what charactcrize the humanity of the human in Negro-African existcnce. The Negro-African has an ontological kinship, afhity, or bond with nature that is abscnt from European humanity. For Scnghor "&e Negro is the man of Nature." As he puts it: "By tradition he [Le., the Negro] lives off the soil and with thc soil, in and by the Cosmos." He is betwmi "sensual, a heing with open senses, with no inrcrmcdia~~ subject and object, himself at once subject and object." For the NegroAfrican, this acwrd and immediacy to nature is " h t of all, sounds, scents, rhythms, forms and wlours; 1wouidsay that he is touch, before being eye l i e the white European. He feels more than he sea; he feek hiiself."37 This is the Being of the Negro-African-a d d e immediicy in m e with nature. It is this docility and lyrical submissiveness to nature which Senghor values above al1 elsc as the rrue Being of the Negro-African and he postulates it as the essentid defining characteristic in and for the humanity of the human in African existcnce. lñis then is Africunité! Between the European and the African there is a qualitative ontological difference in kinds of rationality. The Negro is "not devoid of reason, as 1 am supposed m have snid. But his reason is not discursive: it is synthetic. It is not antagonistie: it is sympathetic. It is another forrn of knowledge. The Negro teason does not impoverish thimgs, it

aka p l e ~ in ~ rreogwing e the wodd thmugh the nprodueáan of the obiect the %can h m lmowing it v i d y through h g e md rhythm. Wth the EaropePn the chorda of &e s m ~ lead s m thehcutuidthehepd,~ththeMicPnNcgromthehepnd the beUy.*

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The Africm dcu w t müze that he thinka: he feela that he aeels, he feels hb ezimtte. he fecls h W ; md because he falr thc Other, he is drawn towds the other, into the rhytlm of the Other, to be rebom in knowledge of the wodd. Ihuc the aa of knowledgc k an "ageanait of mnciliiitini" with thc worid, the simulco~ousncssd creatini of thc world in its indivisible unity."

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It is ncarsary to stress and emphasize that, for Senghor, the above "daaiptions" (ra&t hpu~tioILS?)of the Negro-Affican are not m e d y hismricai and thus continguir characteristics of a particular culturc and hinory at a specific point in time. Rather, iust as the Mamht-iminists present their conception of history as the timeless *truthn of history, in like mannet the above "desaiptions' an, for Senghor, the abiding nanue of differing raees and cuitures. It is imperative m note h a e that Senghor is not articulating a view; rather, he is allowiag himself the honor of bcing the passive vehicle for the selfaniculation of the "auth" of human cxistence as such. Epistemically speaking, of murse, one can always ask: 1s this humiiity or mgance? Or is it m g a n c e masqucrading as humility? In other words, as Senghor puts it: "Nanirc has arranged things wcll in willing that each people, each racc, ea& continent, should dtivate with speaal affection certain of the v h e s of man; that is p&dy whae otiginalityLie~."~ But from what ''extra-natural" vant~gepoint d a Sen* *dghtw thb *ou
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46/Afncon Philosophy as we shall see, his thinking is enveloped and specified within the Otherness of the Other as projected by Europe's own metaphysical and delusionaryself-conception. It is within this Eurocenmc projection that Africanité is encased and thus essentially consti~ted. In this epistemically suspen "view" then, Africa is to "cultivate" its own most intuitive reason and Europe its own most discursive reason! Therein lies the "originality" and the "uuen-ontologically speaking-essential wmplementarity of ea&. Why does one thhk of Lucien Levy-Bruhl as one reads these lines? 1s it at al1 possible that Senghor is trying to pass off Levy.Bruhl's racism as AfricanW?" The European in wnfronting "the object, the exterior world, nanuc, the Other. . Armed with precision instruments dissects it with a ruthlws analysis." The African on the other hand "sympathizes and identifies himself . . . dies to himself in order to be reborn to the Other. He is not assimilated; he assim'lotes himself with the Other. He lives with the Other in symbiosis; he is born again (con-dt)to the Other."" The African-Negro's "sympathetic" knowledgeof the Other is immediate, as Hegel would say. I&S in-born, born-with (con-di:), and direft. It is natural, instinctive, and intuitive. The ontological difference that marks off the Negro-African from thc Indo-European is, for Senghor in Hegelian terms, immediacy. It is the lack of a self-differentiated conscious freedom, reflective rnediacy, and detachment from the object or oneness with nature. Of course, as is well known, such a being for Hegel, properly speaking, wuld not be human." Humanity, in Hegclian terms, is constituted by a sublated and mediated differentiation of subject (humanity)and objen (nature).It is precisely for this "reasonn that Hegel, in the intmduction to his Philosophy of History, places Africa beyond the bounds of human avilization proper. The values of Afdcanité are: intuitive or tactiie spontaneous reason, sensation, sensuousness, instinct, feeling, rhythm, imagc, ueativity, imagination, naturalness, immediacy (athletic prowess? satualness? animality?).Thus, in art, "the kingdom of diddhwd whcrc N&gitude is King," writes Senghor, shamelessly paraphrasing the raaalist and racist Count de Gobineau, we have nothing to learn from Europe.' This then is a sampl'mg of Senghor's AficunW whicb he characterizes as the *sum of the cultural values of the black world."" 1 hope my reader will forgivc the extensive and incssant quoting ofrather offensive material, but the widence, su& as it is, has first to be presented beforewe can unpack Senghor's internalizcd and ontologized racism. It is important to begin by noting that al1 the rcfuenea @ven thus far are to occasional papers presented eitha as positive elabora-

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tions-as in 1956and 1959, and in the paper 'tatinity and Négrimde" of 1 9 6 k as a polemical d e k of dUs pooition-as in 'NCgritude: A Humanism of the Twcnticth Cennuy" (1970).The views presmted in thcse occasional papas, howevu, are not themselves transient positiow. níey are, as we have noted above, Senghor's measured response to the founding "prior questionn of Aftican fmdom. Smghor systematicallydefmds hese views in: On Afrim SocUilim (1961), The Foundiaim of A f h n & or "Négnft
48/Afrimn Philosophy

Afnwn Philarophy/49

Senghor does not see that these descriptions are always stmctured within parameters which are interna1 to an evaluative prejudgment that takes Europe as its measure and standard. Within the bounds of this biased gaugc-the Eurocentric descriptions which Senghor appropriates-the African is always already theinferior, theotherof Europe, since Europe is, de facto and de jure, the nonn. Or as Said p u s it:

Thw one cnds with a tylmlogy-bad on a real specifiaty, but dctached from history, ad,cokqumdY,m a i w d beiog~tangible, essential-whieb malresof
Can one divide human re+ty, as indced human renlity snms to be genuinely divided, into dearly d i a m t nilcum, histories, traditions, soaeties, even raas, and survive thc consequenceshumanly? By surviving the consequcnces humady, 1 mcan to a& whether there is any way of avoiding the hostüity upressed by the dividon, say, of mcn inm "usn (Westerners)and "thcy" (Orientals [or Africans]). For such divisions are generatities whose use hislorically and actually has been to press the importance of rhe distinctionb e e n some men and some 0 t h men, usuaüy mwuds not espwally admirable ends. When one uses ategoties like Oriental [ A f n M t i q and Westun as both thc starting and the cnd poinb of anaiysis, researdi, pubücpolicy ...tberesulris usuaiiy topolarizeh e distinction-the Oriental bewmes morc Oriental, the Wesmner more Western-andlimit the human encounterbecwcen diffcrcnt culnues, traditions, and societies."

Senghor's strategy for overcoming the consequences of this division "hwnanly" is to ontologicaiiy sanction it. in other words, when Senghor encounters those famous (infamous?)pages of Hegel's introduction to the Philosophy of History, whcre Hegel "characterius" the primeval savagery of the African Negro, he would have to agree with al1 the basic descriptions-rninus some "minorn outrageous allusions to cannibalism-and go on ta properly redescribe and appmpriatc the negative attributes that Hegcl pastes on the Negro-African as positive endowments of Afiicunitk." To be sure, as Panon points out-squarely confronáng Said's larger and more imponant question-the only way to overcome this division and its wnsequcnour "humanly" is to recognize "the reciprocal relativism of differcnt cultures, once the colonial status is irreversibly excluded."" Senghor's blidness to the racism of his s o m s is grounded in a shared metaphysics. Said points out that the Orimtaiist's thinking or, in terms of our present disnission, Senghor's thinking, the thinking of the philosophcr of Aficmcité, of the "Platonic Idea"" of Negro-ness, is pounded on idealied strucnuu. As Anwar Abdel Maiek puts it:

in othcr words, thc Oriencalist's imagc of the Otherncss of the Other, or in o w case, Senghor's conccption of AfncM't.+ is internally structured and overdetcrmined by the mctaphysical assumption that the European is, properly speaking, "unlike the Oriental [or Negro-African]," the 'uue human bemg." This, as Said affirrns, is the purcst example of "dchumanizcd thought."*' It is dehumanized because this kind of "thinlllngn is ulrimately grounded on nothing other than bmte force and violencc, sinfe al1 the h g e s and wnccptions of "hornon Sicus, Aegypticus, Arabicus, Africanus, etc., i n d u d i i Scnghor's Africnnité, are fnmed and inaugurated out of the politiw-historic horizon of a violently impuialistic Europe. The Orientalist, as Said d l s us without querying this central point further,17and the European wloninlipt-from whom Senghor inherits all of his descriptionsof Afrhnit6-sm from the belief that European existente is the "tnic" and "propan manifestation of humanity in its concrete developmcntal self-realization. This belief is grounded on &e metaphysical delusion, interior to their culmre, that Europe's speafic particularity is the 'me" and "proper" actuality of human existeme as such. But on what metaphysical &non does this daim rest?What is the ground of thi Ewocentric isomorphism? In other words, what is the ground on which is established the 'propriety" of the 'pmpcr* in this gratuimus rnctaphysid E u r o p n self-evaluation?Strange as it may secrn, it is Scnghor-thc champion of Afncmcité and Negroness-who will supply us with the positive metaphysical ground for this bogus Ewocenaic daim. As Senghor tclls us in Thc Pounahtionr of Afn'cunité, Dr. ieakey discovered in 1963, in the Olduwai Valley of TPnzania, the remains of Homo habilis. This is a disoovery of 'capital importance" precisely because

Homo habik a¡ the fint Hano fnbn, morc simply, the 6rst man wonhy of
and mived with his f o s s i l i bona that the a r l i a t pebble mols were discovered. ihese seem to have beni made by him?'

To be sure, as Saighor consoles us, humanity as su&, at some leve1 or other, shares in 'discursivc ream."No 'aviiization can be buüh" he tcUs us, 'without using discunivc rcason and without techniques." in fact, "every ethnic p u p possessu differmt aspects of reason and al1 thc viof man, but eucb bus srressed only one aspect ofreuson. only certamvirtues."~Inother words, the 'aspect" which is "strcssed" in the indo-European and which speciúes its particdar humanity is that which, properly spcakhg, institum and grounds the humnnity of the human as such. The particularity of the particular in European humanity-unlike thc s&6c particularity of the African-is minadent with the universality of the universal. Europe is thus, properly speaking, the 'auth" of humanity. But then, whcn Senghor advocam the "symbiosis" and complementaity of diae two different kiads of reason, is he not advocating the subordination of Africa to Europe on metaphysical grounds? O n Afnarn Socialism is the text in which Senghor engages in an extended and sysmatic confcontation with Marxism-Leninism. The overall oricntation of this nxt is to advocatc a soáalism in ntne with the Being of the Negro-African, a socialism which takes into account the nature-immersed Bemg of the African-Negro?' But, givcn what has becn said thus far, one might well ask: 1s thii not a soaalism of inferiority and subordination? Scnghor tells us that thc Europan 'always separared h k i f from the objcct in order to know ¡t. He kcpt it at a distancc he always killed it and h e d it in hii analysis to be able m use it in practi~e."~' Thc Negro-African, on the other han& is "like one of those Third Day Wonns, a pure ñeld of sensati~ns."'~in other words, UEuropean reasoning is analytical, discursivc by utilization; Negro-African -ning is imitive by participation."u The one is aggressive, it p p s and controls; the other is docile and hannoniously in m e with nanue. And yet, the above notwithstanding, for Senghor the true and

It is crucial that we properly grasp what Senghor says of this dkovery. Homo habilis is 'the ñrst man worthy of thc name to cmerge from animality." Why? Because it is *at his level" that we ñnd 'the earliest pebble tools." In other words, the humanity of the human in the habilis (handy) is grounded on the ongiaative fact that it is the earliat manifestation of man the maker-Horno fuber. 11 is ispebblemols," early and rudimentary manifestations of a manipulative-pragmatic orientation to namre, that confirm the humanity of the human in Homo habilis. ín other words, "making" is here understood not as artistic creativify, but as pebble tools, elementary and rudimentary products of a utilitarian-pragmatic orientation aimed at thc insaumental use and manipulation of nature. The question then bewmes: On what kind of reason or rationality is such a utilitarian and pragmatic orientation based? 1s it discursive or intuitive? The impon of this quution üep in the fact that, for Senghor, Leakey's diswvery established the initial originative point of emergence of humanity proper out of the realm of "animality." This, furthermore, was pmvoked and called forth by the act of "making" grounded on a technical and instrumental orientation to the natural environmuit, ir., on discursivc reason. As Senghor teUs us, reaffirming what we have already seen in his occasional publications, the

...

Indo-Eumpean and Negro-Afnm wcre p l a ~ dat the antipodu, that is m say, at the m e n m of objenivity and subjenivity, of di~ursivercason and intuitive rcason [and he has] advocated the symbiosis of these different but complementary clement~?~

...

As has alteady bten noted, the Negro-African's mode of knowldge is intuitive, and as sudi, it is the extreme manifestation of "subjectivity." On the other hand, Indo-Ewpeao reason is discursive, and as su&, it is the extreme manifestation of "objectivity," aimed at the instrumental control of nature. Hence, based on what has been said thus far, it is Indo-Eumpean humanity which, properly ~ e a k i n gis, embodimentof "me" humanity as such. This i so preasely because its reason-discursive reason-is the kind of reason which ñrst extricatcs and disentangles the humanity of the human out of the nalm of 'animality."

proper charactcrisric of Man [as sudi] is m snatch himself from the ea& ... to escape in an act of fnedom iÍom h s 'namral detuminntions.' It ir by libeny that manconqucrsnanve and reconstructs it on a universal s d c , that man realizes himself as a god, this is frcedom."

1

.

What then o
...

(Hurray!) to those who are still immersed withm the bowels of nature and without deception, duplicity, or hypoaisy hnld on to the above conception of freedom? Doesn't Senghor-on his own terms-surreptitioudy privilege discursiveiEuropean in contradishction to i n n i i t i v ~ ~ A f r i c rcaan son? What is meant here by the "proper characteristicof Man"? 1s it not in terms of what is "proper to Man" that European philosophy systcmatically legitimated the conquest and subjugationof Africa and the non-European as "savage." For now al1 we need to note Ir that for Senghor, in perfea accord with Hegel: the savage is he whose humanity is within the bounds of "naturai determinations,"" he whose humanity is not manifested as the systemicconquest of nature, he who does not, in Senghor's words, 'snatch himself from the eanh." In other words, Afiicanité-on its own terma-describes the humanity of the human in Negro-African wistmcc as pmnitive w a g y . As we noted with Said and Abdel Malek, al1 of thc desaiptions that constitute Afiicanith are composed and inwardly determined in contradistinction to the "proper charact&tic of Mann-the humanity of the human as historically epitomized by Eumpe. As should be obvious by now, it is discursive reason which is the gmund for that which is the "proper characteristic of Man." h, for Suighor, appcaranccs notwithstanding, the "propricty" of the 'proper"-that which is the "norm" for humanity as a wholc-is cstabliihed by the hiitoricalness of European existence. We have now come hll circle: We are again in the company of Marxism-Leninism. In our disnission o£ Nkrumah and Hountondji, we saw how the Marxist-Leninist position meraphysically privileges European modernity by obliterating the specifiaty and particularity of thc African in the name of a universalistic scientism. Senghor achieves an anaiogous result by construaing the Bnng of the Afri-Aficanité-out of the Otherness of the Other projectcd by Europe and i n d y demar cated by it as the negative exterior of Europe's own positive interiority. Smghor's essentialistpar'cularism arrogates to the African a diffcrence which is (in spite of Senghor's "good" intmtions) thc ground for inferiority and servitude. Nkrumah and Hountondji on the other hand, "objectively" place the African on the lowcst rung of an evolutionarymetaphysical ladder, itself constmcted out of the generative biases and prejudgmmts that ground the s p d a t y of European modemity. in both of the above "opposed" positions this is a failure by default. It is the incapacitym think through the concrete historidty of contemporary Afncan existence.

The contrary perspectivcs of Nkrumah and Senghor thematically antiapate, within the diamurac of the African libcration stniggle, the stuile dispute of Ethnophidosophy and its "critical" critics. As Okolo has obmed, 'on the stridy philosophicplane"this Ys the expression of a problematic that oscillaus between a naive Ethnophilosophy and "unproductive critiasmn an unproductive aitiasm."" In this condescribes not only the c u m t status of debate in African philosophic thought but aiso and more important, thc neocolonial impotenccwhich pervades the continent aa a whoie and which has been dramatized so well in die f i h and novela of Sembme Ousmane." In concrete politial tems, chis failure at 'opposite extremes" manifcsts itaelf idmtically as the impotaicc of neocolonial A f r i a ~ .lt~is thc enigma of &a¡ xala (ipotencc in Wolof). in the prolonged and aaimonious dispute between Pmfersionai and Ethnophilosophy, which encompaaser the contemporary discoursc of African philosophic thought. As we have seen, what both of &ese scemingly contrary positions la& is an awarcnessof their lived historiaty and the requisite historicizing of thcir thought which goes with such an awarcness. As Heidcggcr has insighddly observcd, appropriating Count Yorck's remarks:

Jwas phye.iology cmnot be smdied in abstranion from physicr,

& phil&phy from h*toriality-cspccialiy if ir is a critica1 ahilosonhv.Behivhor and hiscorieaiitvare I*e bm
-&hm

...

r - ~ - - - ~ ~ = ~ ,

"

1: i L

in thii chaptu, in looking at Nkrumah and Senghor, 1 have located the ground for the hiatoricallysighdessdebate of contemporary African phi¡;wophy in the thearetic legaq of the African liberation s&e. Thi debatehas thus hrdominated the diamurscof African philosophic thought. Beyond thii dispute, however, African philosophy needs to enplec the unendinasaifeand the debiütatingxala of our post-colonial p&&t. in view of &e above, and taking rnicue h r n the hismrically astute petspectivcs of Fanon and Cabrai, in the followingtwo chapars 1wiil acploretheviolmce (chapru 3)and the ananapatory possibidities (chapcer 4) of the postsolonial African situation. How our explorations, thus far, have steered and guided us in this direnion should by now be de-. Por, ultimately, to 'historicim one's phiiosophizingwis to make one's phiiosophic reflections sensitivc to the hismddty out of *di they originatc-that is, to resuscitate and explore the conccm grounded in out own iived hiimrical existence.

Colonialism and the Colonized Violence and Counter-violence

Tribes living exclusively on hunting or fishing are beyond the boundory line from which real [historical] development begins. -Karl Marx From lntroduaion to a Critique of Political Economy, 1857-58

Isoy, listen to my words ond mark them. We have fought for a ywr. I wish to rule my country and protect my religion. We hove both suífered considerobly in b d l e with one onother. I hwe no forts, no houses. I have no cultivatd fields, nosilver or gold for you io take. If the county was cultivafd or contained houssí or property, it would be worth your while to fight. The country is al1 iungle, ond that is no use to you. If yau want wood ond stone you can get them in plenty. There ore olso ant-heops. The sun is very hot. All you can get from me is wor, nothing else. 4 0 y y i d Mohamed Abdille Hossen Somali anti-coloniolist leoder 1899-1920 From an 'Open Letter to h e English People"

e n vG i the violenoc of Africp's cncounar with Europe through which the "dark" contincnt was intmduocdinm the modun world, the q u e tion of violma should havc a cclltral imporrancc fot thc dimurse of contemporary African philosophy. And ya, m date, African philosophen have not pmperly dealt with ot cven engapd thc question. To rny howledge the only mnsin AnglophoneAfrieathat d i i y address

Cdonialism and he Cdonized 157

56 / Colonialism ond the Colonizad

this issue are: a short paper by Kwasi Wiredu titied, -The Question of Violence in Contemporary African Poütical Thought" (1986); and a slender booklet by Henry Odera Oruka titied, Punishment and Terrorism in Africa (1976).' Both of these texts are rather formalistic tracts that do not engage, let alone propedy explore, the question o€ violence in the context of the historiaty out of which it arises. Wiredu's paper is a concise tactical discussion of the utility and value of violence, as mnaasted to nonviolent methods, in the contcxt o€ the anti-colonial struggle. But does the question of violence historically pose itself in this way? Omka's booklet, on the other hand, is an analytic discussion of crime and punishment that advocates leniency and a curative pedagogical approach to viilainy. But can the question of punishment be queried without looking at the grounds-political and historical-for the legitimacy of the punishing authority? In both cases the historicity out of which the question of violencc arises in contemporary Afnca is siientiy ignored. This chapter is an attempt to redress this deficiency. Based on Frantz Fanon's serninal reflections on violence, it hopes to engage the question in and out o€ the historicity of Africa's encounter with Europe.' Why so? Preasely because thii encounter was, in its vuy natun inherently violent and had, for the actuality o€ contemporary Africa, a transfiguring and defining impact. The importance o€ thii historically attentive approach ües in the ha that it takes its point of departure from a grounding and neccssary fact of our contemporary African historiaty. This concrete situatedness of our present is the origin of its reflective engagement. In other words, it stam from and grounds itself on the violent inception of its own present enigmatic condition. In view o€the above this chapter will be composed of three d o n s . The h t section will place the question of violence within the historiaty of Africa's encounter of Europe. The second section wiU explore this encounter by utüizing, for this purpose, Fanon's originative discussion o€violence in the first section of The Wretched of the Earth. The third section will wnclude by suggesting the pprspect-which will be the central focus of chapter 4 - o f negating thc enduring violence of colonialism and neocolonialism in the consolidation of the concrete possibiities of the African liberation struggle.

Aimé Césaire opens hii Discourse on Colmialh (1955) by noting that interior to the essential consti~tionof Europcan modernity is the

relation witb its Other-the observes that

colonized non-European world Césaire

Eumpc .is unablc m justify i d cithcr beforc the bar of 'reason' or befon thc bar of 'wnscimcc"; and that, inaeasingly it rakcs rríuge in a hypaaiPl which is a l thc more odious because it is less and l a likely to decci~e.~

I

In referring to 'reasonn and "consciente" asaire indicaes that he is engaged in an interna1and immanent critique. Europe 1s fowid wanbng on its own terms, by the v e y criteria it uses m exarnally evduate and mndemn the humanity of the non-Eumpean as unciviüzed and primitive. Por asaire, colonialism and the hypocrisy that 1s necded to justify it are predicated on "intemai ruisons* that impel European modernity to 'umnd to a world scaie the competition o£ its antagonistic economies."' In pointing to intemai ewnomic reasons, Césaire makes clear that he presupposes a dassical Mantist-Leninist analysisof impcridim and wlonialism. As is well known, a year later, in conjunctiou with hii mignation from the French Communist Party, he gives us, in addition to thc above, a much more substantial and non-Eumcentric reading of the relationship of the colonized to Europe. In his Lctter to Maurice Thonz (1956) he assem, against the universalizing and hegemonic poütic~of the European Left, that the huidamental concm of the mlonizcd is to retake the initiative o€ history: to again become historical Be¡. it is to negate the negation of its lived hismricalness and overcome the violence o€ merely being an object in the historiaty of Eutopcan ewistence that the colonized fights. Thus, it is the inter-implicativedidectic of thíi primordial vioúnce, and the counter-violence it evokes, that we need to wncretely grasp. For this Y the lived historiaty out of which the actuality o€ violence prescnts i d f in the non-Europea world and thus in contemporary Africa. As Edward Said insighthtlly observes: 1mpenPlism W D ~the theory, coloniaüsm the practice of changing the uselessly unoc~upicdnrritories of thc world into uxfd ncw vcrsims of thc Eumptan metropolitan Meicty. Everything in thm terrimriu that sugguted [dikrenee] waste, disordcr, unwuntcd reaourcu, waa to be wnvcmd into pmduccivity. You gcr nd of moa of thc offrndiag human and animal bli&t ...you conhe h e rcst m rauvations, wmpounds, nativc ho&andí, w k you can wunt, rps use them pmfitably, and you build a new s o c i q on the vacated apace. Thua was Europc rewnstitutcd abroad its

...

58/ Cdonialm and ha Colonizad

Cobnidm and he Colonired159

"multiplication in spacc" successfuüyprojecnd and managed. The result was a widely varied group of litde Europes throughout Asia, Afica, and the Amenas, each reiiceting the arcumstanw, the speafic insmimentalities of the pvmt culhue, ib pioneem, its vanguard senlers. Al1 of thun werc similar in one other major respeadespite the differences, which wue considerable-and that was that their life was camed on with an air of nomli2y.'

t d s us, thii is the i m g e the colonialist wants to belicve and wants others to believe about him.' In fact, as Mudimbe has correctlypointedout, the colonizig venture of Europe in Africa has always bcm and cannot but be a twobld mission of spiritual and carthly dominion disguised, even m itself, as an evangelic and civilizing mission to the world.' In other words:

The first a a of freedom that the colonized engages in is the attcmpt to viohntly disrupt the "normality" which Eumpean colonial society presupposes. The tranquil existence of the colonizer is grounded on the chaotic, abnormal, and subhuman cxistcnce of the colonized. n i e "new socicties" that replicate Europe in the non-European world are built on "vacated spacen which hitherto was the uncontested tema finna of d'ierent and differing peoples and histories. The dawn and normalcy of colonial soaety-Le., the binh and establishment of the modern Europeanized world, as Karl Marx a p provingiy points out in the first few paga of the Commmist Mmifesto-is grounded on the negation of the c u l d d i f h c e and specificity that constitutes the historicity and thus humanity of the nonEuropean w ~ r l d European .~ modemity establishes itself globally by violently negating indigenous culnues. This violence in replication, furthermore, accentuates the regressive and despotidarismcratic aspects interna1 to the histories of the colonizing European sodeties. In imposing itself Europe cannot keep faith with the central m e t s of its own bourgeois democratic huitage. In fact, paradoxically, the colonies are the negation of this heritage in the veryaaof "duplicating" it. European democracy in the colonies is unabashed f a s ~ s mApart.~ heid South Africa, British Kenya, and French Alguia are paradigmatic examples of this contradiction. in o r d u to verify this obsuvatioa, aü one needs to do is compare the life of the colonized African unda European democracies and avowed fasast dictatorships. French Algeria and the Portuguese colonies, British Kenya and ltalian Eritrca, despite their many differences and in differing ways, are identical in their respective disparagement of the indigcnous historicity. In al1 of this, it has to be noted that Europe-fasast or democraticundertook the domination o£ the world and Africa not in the explicit and cynical recognition of its economic-colonialiit interest, but in the delusion that it was spreading civilizationand benúiaally Christianizing the globe. For the wlonialist consciousness, coloniaüsrnis an altruistic and generous self-sacrüicingpmject. At least, as Alben Memmi

Missionnry spach W alwaya predctcrmined, prereguiad, l u us say colowcd. . ..This W God's d& for the convemion of the world. This mcans, at Icast, that che missiomry does not enar inm dialogue with h e pagano. . but must impose the law of God that God is rightly entided m the use of aU p d b l e he incarnim. meana, cvm violaice, m achieve his objccti~es.'~

...

...

.

Convcnicntly,European colonial consaousness saw itself in the image of fullillingboth the demanda of Cod and &e requirements of civilid human e&tcnce. in colonizing, the missionary-or generally spePI
a a u n t indicates, andas the above shows, theEumpean

takes hmself as the n o m of human uristcnce per se and imposes hii own partidarity as univusal on thc non-European who is viewed as "half devil and haif &d." Notice thc dcar and dean concurrcna of God's work and the utigenacs of Eumpean expansion. Givm this "coinadence," European colonial consaousness, in contrast to themk of us, m n o t but aee itself aa thc vicnr of the m e rcvealed faith.Thc epismnic untenability of this b l i d bclief is the metaphysical w u n d

óO / Colonialbm and the Colonizd

Coloniaiii and h e Colon'd / 61

on which the colonialist projea, both in i a sacrcd and secular manifcstations, rests. Indeed, it goes without saying, the "devil" has to be exorcized and the "childn has to maturel" E l a b o r a ~ ga secular variant of the above from within the engaged discourse of the "materialist conception of history," Karl Marx wmte in 1853:

rubrimng in other ianL which are either dcfiauit m the goods it has overpmduccd, or dse generally backward in induaay."

England, it is m e , in causing a social molution in Hindustan, wac actuated only by the vilest intuests, and waa stupid in her manner of enforcingthun. But that is not thc queation %e queti011M, can mankind [m the singular] fulftll its á d n y [in dic singular]without a fundamental revolution in the social e.tatcof M a ? If not, whanver may have been the cdmcs of En%& she rhe meonrdour too1 of hktory in bringing about that revolution. %m, whntevet biuuncas the spemde of the crumbüng of an andent world may have for our personal Mings, we have the nght, m point ofhiaory to exclaim with Goethe: Should this tomue thcn tonnmt ur Sima it brin@ us greater pleoaurc? Were not throuuh the d e of iímur Souls devoured without measure?"

-

What has to be noted in these lines-which applics not only to india but to the test of the non-European world as a whole-is that Marx is not bl'ind to the hypocrisy and bmtaiity of British or European nile. In fact he recognizes in detail, in his &des on India, as well as in chapters 26 and 31 o£Capital. vol. l, theviolena upon which Eumpean expansion is grounded. in point of "history," however, and in terms of the singular "destiny" of "mankind," the desuuctive violence of European wnquest and expansion are exonerated. This is so prechely because the violence of colonial conquest makes possible a "fundamental revolution in the social state" of thc non-European world, ¡.e., it brings about the forced but necessary and propitious globaliiation of Europe." In like manner, reflecting on the socio-economic dialectic interna1 to European modernity, G. W. F. Hegel wrotc in 1821: This inner dialenic of civil socicty [i.s, of European modemity] thus drives it-or at any ratc a apedc c i d aodcty--M pwh beyond its own limin and seek markets, and so im ~ccrsmymenns of

Colonialist expansion is pmcnted by Hegel as the ideal solution m t 'neccssary") contradictions of Eutopcaa the i n d and i I I h e ~(i.e., modunity. h, nrritories which do not suffer from the peculiarly modern Europun problem of "overproduction" are labeled "generally bnckwird in i n d u q " and rhnrby b m e the legitiman pny of coloniaüsc conquest. Eicpansion and 'systematic ~lonization"'~dire& by the statc are, in this scenuio, the process by which culnue and civiihtion an sprad. What is siluitly left out of &S¡ picnue is the ha that this globDLizPtionof Europcan aviüzationpresupposes and ir gmunded on &e systemic destruction of non-Eutopean civiüutions. Like Mnrx-who M WIf,in this respea, Hcgel's faiW disaple-but f o c u d on the self-unfolding of Weltgeist (world-spirit), Hegel also thinks of humanity and history (m the singular) as the phenomeaal manifestation of G& (spirit), and European culture and hismriaty as the proper and highest illusuation of chis world-historical proaas." For Kipling, Marx, and Hegel, in keeping with thc critical self-consciousness and self-conaption of Euíopean modernity, colonialism is seen as a required and necessary snp in the unfolding of world history." In this regard theopinions of David Hume and Immanuel Kant, the pivotal pcecumors of nineteenth-cenniry Eutopean thought, are of cardinal impoctance. For as Hume pua it: 1 am apt m suapcct the negros, and h general aü the othu s p d a of men (fotthue are four or five i v e t lrinds) to be n a d y inferiorM whiw.mere neM was a aviüzcdnation of any complution than whitc.

In cangorical agreement with the above, Kant asseru that so íundamental M the diffcmce bnwetnthe two faces of men, and it appears m be as geat in rcgard to mental capaaties as in color."

in view of the above, as Father Plaade Temples puts ir, "our civilizing mission alone can justify our ofcupation of the lands of uncivilid peoples.nm Notice the cornlation bemeen Uoccupation"-i.e.. unmitigated violen-d Europe's "civilizing mission." Colonial violence sees ieelf as character-forming chastisement and in this u n e q u i v d y

62 / Colonialism and the Colonized

ColonMlim and ihe C d o n i d / 63

adheres to Arismtle's self-serving dicnim that "slavesstand even more in need of admonition than children."" Just as for the Greeks the barbarian was the legitimate objea of enslavemenfn in like manner European modernity sees itself as the Hellas of the m o d a age. Colonialist violence justifies itself in its own eyes by its "progressive," "civilizing," and "christianiziig" "mission" to the world. As Alan Ryan correftly points out:

sion of Europe is cxpcrienad as the unabashed dawn of systcmatic and organized global violence. Thii is a violence that closes off the different and differing culturai and historial totalities wirhin which the non-European exisn. i h e 'little Europes" throughout Asia, &a, and thc Americas arose out of chis primordial colonizing ~iolence.~ Theun-freedomin which Africa is pccscntly entangledis thus direcdy cooted in European dominancc. This is what Césaire refecs to as thc "peniliarity of our histo Laad with terrible misfortunes which belong to no other hisa,ry.'We n a d now to ask: How was chis violent dawn experienad by the wlonized? in ordcr a, properly grasp the scnse of this qucstion let us l w k at two well-known textd of &can imaginative production; Chinua Achcbe's Tbings Fa11 A ~ r (19S9) t and Chcikh Hamidou Kane's Amb i g u o ~Aduenture ~ (1962).T h a texts concisely articulate-from within Anglophoneand Franwphone Africa, respectively-tbe existential anguish suffercd by &ose of us who, as pan of our cultural and hiatotical haimge, haw a colonitcd past Beyond the colonizcr's seifPmiag and dclusory self-perception, we necd now to look at the colonued. As Achebe puts it, with the advcnt of European w1onialism 'tbings kll apart." Tbe African's mode of life, his indigenoushabitar of human ucistena, was displaced by the violuice of the navilizing mission." Thmgs African were devalued and the African was reduced to slavery. In the fictiod -tion of the dunise of the Igbo at the han& of the British, Achebe conasely depicts the truth of this uagic moment of our modem African historiaty. Things Fa11 Apart en& with the suicide of Okonkwo the warrior chief and nui charactcr of thc novel, and the reduction of the wise Obiuüta-the wpcctcd and p ~ d e n elda t in dii circumstancc-to the aatucr of an informant explaining to the Colonial Diitrict Commissioner the abominable charactu of his worthy friend's appalling end.

Gr& and Roman philosophers thought b i s t o ~was ~ cycücai and repetidve just likc any othcrnaturalprocess.. .%e Judeo-Christian tradition was anti-dassical in thinking that history had a deñnitc dramaticshape, with a beginning, a middle, and a mndusíon. lt was the Christian image of bistory as a thrce-act play-Pd, Suffering, Redcmption-that found its way into Kuit's philosophy of history, into Hegel's and evenmaiiy inm Maa's supposediy empiricai and soaological "materialist conoeptioa of hi~mry."~

.

Non-European cultures are saved from their "fallenn condition of heathenism through the "sufferhg" of colonialism and can, through this suffering, look forward to a distant future of possibk "redunption." In both its secular and rcligious manikstations, this view does nothing more than universdie the singular historiw-cuitwal partinilarity of Europe in the name of a metaphysical-earthly or divinetelos. Thus, in the very act of violent wnquest, paradoxically, Europe sees itself as serving its "captive's need." Or, not so enigmaacally, as Said puts it: lmages of blacks, of womm, of primitivea that occur in the ninet ~ n t hcentury are pan of the pmduction of hese banga as inferior, and h a f e as dominated [and justifiably so] by the wielden of the ... discourse about blacks, women, primiti~es.~

...

This then is the duplicity that Césaire acnises Europe of. Por the image of the "primitive" is interior and necessary to Europe's own gratuitous self-wnception. This same "image" is, however, also used to justify the violent destruction of the specific humanity of aboriginal peoples which it supposedly describes. This violence, furthermore-the violence of the "civiüzing mission"-is not aviolenceof mere destruction. Rather, as Césairereminds us, it is a dupliutous violeme that ranks human societies insubordination. Now, beyond this suange deceit, to the non-European, the expan-

'"ihat man [Okoniovo] wm we of the greatcst mm in Umuoiia. You drove him m kU h i d ; and now he wül be buricd üke a dog.. ."He wuld notsay any more. His voice tnmbled andchoked his words.=

.

i

i

The wise Obierika ucplains what, up to that point, had been dear and in no need of ucplanation or interpcctation. He is both the wimess and incarnation of the estranganent in African ucistence inaugurated by colonial conqutst. Prom within an Africa ovuwhelmed by Europe

64/Colonialhm and the Colonired

Colonialism ond the Colonued / 65

he laments, and by his political impotence manifests, the agonized primordial moment of Africa's mortifying enslavement. Standing at the feet of Okonkwo's dangling cadaver, which represents defeated but unconquered Africa, the District Commissioner contemplates the writing of a book.

Again the story ends with the death of the central character. The conclusion strongly suggests that the failure to reconcile the imposed modernity of Europe with the enduring traditions of Africa-which kills Samba-will also, ultimately, be the demise of the continent. In al1 this, the central moment is the moment of conquest and violence. Let us read Kane.

The story of this man who had kilied a messengcr and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost writc a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a wholc chapnr but a rcasonable paragraph. There was so much else m include, and one must be firm in cucting out details. He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The pacification of tbe Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger."

. ..

The unbending Okonkwo is the "jungle ~avage,"'~to borrow Fanon's sarcastic phrase; he exists beyond the pale of "humanityn proper, ¡.e., the historicity of European conquest. He is the one who refuses the designation "the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger," a colonialist designation which presupposes the negation, as primitive, of the indigenous historicity. Or, in Hegelian terms, Okonkwo symbolizesthe rejection of the dialectic of colonial enslavement. In being the concrete personification of its own freedom, this consciousness cannot even conceive of the possibility of being the bondsman in Hegel's dialectic of "lordship and bondage." It chooses demise over bondage. Okonkwo is the consciousness that refuses to barter, oreven contemplace the possibility of bartering, its concrete ethical life-¡.e., its freedom-for biological existence.)' Obierika, obversely, is the spiritual forefather of the assimilado and the ~volué-the enslaved." His wisdom is a prudent knowledge, a skill at bartering self-preservation and the default of freedom. On the other hand, in Obierika's remorse for proud Okonkwo's tragic end, we see the demised remains of selfstanding Africa inaugurating the moment of reflective thought out of colonial estrangement in the historicity of our present.)' In Ambiguous Adventure, Kane recaunts the story of Samba Diallo, a young Diallobe boy, from French Senegal, who finds himself in a spiritual-cultural imbroglio between his traditional Islamic ambience and the imposed materialistic world of the West, which he has partially internalized. The spiritual-cultural crisis that Samba feels and fails to resolve is the conflict around which the narrative is structured. Utilizing this quandary as a metaphor, Kane engages the lived and systemic enigma of colonized existence.

Strange dawn! The moming o€the Occident in black Afrka was spangled with smiles, with cannon shots, with shining glass beads. ihose who had no history wcrc cncounteringthose who carricd the world on their shoulders. It was a moming of accouchemenr:the known wodd was enriching itself by a birth that toak place in mire and blood. From shock, thc onc sidc made no resistana. They wcre a peoplc without a past, thereforc without memory. Thc men who were landing on their shora were white, and mad. Nothing likc them had ever been known. The d d was accomplished before rhe people werc wen conscious o€what had happened. Some among the Africans, such as che Diallobe brandished their shields, pointed rheir lances, and eimed their guns. They wcre allowed m come dose, then the cannons wcre fired. The vanquished did not understand. . . . Others wanted to parley. They were given a choice: friendship or war. Very sensibly, they chose friendship.They had no experience at all. The result was the same. ihose who had shown fight and those who had surrendered they al1found themselves.. . checked by census, dividcd up, classified, labeled, conscripted, administrated. For the newcomers did not know only how to fight. They wcrc strange people. . Where they had brought disorder, they establishcd a ncw ordcr. They destroyed and they constructed. Thus, bchind the gunboats [stood] . . . the new school."

. .. . ..

..

Behind the "gunboats" stands the "new school": the institutionaU cultural weapon which will permanently scar and violate the indigenous culture. i h e sarcasm of Kane's prose illustrates well the sense of terror and bewilderment with which European modernity dawned on Africa. This "Strange dawn! The morning of the Occident in black Africa" is the primeval violence on which is grounded the quotidian normalcy of colonialism and neocolonialism, of being "checked by census, divided up, classified, labeled, conscripted, administrated." Or as Said puts it:

66 1Colonialim and ihe Colonired

Colonialisrn ond the Colonired / 67

.. .

You get rid of most of the offending human and animal blight confine the rest to rescwations . where you can count, tax, use them profitably, and you build a new sodety on the vacated space.3'

..

Europe experienced the dawn of modernity as the age of Enlightenment. In the words of lmmanuel Kant, this was the age in which was to be actualized. "man's release from his self-incurred t~telage"'~ A century later Africa experienced its entry into this modern European world, not as liberation or enlightenment, but as the painful process of colonial subiugation. This is how Fanon puts ií: Conquest, it is affirmed, creates historic links. The new time inaugurared by the conquest, which is a colonialist time because occupied by colonialist values, because deriving i a raison &&re from the negarion of the national time, will be endowed with an absoluce coefficient. The history of the conquest, the histonc development of the colonization and of thc national spoilation will be substituted for the real time of the exploited. And what is affirmed by the colonized at the rime of the struggle for national liberation as the will to break with urploitation and contempt will be rejected by the colonialist power as a symbol of barbarism and of regression. The colonialist, by a process of thinking which is after al1 fairly commonplace, reaches the point of no longer being able to imagine a time occurring without him. His irruption into the history of the colonizedpeople is deified, transformed inco ebsolute necessity. Now a "hiscoric look at history" requires, on thc contrary, that the French colonialist retire, for ir has become historically necessary for the national time in Algecia to exist.J6

cultural-hismrical tocalities. As Patrick Taylor correctly points out, for Fanon, the demise or destruction of 'the colonizer means the beginning of the possibility of a new history for the colonized."" The actualization of this possibility is the reclaiming of human existence for both the former colonizer and the colonized. In Hegelian terms, this is the moment of recognition and freedom. Let us now with Fanon look in greater detail at the nature and phenomenal character of this violent confrontarion and its possible resolution. In so doing we will not be using "Fanon as a global theorist in uacuo" as Henry Louis Gates, Jr., accuses Edward Said of doing." Rather, our deployment of this violent text, on violence, srems from the anuality and the ferocity of conflict in colonized and neocolonized Africa. This is the concretely situated-historically and politically originative-context out of which Fanon's reflections on violence were first produced.

.. .

I have quoted extensively from Fanon and earlier from Kane precisely because they articulate concisely the moments of primordial confiict o£ the two contending forces in the colonial encounter. Kane tells us that where the colonizers "had brought disorder, they established a new order." They end one order of time and inaugurate a new colonial order of time. Using the example of the French in Algeria, Fanon articulates the obverse of the colonial conquest. Just as the "irruption" of colonialism "into the history of the colonized" interrupts the historicity of the indigenous culture, in like manner the reclaiming of the "national time" is possible only on the demise of colonial temporality. The clash is thus a conflict of contending and radically noncommensurable

In the opening pages of his seminal work, The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon observes thaí: The colonial world is a world cut in two. The dividing line, the frontiers are shown by barracks and police stations. In &e colonies it is the polioeman and the mldier who are the official, inaituted go-between, the spokesmenof the senlcr and his rule of ~p~cession.'~ Fanon is describing the colonial situation as it existed and still exists in Africa. ln the colonies things are clear-cut, especially in avowedly colonial times, but also in their neocolonial prolongations. The differenceis notonly oneof pigmentation but alsoof indigenizedcolonialistmethods. Neocolonialism replicates colonial violente-by proxy-between Westernized and non-Westernized natives. 01, as Fanon puts it [This] is the antagonism which exists between the native who is excluded from the advantages of colonialism and his counterpart who manager to turn colonial exploitarion to his accoun~.'~ Thus, what is said of the colonial situation mutatis mutandis applies with equal force to neocolonial Africa. On the one hand, you have the colonizer; on the other, the colonized.

68 1Coloniolisrn ond the Colonized These two groups-one of human beings in the process of extending and globalizing their cultural and historical actuality, and the other of thingifiesl entities frozen in time and degraded beyond beliefexist as an organic whole in subordination. The colonizer and the colonized each constitute the Other for one another and determine themselves in terms of the Other. In the metropolis, the socio-economic relations of civil society and the hierarchical structure of the state-¡.e., society as an organic and differentiated whole-are maintained in place by a variety of intersecting socio-historical institutions. The national educational system, the heritage of a common history, norms and modes of behavior and moral conduct implicitly accepted by al1 muffle class contiim and instirute a reality in which the lower classes' antagonism to those in power is channeled through peaceful avenues. Even the militant communist parties of the European working classes are accepted and represent a respectable political position within thc confines of European modernity. Al1 these conflicting, and potentially Icthal, political perspectives are held in check by the hegemonic power of a common modern European historicity. As Fanon points out, the "serf is in essence different from the knight but a reference to divine right is necessary to legitimate this statutory differen~e."~' Indeed, in Europe social contradictions are mediated. In the medieval age religion served thispurpose, and in modern capitalist Europe the liberal abstract discourse of rights and theideals of "liberty, equality and fraternity," which animated the French Revolution, still fulfill this task. In the colonies, on the other hand, the dialectic of social existence has no middle term, or, to be more precise, rhis dialectic is mediated by violence. The relation of the colonizer and the colonized is based on brute force. Coloniaiism, as Hegel approvingiy observes, originates in the violent contradictions of "civil society" and is a desirable way of instit~tionall~ externalizing this violeme, which is interna1 and endemic ro European modernity4' From the inception of the colonial situation-the time of the colonial conquest-tbe settler and the colonial society in which he exists are establiihed and maintained by force and violence. The colonized is constantly reminded of his place; in thii divided world no one can breach the boundaries with impunity. Be it in the presence of the wlonialist police, the wealth of the European farms, or the. innumerable statues to the heroes of the period of conquest, the colonized is reminded that he is a "native," an outcast in his own land, a conquered person-a thkg of service in the historicity of the colonizer.

Coloniolism ond he Colonized / 69 The "native" is maintained-or held down-in his designated inferior position by the tremendous material and intellectual force exerted against him by the settler and the "mother" country. As Fanon observes: Their first encountcr was marked by violence and their exisrence together-that is to say theexploitationof the native by the setrlerwas carried on by dint of a great array of bayoncts and cannons. The settler and the nativc are old acquainrances.In fact . . . iris thc smler who has brought the native into existence and who perpetuates his exi~tence.~ One has to grasp the force of Fanon's words. The "settler and the native are old acquaintances." The settler maintains and constituresbrings "into existente"-the "native" as an inferior being. As the embodiment of his own inferiority, and as long as he remains in this position, tbe native upholds and endures-as if by choice!-the supremacy of the settler. In this mutual relation one is the complement and the gmund of the other. The opposite moments of this interimplicative bond necessarily stand or fall togerher. Master implies slave and slave implies master. The colonized is the memhec of a defeated history .But he also knows that his forefathers-those who confronted the original conquestfought the aggressor and weredefeated not because they lacked courage or wisdom but because they lacked cunning and shrewdness. He knows that his history, the process of his communal becoming, was violently intermpted not because it was impotent, but because it failed-as Cheikh Hamidou Kane tells us-to organize and cal1 forth the requisite violence against the original intruders. The colonized is aware at some leve1 that the socio-human habitat-the ethos (¡.e., the social-historical space) in which his forefathers lived and acted out their historicity, his peculiar experience of Being or existente-was suppressed, not for lack of wisdom, but because of violence and military strength. In this awareness, the colonized sees the colonizer as a brute with nothing to his merit cave his strength. This-the colonizer's strength, his violence-he envies. The settler and the learned experts from the "mother" country-or the elite of the Westernized native ruling class in a neocolonial context-see things differently. As Fanon points out, they speak of brown, yellow, and black multitudes, or of a backward peasantry in a neocolonial setup. They speak of the colonized or of the subjects of neocolonial

1

70/Coloniolism and the Colonized exploitation in biological terms and declare them to be the antagonist of history. The native, or the neocolonized peasantry, is said to be inferior and to have no appreciation of values. It is in short, "the negation of values" and of al1 that humanity claims for itself as human?* Thus the settler, or the neocolonial elite, has no regrets or qualms of conscience, for he does violence not to human beings, but to strange entities located between humanity and undifferentiated natureP6 For the settler, the "nativeW-just as for the neocolonial elite, the peasant-is a thing, a beast of burden. Just as the flora and fauna of the conquered territory or the neocolonial state, the "native," or the neocolonized peasant, as the case may be, is a more or less useful resource, an object of calculative exploitation. In a neocolonial setup this manifests itself as the defensive and reactive animosity of the elite toward the indigenous peasantry. This rancor, furthermore, is much more pronounced and accentuated to the extent that the neocolonial elite, unlike the forrner colonizers, has to actively and desperately maintain its difference from the indigenous and indigent foik. This is a case of being more Catholic than the Pope! Thus, the neocolonial elite "does not hesitate to assert that 'they [the peasants] need the thick end of the stick if this country is to getout of the Middle Ages.' As we saw in chapter 1, to progress or "get out of the Middle Agesn here means to replicate and perpetuate the technological Ge-stell of European dominance.4' The settler recognizes in his own person the indispensable agent of history. The "settler makes history and is conscious of making His constant point of reference, furthermore, is European history and iris in terrns of this past that he projects a future. Indecd, it is in light of this duplicity that Césaire's critica1 remarks, with which we opened this chapter, make sense. Césaire, as we noted, charges colonialist Europe with dissimulation precisely because in the name of the universality of values Europe universalizes its own singular particularity. In the colonies, the paradox of this situation manifests itself in the fact that Europe subjugates the native in order to "civilizen and "liberate" or "save" his soul from barbarism. Thus, in the name of democracy, in the nonBuropean world, Europe institutes colonial fascism. The colonized, o n the other hand, knows that he is human and the incarnation of a distinctive civilization. He knows that the values and culture the settler speaks of were established by force and violence. He is aware, and is made awarc by thc vcry structure of colonialist society, of:

Colonialism and the Colonized 171 The violence with which the supremacy of white values ir affirmed and the aggressiveness which has permeated the vktor? of these values over the ways of life and of thought of the narive." The colonized is not only a defeated person, he is also resentful, since he is forced to accept the illegitimate power of rhe colonizer. The colonialist is everything, and the native is forced to accept this in silent terror. Thus: The immobility to which rhe native is condemned can only be called in question if the native decides to put an end to rhe history of coloniwtion-the history of the pillagc-and to bring into existente the history of the nation-the history of decolonization." This is possible only through the explicit confrontation of the colonizer and the colonized. It is only when the colonized appropriates the violence of the colonizer and puts forth his own concrete counterviolence that he reenters the realm of history and human historical becoming. Out of bitter experience, the colonized learns the truth of the words with which Jean-Jacques Rousseau opens Tbe SoctaI Contract: Force has no moral sanction and thus what is taken by violence can, by the same means, legitimately be rcgained.12 It is at this point that the colonized actively realizes, beyond the inertness of resentment, the viability of his own suppressed indigenous historicity. The very possibility of appropriating a liberating violence has thus a therapeutic effect on the consciousness of the colonized. It is at these moments, as Fanon tells us, that We must notice in this ripeningprocessthe roleplayed by the history of the mistana at the time of thc conquest. The great figures of the colonized people are always those who led &e national resistance to invasion [they] al1 spting [at these moments] again to life with peculiar intensity in the period which comes directly before action. This is the proof that the people are getting ready to begin m go fonvard again, to put an end to the static period begun by coloniration and to make history?'

...

The organic metaphor-"ripening"-that Fanon uses is insightful.Just as the seed or fruit in ripcning brings out of itself what it inherently is, in like manncr the colonized in resisting makes itself what it inherently is-a cornmunity of human beings-by effectively negating its thingification and bringing out of irself the historiciry that accentuates

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its thus far thwarted humanity. It is only in the stmggle to contest its subjugation that the colonized concretely reactivates its Being as human. The wnflict is between stasis (death) and activity (life). T o exist as a human being is to temporalize, but the colonized as colonized only passively does time and subsists in a history of which he is not a participant. As Memmi observes, at times even the citizens of free countries feel helpless in the face of the modern machinery of states and governments. They are like pawns in the hands of the politicians, their elected "civil servants." Yet in principie the citizen is a free member of the body politic. Thus in spite of their apathy and skepticism, the free citizens periodically rise up-for exarnple, May 1968, France-and "upset the politicians' little calculations." On the other hand, the colonized

But colonialism is precisely the complete negation of the "community of projects" which constitute the historicity of the colonized. The colonized, the "native," is forcefullybarred from and does not historicize. Rather he endures as a subordinate thing in the historicity of the colonizer. The colonized's Being or humanity-the specific cultural, political, and historical differencethat constitutes his existence-begins to unfold only in the act of confrontation. This is so precisely because in this violent engagement he affirms his existence by opening up its concrete possibilities. In struggle and conflict the colonized passes beyond himself-his thingified status of '
Feels neither responsible nor guilty nor skeptical, for he is out of the game. He is in no way a subjecr of history any more. Of course, he carries its burden, often more cruelly than othecs, but always as an object. He has forgotten how to participate actively in history and no longer even asks to do so?'

The settler makes history; his life is an epoch, an Odyssey. He is thc absolute beginning: "This land was created by us"; he is the unceasing cause: "lf we leave, al1 is lost, and the country will go back to the middle ages." Over against him torpid creatures, wasted by feven, obsessed by ancestral customs, form an almost inorganic background for the innovating dynamism of colonial mercantilism.

So far as he is colonized and remains so, he is nothing more than a thingified biological organism with specific life functions. These life functions-eating, breathing, defecating, procreating-are secured at the heavy coast of freedom, namely, human existence. The "native" stricdy speaking exists only in the realm of nature. In the realm of history he is a nonperson-his master's zombie. In order to remember and reenter the realm of human historicity, the colonized has to put his situation as a whole in question. This question, furthermore, assumes the character of violent confrontation precisely because the colonized not only wants to be in the "game" but wants to be the author of the rules as well. In confrontation, the colonized reclaims and asserts the humanity of his existence. This is the particularity of his specific historico-cultural experience of existencel Being. It is in this way that the colonized claims his autonomy and freedom, his Being as history. As Oliva Blanchette puts it: man enters into society [histosyl as he beains to form his own projects in consort withótherso ~ , ~anoth; u t way, society [hismry] in the concrete is constituted by a community of projects."

The other side of this divide the coiled, plundered crcaturc which is the native provides fodder for and al1 the while the native, bent the process as best he can double, more dead than alivc, exists intcrminably in an unchanging dream?'

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ln al1 this what has to be taken note of is the fact that the violence of the colonized is a reactive violence aimed at the primordial violence incarnated in the colonial situation. It is in a desperate attempt to overcome the delirium of the "unchanging dream" that the colonized is forced to live in the confines of a dehumanized existence. In this regard, the paradigm par excellence of the colonized is the domestic servant. The domestk exists as a "domestic" only to the extent that he does not exist as a hurnan being and is implicated in his own non-existente. As Memmi puts ir, the dornestic is "his master's respectful s h a d o w . " ' ~ ~ is e the act of execuring another's will. He

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Colonialisrn and he Colonized 175

does not have a will of his own. The domestic "acts when he is ordered to, he does not speak of himself, he is never anything but a reflection of his master."s9 The domestic is the embodiment of debasement, "a debasement to which he consents" and in this is implicated in forsaking his own h~manity.~' The situation of the domestic and the colonized is thus inherentlyin its very nature-not open to compromises and half-measures. For what is at stake in this inter-implicative dialectic on the levelof ontological description is the humanity of the colonized and of the domesticated nonperson. The being of the master necessarily presupposes the nonbeing of the domestic. The only alternative to the above is the violence of resistance. In this context a "nonviolent" resistance is a contradiction in terms precisely because any self-assertive act of the colonized is bound to violate-hence do violence to-the rule and standard or norm of subjugation and domination on which the colonial relation is grounded. In Marx's famous words, "violence is the midwife" of social change and historical transformation. In the colonial context, violence is a great deal more: it is the avenue through which humanity is reclaimed.

in the process of violent confrontation that life is reappcopriated and the colonized reinstitute their humanity. ln this regard, as Patrick Taylor points out, it should be noted that, "[ulnderneath the roles into which they are forced, the colonized preserve ahuman identity and temporal b e i t ~ ~This . " ~ is~ so, however, only to the extent that the silent resignation of the colonized is itself a form of passive resistance to colonial thingification. To be sure, the humanity of the colonized can be concretely reclaimed only in an explicit historico-political confrontation, since, as we shall see, the half-mcasure of resistance as silent resignation is itself prone to the temptation of dissolving and diluting the struggle in the imaginary world of arcane phantasmic m ~ t h . ~Hidden ' under "the roles" forced on the colonized, one finds the smoldering tension of a subjugated and humiliated existence that needs to explode into open resistance if it is not to implode into an interior world of torpid and mystical selfrnortification. In what has been said thus far we have been expounding Fanon's views on violence in the colonial and the neocolonial situation. To be sure, al1 Fanon does is to articulate a prevalent theme of European philosophy in the context of Africa's experience of the modern Europeanized world. In other words: In Thomas Hobbes's conception of society, it is through the possibility of the uncompromising violence of the political state (¡.e., the Leviathan) that order and stability are maintained:6 In Hegel's famous dialectic of "lordship and bondage," it is through Labor and in fear of death, the ultiniate violence, and "the sovereign master" that rhe dialectic of "the master" and "the slave" unfolds. In Marx's idea of the class struggle it is through violent class conflict that the new is born out of the dying old society. In Heidegger's conception of the primordial Polentos, which is a violent "conflict that prevailed prior to everything divine and human," it is this primeval violente-as in Hesiod's Theogony-that "first projects and develops what had hithcrto been unheard of, unsaid and unth~u~ht."~' In differing ways, what is being articulated is a conception of violence which is fundamental to the varied problematics of the above thinkers and thus to the socio-political thinking of European philosophy. In this respect, ir could be said that the whole contractarian perspenive of modern political philosophy is grounded on a prolonged discourse on how to avert as well as to use violence for socially beneficia1 ends. Rousseau opens The Social Contract with a discussion of how force does not, of itself, have moral sanction. Hobbes, on the other hand,

Decolonization is the veritable creation of new men [i.e., of a new humanity]. But this creation owes nothing of its legitimacy to any supernatural power; the "thing" which has been colonized becomes man during the same process by which it frees inelf:' Through and out of this historical process, which is necessarily violent, the "thing" (¡.e., the native) reclaims its own humanity. This is a self-reflexive process from which, if exhaustively consummated, the colonized emerges as human. Borrowing a phrase from Hegel, one can say that dewlonization, properly speaking, is "the process of its own becoming and only by being worked out to its [very] end is it actual."" Fanon's French properly captures and conveys this selfreflexive Hegelian nuance; "la 'chose' colonisée deuiunt homme dans le processus m2me par legue1 elle se libe~e."~'The process of liberation-le processus meme-is the avenue through which the concept of humanity is adequated to the lived actuality of the decolonited. Fanon emphasizes the term "thing" (chose) precisely because, iust as a domesticated animal, the "native" has lost the sense of life and living. The colonized "native" is a thingified entity, just as the domesticated animal is an agricultura1 resource-a beast of burden. lt is only

...

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in the Leuiathan, overcomes civil stnfe by instituting the state as the ultimate guarantor and embodiment of legitimate violence. In talking about violence as he does, Fanon's novelty lies in the fact that his problematic is the concrete question of colonialism. Fanon describes the violence of colonial confrontation and in so doing shows us how "what had hitherto been unheard of, unsaid and unthought"namely, the freedom of the colonized people of Africa-could come to pass. In this, Fanon does nothing more than specify within the colonial context what Heidegger articulates as thc 'apoli?"" of human existence in the context of ancient Greek history and tragedy. This is the first emergence, the inauguration of a new order or "beginning" which "is the strangest and mightie~t."~' It is the originative violence with which Hesoid begins the Theogony. it is the foundational opening or origin that first institutes human existence in society-the polis (or community). In Hegelian terms, Fanon's meditation on violence is an attempt to situate the dialectic of "lordship and bondage" within the colonial context, while being true to the historicity of Africa's encounter of Europe. In the section of Black Skin, White Masks (1952), titled "The Negro and Recognition" (section B of chapter 7), Fanon explicidy makes this the obiect of his deliberations. In fact, as Taylor puts it, "Fanon draws from the Hegelian-Marxist tradition" but in so doing reinterprets this tradition "in terms of the concrete specificity of the colonial sit~ation."'~ Indeed, as Jean-Paul Sartre has astutely observed, in al1 of this, Fanon "acts as the interpreter of the [violent colonial] situation, that's all."" The above notwithstanding, Hannah Arendt-an erudite scholar of the Occidental tradition--criticizes Fanon for glorifying violence in and for itself. In fact, Fanon is for Arendt one of the few thinkers who "glorified violence for violente's sake."" Nothing could be further from the truth. What Fanon does is to accurately depict the situation of conflict in the colonial context. In fact, as Arendt has observed, in the context of inter-European conflicts, the generation which lived under Nazi occupation found its freedom and salvation in "the resistancen-the organized counter-uiolence with which Europe defended itself against the brutality of Hitler's Germany. In the midst of unsparing conflict, open and hidden, one does not philosophize. Violence understands only the language of violence. In Arendt's sagacious observation, the generation that lived the Nazi occupation found its "treasure" in violent confrontation. But what was this "treasure" ?

As they themselves understood ir, it seems to have consisted, as it were, of two interconnectedparts: they had discovered thar he who "joined the resistance, found himself," that he ceased to be "in quest of [himselfj without mastery, in naked unsatisfaction," that he no longu suspected himself of 'insincerity" of being "a carping, suspicious actor of life," that he could afbrd "to go naked." In this nakedness, stripped o€al1 masks-of those which sociery assigns ro its membcrs as well as those which thc individual fabricares for himself in hispsychologicalreactions against society-they had been visind for the first time in their lives by an appantron of freedom, not, to be sure, because they acted against tyranny and things worse rhan tyranny-this was true for every soldier in rhe allied armiesbut because they had beeomc "challengers," had taken rhe initiarive upon themselves and therebre, without knowing or even noticing it, had begun to create that public space beween themselves where fieedom could appear." It is important to note that the character of Arendt's observation is impeccable. Thosc who fought the occupation found freedom. ln confronting domination, they created and held open the "public space" in which "freedom could appear," not because they fought an odious tyranny, or because "they acted," but because "they took the initiative upon themselves" and in so doing became "challengers." In other words, it is the character of their actions that counts. In joining the resistance one "found himself" precisely because one renounced passive submission to subjugation and engaged life. Those in the resistance made history by concretely reclaiming themselves, in ' the act of resisting, as human beings and thus "freedom could appear." Arendt understands al1 too well the existential import of organized counter-uiolence in the context of oppression and domination. Yet, what she recognizes in the European she fails to see in the non-European. The fact that Arendt does not see chis can, at best, be attributed to her lack of sympathy for or understanding of colonized nonBuropean peoples, or at worst, it could be taken as the symptom of a latent Eurocentric double standard at work in her thought." The colonized non-European, just like the generation of Europeans who lived under Nazi occupation, finds freedom and liberation in the resolved confrontation with the colonial apparatus. The colonized, in so doing, takes the initiative and carves out the "space" in which freedom can appear, thus overcoming colonial thingification. But why is chis the case? It is precisely because colonialism-just as the Nazi occupation in respect to non-Aryans-is the complete negation of the

78 / Colonialism and the Colonized

Colonialism and the Colonized / 79

historicity of the colonized. The very fact of wnquest is taken by the colonizer as a metaphysical proof of the unhistoricity (¡.e., the nonhumanness) of the colonized. Colonialism is the blatant denial of the humanity of the colonized which serves as its own proof. It is the affirmation that the colonized have no history and are innoduced into the human community by European conque~t.'~ It is the violent claim that the colonized stand on the other side of the difference that constitutes humanity as human. Only by unleashing a self-redeemingcounterclaim-and given the reality of colonialism and neocolonialism this can only be a counterviolente-can the colonized establish categorically to himself and to the colonizer the fact of his h ~ m a n i t y As . ~ ~Fanon astutely points out in A Dying Colonialism:

ing project of human liberation. The settler, a European migrant, originates in the systematic violence of colonization and expansion. The colony and the settler are the exteriorization of the dialectic of violence &e., poverty) interna1 to European modernity. As Memmi tells us, writing in 1957: "Today, the economic motives of colonial undertakings are revealed by every historian of colonialism."" The settler, in order to avoid the violence of poveny in Europe, where he is the victim of the socio-economicdialectic of modern European society, migrates to a foreign land and by force and violence makes others victims. The sheer egoism and inhumanity of this position is astounding. The more so because, as we noted earlier, the colonizer is duped by his own myths to such a point that he sees himself as the benefactor of those he victimizes. In obsewing the settler's inhuman conduct and demeanor, the colonized learns that he can rewver his freedom only by unleashing a counter-violence of his own. As Cabra1 emphatically and categorically points out,

Before the rebellion there was the life, the rnovemmt, the existence of the settler, and on the other side the continued agony of the colonized. Since 1954 [the inception of the Algerian Rcvolution], the European has discovered that another life parallel to his own has begun to stir, and that is Algerian souety." In this respect it has to be emphasized that the colonized does not choose violence. Violence is not a choice. It is the condition of existence imposed on the colonized by the colonizer, which enforces the colonized's status of being a "native," a thing, a historical being forcefully barred from history. In other words, the direct confrontation beween the colonizer and the colonized is not the beginning of violence in the colonial situation. The "continued agony of the colonized" is in fact the historically grounding violence of colonialism. In view of the above, any attempt to avert the violent coníiict bemeen the antagonists of colonial society-the moment the colonized begin to "stirn-is suspect, on thepolitical level, for it is concretely implicated in the defense of colonialism. The feared "blood bath" will not commence with the awakening of the colonized. This hemorrhage is of long standing. This profuse loss o£vitality, on the part of the colonized, is as old as the colonial settlement itself. n i i s is what Alben Camus, an Algerian-born French citizen, fails to understand in al1 of his comments on the Algerian resistance in Resistance, Rebeliion and Death (1960)." In Iike manner, al1 those who talk about violence in South Africa should ask themselves which violence they mean: that of the colonizer or of the colonized? The counter-violence of the colonized is a de-thingihing, life-enhanc-

..

We are not defending the armed íight. . It is a violence against even our own people. But it is not aur invention-it is not our cool decision; it is the requirement of histoy." For the colonized, violence is rhe avenue through which freedom and humanity are reclaimed. Violence is the "requirement of history" precisely because through it the colonized reclaims the possibility of human existence. This violence, furthermore, in being life-enhancing is also a violence that affects and fundamentally uproots the colonized. The continua1 risking of life, the perpetua1tension of confrontation against an odious enemy, the anxiety and intensity of a prolonged war, in short, the disciplineand regimen of conflict purge the colonized of servility, dependence, cowardice, and similar vices that constitute the stunted existence of the colonized under colonialist conditions. In other words, the colonized

...

formerly a prey to unspeakable terrors yet happy to lose themselves in a dreamlike torment, such a people becomes unhinged, reorganizes inelf, and in blood and tears gives birth to very real and irnrnediare action." 1t ir important to grasp the organic poise and poetry of Fanon's words. Just as a new being comes forth out of its mother's womb in "blood

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Colonialism ond the Colonized / 81

and tears" thus terminating the abnormal state of pregnancy, in like manner, the colonized in "blood and tears gives birth ton itself out of the lived historicity of the liberation stmggle. The "very real and immediate action' of the struggle is thus the reverse of the static passivity of colonized existence, The colonizer makes history or historicizes by subjugating the "native" and replicating European society in a distorted manner?' The colonized, on the other hand, historicizes or enters the realm of human historical becoming in the determined confrontation with the colonial apparatus. Colonialism literally freezes the interna1 dynamic of the subjugated society. In this situation, and in a futile attempt to diminish their wretchedness, the colonized produce out of their stagnant existence a fantastic magical world of sorcery and witchcraft. This is a realm of phantasms inhabited by "the dead who rise again, and the djinns who rush into your body while you yawn."s3 The ferocious unreality of this fantastic world is the ineffectual attempt by the colonized to displace-in the realm of the imaginary-the effective violence and terror of colonialism. This stunted "creativity," produced out of the native's lifeless and antiquated past, inadvertently adds to the stagnant and enigmatic reality of colonized "existence." A noncolonized society grows, transforms, and, in al1 of this, constantly evaluates and re-evaluates its past in light of the future exigencies of its existence. As Nietzsche and Heidegger tell us, it is only in view of a future that a past is fruitfully appropriated. Colonized society, on the other hand, is not free to evaluate its past in terms of a possible future. It is a society without a future precisely because this is what colonialism negates and grounds itself on. The violent confrontation with the colonial apparatus is the process through which this stagnant situation is eradicated. As Fanon puts it,

rwitalizing and dynamic effect that puts into question rhe inert and superfluous dregs of the indigenous culture. In confronting colonialism, the colonized projects a future and claims, for the vitality of the present, the effective heritnge of the past. What he "jects" or throws ahead, in this emancip~roryproject, is his own effective and enduring heritage. This is what .+lime Césaire celebrates in his play The Tragedy of Ki~rgChristophe, when he has his tragic hero say,

the youth oí a colonized country, growing up in an atmosphere of shot and fire . does not hesitate to pour scorn upon the zombics of his ancestors.8'

..

In A Dying Colonialism (1959),taking the Algerian Revolution as his exarnple, Fanon discusses in great detail how the struggle is a concrete process of historical self-creation. He does so in terms of the uaditional attire (¡.e., the veil), the relation of m o d m technology and medicine to the indigenous society, and thc structure of subordination in the Algerian family. In al1 of this, Fanon shows how the struggle has a

Freedom yes, bur not an easy íreedom. Which meanr rliir rhey necd a state. Yes, my philosopher friend, somerhing rhar will enable this transplanted people to strike routs, to burgeon 2nd tluivcr, ro fling the fruits 2nd perfumes oí irs flowering inro the faci oi rhe world, something which, to speak plaiiily, will oblige our pet>ple,by force if need be, to be born to irself, to surpass itselí." The freedom Césaire advocates is a freedom which is constituted by the colonized's rebirth to "itself" in the fullness oí its humanity. But why must the colonized "surpass itself"? Preciseiy because it does not suffice merely to expel the colonizer in order to effectively decolonize. It is further necessary to destroy the parasitic and ossified inert and residual Being-in-the-worldof the cdonized and to institute "the practices of freedom"'" within tbe cultural and historical context of the decolonizing society, in the process o í self-formation. In decolonizing, the decolonized has to open up and claim its historical existence, its Being as history, closed off by colonial conquest. In so doing ir reestablishes its political actuality in appropriating and livingípracticing its existence in freedom. As Césaire's tragic hero, Christophe, forcefully asserts: This people's enemy is its indolente, its eífrontery, its harred oí disapline, its self-indulgence, its lethargy.Gentlemen. ior rhe honor and survival of this nation. I don't want it ever to be said, 1 won'r have the world so much as suspect, that ten years oí hlack treedom, ten years oí black slovenlincss and indiíference, have suíficed to squander the patrimony that our martyred people has amassed in a hundred years oí labor under the whip. You mar as well get it through your heads chis minute that with me you won't have the right to be tired." For CCsaire what has to be reclaimed is not the "whip" or the multitude of social vices bred by slavery and unfreedom, but the "patrimony

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l

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Colonialism and he Colonized / 83

amassed in a hundred years of labor." The "patrimonyP of endurance, fortitude, resistance, and creativity which, as Hegel tells us, constitutes the existential character of the slave in the dialectic of surmounting the master. This is the slave whose life experience is tempered by the immanent and ever-present possibility of death and the transfiguring creativity of productive labor. For Césaire "black freedom" is the effort of transcending enslavement aimed at instituting the historicity of the decolonized as decolonized. Thus the violence of the colonized is also self-directed against the petrified forms of existence, whose actuality was the stagnant situation of external domination. In the struggle, the dying forms of existence in which the native found recourse and was forced to live as a "native" are thus challenged and possibly overcome. What concerns us here is the actualization, or failure thereof, of a definite histotic possibility. Of course, in a very real way, if this does not happen-as Fanon tells us and as is concretely evinced by the actuality of neocolonial Africathen:

in reference to the colonized, whose existence is fixed and frozen as the permanent underclass of this setup. The colony is the settler's own lived self-image. He foregrounds his individuality against the background of this collective. lt is his domain, that in which his will and Beingare embodied: the land that gave him his social and economic stability, the status he lacked in Europe." For the settler the colony is his salvarion. He is, nonetheless, always a Frenchman or an Englishman in Algeria or Kenya, never an Algerian or a Kenyan. The settler cannot indigenize and remain a settler. His existence is innately parasitic. He is dependent on the mother country for his spiritual and historic legitimacy as a colonizer, and on the colony for his socio-economic existence and preeminence. The duplicity of this situation, as noted earlier, is the grounding source of colonial fasci~m.~~ On the other hand, the colonized's existence is not cohesive but split in two. Within the colonized part of the colonial strucrure we have the urban and the nrral native: in other words, those who have been Westernized and who, as Fanon puts ir, "profit-at a discount, to be sure-from the colonial setup"" and the rural peasant/nomad masses who experience colonialism only or mostly as an external control and imposition. At this point, it is important to note that this split is the originative ground of neocolonialism. In creating and maintaining this fracture among the colonized, colonial conquest establishes the material and cultural conditions in which the self-aggrandizing metaphysical delusions of Europe can be institutionally established, by being embodied in the consciousnessand the physical actuality of "independent" Africa." The actuality of conquest confirms, after the fact, the servility of the colonized. Subjugation is thus historicized into and as the historicity of African existence?' This requires and presupposes the cultural negation of Westernized (¡.e., modernized) Africans, whose very existence, as a section of the colonized society, was predicated on the rupture of African existence in the face of European conquest. Non-Europeanized Africa, on the other hand, was forced to submit to a stagnant petrification of its cultural, economic, historical, and political actuality. The peoples of the continent-in al1 rhe wealth of their diverse tradirionswere thus reduced to a frozen existence as a subaltern and passive element in the historical eventuation of European modernity. As we saw in chapter 2, under the guise of the African's oneness with nature, it is this subordinate passivity of African existence under European dominance that Senghor celebrates as Africanitb?'

There's nothing save a minimum of readaptation, a fcw rcforms at the top, a flag waving: and down therc at the bottom an undivided mass, still living in the rniddle ages, endlessly marking timeFB As we noted in the beginning of this section, this is the stagnant actuality of neocolonialism. It is nothingmore than the de facto renegotiation of the colonial status. That is why, as we noted earlier, al1 that is said of colonialism also holds true, in every essential, of neocolonial Africa. Thus far, relying on Fanon, we have described the dialectic of violente and counter-violence that constituted, until very recently, colonial Africa and, by extension, constitutes our neocolonial present. Let us now briefly look at each aspect of the colonial and neocolonial situation.

The society of the settler is a cohesive and homogeneous community. The class distinctions interna1 to it are maintained, but in a friendly manner. The worker, the priest, the merchant are first and foremost settlers and only secondly members of this or that class or profession. The cohesiveness of the settler community is maintained against and

84 / Coloniolism ond the Colonized

Colonblirm and the Colonized / 85

Thus the inheritance and actuality of post-colonial Africa manifests itself and is basically grounded on theschizoid existenceof two complementary and yet violently contradictory modes of African (non)-Beingin-the-world: the Westernized dominating and the indigenous dominated native. Encased between these two forms of estranged existence one finds the presence of the present. These two paradoxical types replicate and constantly reproduce by proxy the colonizing historicalness of Europe and the historical stasis of present-day Africa. It is from within this situation, as we saw in thepreceding chapter, that Nkrumah and Hountondji advocate an abstract and "universalistic" MarxismLeninism instead of concretely submitting this stagnant situation to scrutiny?' As graphically depicted by Sembene Ousmane in his 1968 film Mandabi, it is che estranging dialectk of these two broad segments of society that constitutes the contemporary crisis of the continent.P6 These two segments of African society parrot the estranged and estranging violent dialectic of the colonizer and the colonized, described so well by Memmi. But, in this case, the roles of colonizer and colonized are played by the native, cast on both sides of this antagonistic and complementary divide by reference to the culture and "know-how" (¡.e., political and economic managerial skills, technology, science, etc.) of the former colonial power.97The Westernized African, in this context, is "Caliban become Pro~pero."~' Insofar as the anti-colonial struggle is aimed at overcoming colonialism and neocolonialism, it is an attempt to end the fissure in AFican existence between Westernized dominating and indigenous dominated Africa. It is in overcoming this split and in the positive union or fusion of these two broad segments of African society that the counterviolence of the colonized acquires a political form and becomes a project for a possible future of freedom. In fact, demographically and sociologically speaking, African liberation movements are born out of the "fusion of horizons" of these two broad segments of African s0ciety.9~ Each manifests, in itself, what the other does not have and is estranged from. The Westernized native is acquainted with the world beyond the colony or neocolony and the struggles of other peoples. The rural non-Westernized native, on tbe other hand, is steeped in the broken heritage of his own particular African past. in the fusion of these two fractured "worlds" the possibility of African freedom is concretized or made tangible in the form of specific historical movements.

The struggle is a historically pedagogical and a concretely self-formative process. Its success is measured by the extent to which it overcomes the "Manichean ~ o r l d " of ~ "colonialism ~ and neocolonialism. In other words, "the senler is not simply the man who must be killed" and "not every Negro or Moslem is issued automatically a hallmark of genuineness." The struggle is successful to the extent that it breaks down the "barriers of blood and race-prejudice . . on both si de^."'^' Unthinking prejudices are thus displaced by the prejudgments cultivated out of the lived experience of the struggle. It is thus that "the practices of freedom" are established in the context of the African liberation stmggle. In like manner, in a neocolonial context, it is when the Westernized native puts "at the people's disposal the intellectual and technical capital that it has snatched when going through the colonial universities"'"' that the dialectic of violence and counter-violence is sublated in the reconstitution of a new ethical whole, of a new etbos. This is the process, as we saw in chapter 1, that appropriates the possibilities of a specific tradition from within the lived confines and concrete possibilities of that tradition it~elf.'~' Tempered by and produced out of the lived exigencies of the struggle, and grounded on the concrete experiencing-with al1 its limitations and creative possibilities-of its own mortal existence, a very practica1 and pragmatic rationality dominates and directs the development of this praxis of concrete communal self-creation.This is the lived quotidian self-brmative etbos of the liberation struggle-"the practices of freedom." It is what Marx refers m as the dialectical process through which the educators are themselves educated.Im In view of al1 of the above then, and beyond the initial moment of counter-violente, the African liberation struggle is an originative process through which the historicity of the colonized is reclaimed and appropriated anew. In chapter 4 we shall see how this process is grasped and formulated in the thinking of Fanon and Cabtal. As we shall see, in their situated thinking, African philosophical hermeneutics finds its most eminent forerunners and paradigmatic exemplars. Thus, in contradistinction to Senghor and Ethnophilosophy, on the one hand, and Nkmmah, Hountondji, and Professional Philosophy, on the other, this will be our hermeneutical response to the question: What are the people of Africa trying to free themselves from and what are they trying to establish?

.

The Liberation Struggle Existence and Historicity

"Exactly," exclaimed Djia Umrel. "What model of society are we offered through the media? We're mode to swallow outdated values, no longer accepted in their countries of origin. Our television and radio programmes are stupid. And our leaders, instead of foreseeing and planning for the future, evade their duty. Russia, America, Europe, and Asia are no longer examples or models for us." "It would be a dangerous step backwards, to revert to our traditions. "ThaYs not what I'm saying, Joom Galle," she interrupted. "We must achieve o synthesis.. . Yes, a synthesis. I don't mean a step backwards. . A new type of society," she ended, blinking. There followed a brief si-

. . ."

...

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lente. -Sembene Ousmane From The Lost of the Empire, 1981

In an intewiew given in 1984 the French thinker Michel Foucault, in characterizingthe focus of his thought, refers to liberry and liberation as being constituted by the self-formative "practice of the self"' on the self. The intetviewer asks: "A work of self upon self which can be understood as a kind of liberation, as a mode of liberation?" To which Foucault responds, in part: 1 shall be a l i t t l e more cautioua about rhar. I've always becn a little

distrusrful of the general thcme of liberation, to rhe extenr, that

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The Liberation Shuggle 189

88 / The Libemtion St~ggle

[it refen] back to the idea that there does exist a nature or a human foundation which, as a result of a certain number of historical, social or economic processes, found itself concealed, alienated or imprisoned in and by some repressive mechanism. In that hypothesis it would suffice to unloosen these repressive locks so that man can be reconúled with himself. . 1 don't think that [this] is a theme which can be admitted without rigorous examination. 1do not mean to say that liberation or such and such a form of liberation does not exist. When a colonial people tries to free itself of its colonizer, that is truly an act of liberation, in the stricr sense of the word. But as we also know, that in this extremely precise example, this act of liberation is not suficient to establish the practices of libere that later on will be necessary for this people, this socicty and these individuals to decide upon receivable and acceptable fonns of their existence or political society. That is why 1insist on the pmctice of

..

f'reedom.'

1 have quoted extensively from Foucault precisely because he puts hts

finger on the central theme of this chapter: the question of the "forms of existence or political society" that can vindicate and properly fulfill the aspirations of the African struggle against colonialism and neocolonialism. To the interviewer's blunt question Foucault responds with a conditional: If liberation means a return to an original "naturen or "human foundation," then such a theoretic project, on metaphysical and epistemic grounds, is untenable. On the other hand, anti-colonial struggles are "truly an act of liberation" that need to establish "the practice of freedom" m order to realize their own emancipatory goals. As Foucault pointedly observes, "the struggle for liberation is indispensable for the practice of liberty"' but it is not enough. On this point, given the central problematic of this study as a whole, the question is: How does one establish the practice or ethos of freedom in the process of liberating one's existence from external-direct or indirectdomination? The "practice of freedom" or liberty is grounded on and arises out of the self-formative ethos of a people-the temporality or the way o€ Being of a people. In our context this occurs in the concrete process of struggle of differing African peoples to actualize their free existence. This presupposes the liberation struggie as it unfolds within the context of specificand particular histories, and with it the concrete implementation-the practice-of liberty which is the formal and proclaimed raison d'2tre of the struggle in its very inception.

The term ethos, as Foucault reminds us alluding to the Greeks, refers to "the d e p ~ r t m e n t of " ~a people in its public politico-ethical existence. Thus, beyond the violence and counter-violence of colonialism and neocolonialism (Le., the subject matter of chapter 3), Foucault is interested in the possibility and the practical actuality of freedom. In appropriating Foucault's astute remarks my concern is to see how this selfformative ethos (¡.e., "the practice of freedom") has manifested itself, or failed to do so, thus far in the historic eventuations of the African liberation struggle. Reflecting on this question in the last chapter of his book, Africa in Modern History, the eminenc Africanist historian Basil Davidson notes that the African countries that achieved independence in the late 1950s and early 1960s were wedded to colonial attitudes and values. Thus: "Old inequalities from the pre-colonial heritage, whether between man and man or more plainly between man and woman, were enlarged by new inequalities from the colonial heritage," and to this extent the regimes of the late 1950s and early 1960s were "the oppressors and exploiters of the many by the fewn in African guise.' This neocolonial "independence" was a de facto extension of colonialism-the violent negation, at the very momentof its possible attainment, of the "practice of freedom." In contradistinction to the above, starting from the early 1970s an indigenous and much more radically democratic conception of liberation took root in various African liberation struggles. This perspective did not originate de novo, but commenced by critically differentiating itself from the kind of "independence" established in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The critical standard or gauge of this rejection was grounded on the failure of "independent" Africa to concretely live up to and appropriate/actualize its formal status of independence. From the outset, it is important to note that this critical oriencation was not an abstract quest for utopia, but a radical "revolutionary undertaking directed not only against the present but against the rule of 'until now.' "'In concrete and practical terms, this critique was grounded on the contrast becween the miserable situation of postcolonial Africa and the purely formal and empty status of political "independence." It was grounded on the lived and stark contrast between unfulfilled ideals and harsh unforgiving political realities. This immanent and critica1 orientation was thus directed internally toward its own lived historical situatcdness. In countering itself to the despotic politics of post-colonial "independent" Africa, this trend established the practice of participatory popular democracy as the cornerstone

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90/ The Libedon Struggle

and gauge of its own political existence. In so doing, in differing ways and out of the lived exigenciesof differing African histories and specific contexts, it articulated a notion of liberation as a process of reclaiming history. In Hegelian terms, one could say that in ,countering itself to the established neocolonialist order, this critique saw itself as the political articulation and concrete historical incarnation of the negativity of the negative in contemporary African political life. In Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit the odyssey of consciousness (¡.e., the differing forms through which Geist rnanifests itself in history) realizes itself by overcoming itself through and by the mediation of the negative. In like manner, this critica1 orientation of the early 1970s saw itself as the initial moment in the process of reclaiming the historicity of existence and concretely actualizing the unfulfilled aspirations of African independence. It saw itself as the negativity of the negative in the process of self-overcoming. In discussing this radical and fundamental orientation, Davidson specifically points to the theoretic perspective articulated by Amilcar Cabral and his comrades in the PAlGC (Partido Africano da Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde).7 Thus, in view of what has been said up to this point, my basic concern in this chapter is to see how this popular and dernocratic trend establishes "the practice of freedom" in the context of implementing its conception of African liberation as a process of reclaiming history. 1 will begin with Fanon, to thematically locate the political context of this process. Consequent on the above, Cabral's formulation of liberation as a "return to the source" will be given as a specific example of reclaiming the historicity of African existence. This process, unleashed by African societies and individuals in liberating themselves, is the act of historically instituting "rcceivable and acceptable forms of existence or political societyn in the context of differing histories. For ultimately-when al1 is said and done and beyond race and colorthe actuality of these differing histories constitutes our lived humanity as Africans. Let us now, with Fanon, begin by examining this process on the continental level of Africa, which we will then conuetize by examining the specific theoretic formulations of Cabral in the context of GuineaBissau. In this, my intention is not to give an exhaustive sociological and historical analysis of Cabral's thought? My only concern is to give a concrete and practica1depiction of reclaiminghistory as a specific instance of "the practice of freedom."

The Liberation Strug~lelPl

Following on his detailed examination of the violence and counterviolence endemic to colonialism in The Wretched of tbe Earth, Fanon poses the cardinal question as to how this situation of violence is to be overcome beneficially for the colonized. Whatarethe forces which in the colonial period open up new outlets and cngender new aims for the uiolence of the colonized peoples? In the fint place rhere are the political parties.' To be sure, the question Fanon poses is the question of the urban (¡.e., Westernized) and rural native. In the concluding pages of the previous chapter we preliminarily noted that it is in the fusion of these two differing horizons that the possibility of African freedom is established. We need now to look at the political context and the elemental dynamic within and out of which this historically originative fusion takes place. Thus, with Fanon and in keeping with Cornelius Castoriadis's pioneering work, The lmaginary Institution of Society, we will examine the grounding process of the concrete self-institution of society (the reclaiming of history) in the context of the African situation." As Fanon insightfully observes, in the urban nationalist "political partiesn we find at work a paradoxical African political consciousness. In other words, in the "nationalist parties" we find linked together "the will to break colonialism" and "another quite different will: that of coming to a friendly agreement with it."" The political parties are in the first place of and for the urban center. They are political organizations whose point of reference is European political practice and theory. Their basic orientation is the politics of calculated mass unrest, manipulated toward the ordcrly displacement of power from one elite to another. Thcir basic objective is the transfer of power from Europeans to Africans (¡.e., to themselves)in a methodic manner. Their only concern is to demonstrate that they can calrn and stabilize the volatile situation of violence and chaos. For these political parties the urgcncy of the popular unrest is located in its power to convince the colonizer of their necessity and importante. These parties cohabit and share the political space and discourse of colonialism. They are above al1 else "reasonable" since they are susceptible to the rationality of the colonizer. As Senghor, the paradigm of the Wescernized native par excellence, points out, when "examined more profoundly, on the level of universal history"" colonialism has

92/ The Liberation Struggle both a debit and a credit side. In this respect "we, the colonized of yesterday . . . shall be more attentive to contributions than to defects."" It is of cardinal importance to note here that "we" refers to Westernized Africans-those who can appreciate the positive value of "universal history" as unfolded thus far in the colonialist historicity of Europe, since, as Fanon sarcastically and pointedly observes, for "[tlhe 'jungle savage' . certain factors have not yet acquired importance."14 Indeed, these parties, composed of more or less Westernized natives that appreciate "on the leve1 of universal history' the "contributions" of colonialism to the colonized, play a historically paradoxical role: On the one hand, they are the mediating link between colonialism and neocolonialism; and on the other, they abstractly formulate the concrete possibility of African freedom. They "abstranly" contemplate the "concrete" process and possibility of African self-emancipation. The urban nationalist parties, modeled on European trade unions and emulating their political practice, cater to the needs of the Westernized native. They placate the political vanity of the assimilado castel class, those who abhor local village and town politics (tribalism?), but avidly follow world events and conflicts-the éuénements in Paris and London. Shopkeepers, chauffeurs, clerks, self-proclaimed fashionl society ladies, minoc experts, graduates of correspondence schools, Westernized intellectuals, in short, that segment of society called into existence by colonialism and "sprinkled" with European culture is politically serviced by these parties. This is the senion of indigenous society that on the whole, like Kafka's humanized ape, suspects its own indigenous culture and history of being worthles~.'~ Its very existence, from its dating habits to its professional biases, is structured by a desperate and narcissistic attempt caste of to mimic, duplicate, and be Europe in every respect.'"his people, within itself, is defined and differentiated in terms of the extent of extroversion and dependency of its constituent members. In al1 of this, Europe and European existence is the standard of excellence. Those who are culturally closest to Europe are thus also the leaders of the pack. On the other hand, the political parties function in total disregard of the rural native and the "lumpenproletariat," the perpetually unem~ l o ~ displacedpeasantry, ed the coolie labor which inhabits the shanties surrounding the European urban centers of the periphery. When these parties concern themselves with the rural native, they do so as "generous benefactors" who have come to enlighten the backward residue

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The Liberation Stwggle / 93 of history. They " 'parachute' organizers into the villages" in order to "erect a framework around the people which follows an a priori schedule."" Needless to say, this "a priori schedule" is traced out of the political eventuations of European history which simultaneously falsify and estrange indigenous political life. The urban parties are not inserted in the lived needs and concerns that move and define the life of the rural native. The interior of the colony or neocolony is seen as inhospitable territory in spite of the freedom slogans proclaimed by the urban parties. The politics of village affairs and local conflicts, "the only existing national events," are trampled under foot by the "makers of the future nation's h i ~ t o r ~ . ' " ~ As Fanon pointedly observes, they do not "put their theoretical knowledge to the service of the people" but rather, they intend to use the rural mass and its hopes for their own rather narrow, avaricious, and self-indulgent political objective~.'~ Simultaneously,and because they present themselves as the interpreters of the aspirations of freedom and use appropriate if abstract slogans for this purpose, these parties produce or attract to their ranks individuals concretely tuned in to the needs and emancipatory possibilities of the anti-colonial or anti-neocolonial struggle. In other words, these parties are hybrid formations called into existence by the process of the struggle, which as a rule transcends their narrow historical grasp of the historic moment in which they exist. At this point, it is imperative to note that it is the volcanic and eruptive "violencc of the colonized peoples" which produces these same parties as outlcts and later on, in its maturation, surpasses and sheds them, much as a snake sheds its first skin. ln fact and from the very outset, the concrete possibility for self-emancipation harbored by this process of struggle is both hidden and disclosed by these parties. These parties abstractly formulate slogans and platforms which, if historically realized, would lead to their own political demise. Thus, from their midst arise the implementers of this demise. Obviously there are m be found at the core of the political parties and among their leaders certain revolutionaries who deliberately turn their backs upon the farce of national indepcndence. But very quickly their questionings,their energy and their anger obstruct the pany machine; and these elements are gradually isolated, and then quite simply brushed aside. At this moment, as if there existed a dialecric concomitante, the colonialist [or neocolonialist]police will hll upon them. With no securiry in the towns, avoided by the

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The Liberation Struggle 195

militants of their former party and rejected by its leaders, these undesirable firebrands will be stranded in munty disrricts. Then it is that they will realize bewilderedly that thepeasant [nomad]masses catch on to what they have to say immediately, and without delay ask them the question to which they have not yet prepared the answer: "When do we ~ t a r t ? ' ' ~ ~

and the needs of the interior regions of the country (for example: the radical reorientation of the PAIGC after the Pidgiguiti massacre of 1959).= In al1 of this it has to be emphasized that the concrete and historic situation itself becomes the standard and testing ground of the radical possibilities of the liberation struggle. ln this context, the questioning of these elements, usually the most dynamic and radical within the established parties, irritates and destabilizes the acccpted norms of political discourse. In and out of this context these "dangerousn elements are forcefully ma~ginalized.~' These groups, self-exiled to the interior to avoid persecution, find a populace immersed in a totally different world. They discover that the peasants and nomads have their own politics (Le., concerns for the protection of traditional rights, the improvement of social and economic conditions, etc.) for which they are ready and willing to sacrifice. In this encounter the former urban militants come to recognize that the politics of the "center" and the lived political actuality of the "periphery" are mutually exclusive and antithetical. Thus, in contrast to the "café politicians" the militant finds-in the "dark" interior, in the counttyside-a receptive, eager, and enlightened audience. It cannot be emphasized enough that this encounter between "militants with the police on their track and these mettlesome masses of people, who are rebels by in~tinct,"'~is not the implementation of some theoretic formula or a voluntarylwilled encounter. It is rather a specific junction-which does not and need not always and of necessity occur-in the unfolding of the liberation struggle. Furthermore, when it does occur, it need not occur in exactly the way described by Fanon. Its occurrence, however, is the sine qua non of the possibility of "the practice of freedom" in the context of the African liberation stmggle. For it brings together rhe urban militants with those for whom

lt is in and out of chis fusion of necessity that the urban and rural native enconnter each other, for the first time, as possible co-protagonists in a process of po!itical struggle and originative history. As Fanon notes in the sentence following the above quotation, the "meeting [or fusion] of revolutionaries coming from the towns [Westernized natives] and country dweilers [peasantslnomads]"a' is the dynamic locus out of which unfolds the dialectic of African self-emancipation. In being "stranded in the county districtsn the Westernized urban "revolutionaries," for whom politics is both a calling anda passionate vocation, find the human actuality whose needs and situation their radical discourse has thus far only abstractly articulated. The "people," the "masses," become very concrete in this encounter, in al1 of their cultural complexity and material misery. For the peasantslnomads, the bulk of the rural mass and the majority of the country are the sector of the indigenous populace which is totally disregarded by the calculations of the urban parties. They are the ones who will suffer concretely (famine and perpetua1 administrative/politicalneglect) from the "farce of national independence." Thus, out of this encounter emerges a mutual recognition between the urban and rural native of what is at stake: colonialism minus the "whites," or the possibility of instituting freedom in the process of struggle. It is only when certain elements from within the urban parties realize their folly in practice and are forced into a concrete collaboration with the rural native that the impasse of neocolonialism, incarnated in the urban parties, is possibly overcome. When out of practical-pragmatic political necessity certain groups and panies come to realize that the historicity of the struggle is directly tied to the concrete concerns of the rural mass, only then is a political practiceof freedom truly possible. But how might this possibility be actualized? It is imperative to note that this dialectic of freedom is ignited by historically contingent situations. In reaction to some specific problem, certain elements within a political party or a liberation front put in question the effectiveness of the methods used thus far. Or in some cases, a political party reexamines its stance in terms of the actuality

militating in a national party is not simply taking part in poliucs, it is choosing the only means whereby they can pass from the status of an animal to that of a human being." Or, as Fanon even more graphically puts it in BIack Skin, White Masks: For the Negm who works on a sugar plantation in Le Roben, there is only one solution: n, fight. He wil embark on this struggle, and he will pursue it, notas the result of a Marxist or idealistic analysis [¡.e., not as a result of theory] but quite simply because he cannot

96 / The Libemtion Siruggle

The Liberotion Stmggle / 97

conceive of life otherwise than in the form of a battle against exploitation, misery, and hunger.16 In this encounter of the urban militant and the rural mass is made possible within the context of contemporary African history, the originative moment of the fundamental self-institution of human societies and histories." This encounter or fusion is thc wming together of the seething subterranean elemental forces that thus far had been checked and held in stasis by the established colonial or neocolonial order. It is only out of this eruptive and magmatic flow of historic possibilities that "the practice of freedom* can possibly be established. The imagetmetaphor of "magma," which 1borrow from Castoriadis, has to be envisaged as a volcanic eruption and the subsequent gush and solidification of molten rodc. The fluidity of the magma hardens into differing forms that invent themselves as the lava tlow slowly solidifies. Unlike Hegelian or Marxist conceptions of history, this metaphor gives us to understand the historicity of existence as completely fluid and grounded on the lived and "inherent plastic power" of those engaged in it." The happening of history, undcrstood in this manner, is the unreplicable process through which radically novel historical formations are self-invented and concretely self-in~tituted?~ This eruptive historical self-creation always occurs in terms of concrete needs and in response to specific historic pressures and limit situations. The occurrence, in whatever form, of this eruptive process of fusion is essential. As Fanon points out in the section of The Wretched of the Earth tided "The Pitfalls of National Consciousness," and as is evident in the contemporary politics of Africa (¡.e., the defunct actuality of the Organization of African Unity) the non-ofcurrence of this emptive fusion leads to the failure of the promise of African liberation-the contemporary actuality of neocolonialism. In other words: "There's nothing save a minimum of readaptation, a few reforms at the top, a flag waving: and down there at the bottom an undivided mass endlessly marking time.""' In the name of freedom and independence the urban native in power-the African dependent bourgeoisie-becomes the agent of Euro-American (i.e., NATO) economic, political, and cultural dominance. lndependence does not usher in the concrete vitalization of the indigenous populace or the institution of sttuctures (political, economic, cultural, etc.) on a national level that enhance and confirm the freedom of the formerly colonized. Rather, the cities remain the centers of European mimicry and the interior is frozen, mummified, and held

. ..

in stasis as the enclave of "ethnic cultures"-much valued and advertized by the newly established National Tourist Bureau. The political economy of Euro-American leisure (tourism?) is in fact one of the main preoccupations and source of revenue of neocolonial ~ t a t e s . ~ ' Indeed, security (i.e., a police state existence for the vast majority of the local populace), wildlife preserves, and ethnic "cultural" exhibitions equal foreign exchange. The policies that emanate from the "center" are geared toward the politics and economics of Europe, the original center of the colonial and now of the neocolonial setup. Cash crops and the export of raw materials are complemented by ethnic "parliamentary" procedures on ethnic "socialistn edicts directed by the single-party state," the enclave of the urban native, which simultaneously uses the antiquated ethnic animosities of the rural native to good advantage. Even the old colonial policy of "divide and rule" remains intact, precisely because the transfer of power does

...

not take place at the level of structures since that caste [thc Westernized African bourgcois] has done nothing more than takc over unchanged the legacy of the economy, the thought, and the institutions left by thc col~nialists.'~ Thus it happens that the former leaders of the movement (Senghor, Kenyatta, etc.) bccome the "transmission line" between the nation and its former colonizers. Development, nationalization of land and industry, and al1 the radical slogans of the movement (African Socialism?)become mcrc words in the politics of deception and intimidation. A single-party state is proclaimed and its leaders engage in systematically "expelling" those who fought for independence "from history or preventing them from taking root in Against this negative possibility, Fanon asserts that the rooting of the populace in history is the concrete regearing of the politics and economics of the newly independent state toward and in the interest of the rural populace. For the rooting of the masses in history is the magmatic flow through which the formerly colonized become active participants in their own historical existence or Being. This rooting in history is expressed in the decentralization of political power and the diversification of economic production, on al1 levels, aimed at empowcring the common folk. Only when this becomes a lived actuality at the grass-roots level, through rhe establishment of local mass political institutions of peoples' power (peoples' assemblies, village

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associations, etc.) in which popular democracy is implemented, only in such a context is "the practice of freedom" possible. For this phrase, which 1 have bortowed from Foucault, means nothing more than the concrete and lived self-governance of the previously colonized o r neocolonized populace.)' As Fanon puts ir: "The people must understand what is at stake. Public business ought t o be the business of the public."36 Only when and if this is achieved in an actual and meaningful way can one say that freedom and sovereignty, in a real sense, have been instituted in the life and as the life of common ordinary folk. As already noted, in the context of armed conflicr, it is in the process of securing the survival of the movement that the conditions for the possibility of "the practice of freedom" are originally created.j7 The openness of the rural and urban native each to the other, the eagerness of the common folk to fulfill the needs of the moment, is an imperative of existence both for the movement as a whole and for the individuals that compose it.

"make do" with the mass among whom tbey find themselves. Political engagement loses its abstract replicability (Marxist-Leninist formulas?) and becomes the constant attempt t o be relevant t o lived experience. The abstract slogans of "café politics" have to be concretized or discarded. The needs of the struggle act as a sieve and the iiiulti-leveled combat becomes the filtering process, the avenue through which the urban militant finds his way back to the historicity of the indigenous mass. lf he is a teacher (Lumumba), a mechanic, an engineer, a doctor (Fanon), or an agronomist (Cabral) by profession, he puts his skills to work and adjusts them to the situation. In so doing Iie learns and becomes tuned to the concerns and needs of tbe rural tnass, recognizing thus that t o be politically engaged means confronting tliese concrete needs (not quoting Mao!) within the context of the presenr. In this lived involvement, the former urban militanr becomes a "Maquisard"-a freedom fighter. This is how Fanon puts ir:

The real people, the men and the women, the children and the old people in the colonized country [or the section of the populace in the liberated areas of a neocolony], take it for granted [if they are to survive!] that existing, in the biological sense of the word, and existing as a sovereign pcople are synonymous. The only possible issue, the sole way of salvation for this people is to react as energetically as it can to the genocide campaign being conducted against it.j8

Sincb they are obliged to move about the whole time in order to escape from the police . they will have good reasoii ro wander thmugh rheir country and to get to know ir. i h e cafes are iorgotten; so are the arguments. iheir ears hear the true voice of the country, and their eyes take in the great and infinite poverty of rheir people. They realize the precioustime that has been wasrrd in useless commentaries. The men coming from the towns learn rheir lessons in the hard school of the people, and at the saine tiine these men open classes for the people in military and political education. The people furnish up their weapons; but in fact the ~lassesdo not last long, for thc masses come to know once again rhe strength of their own muscles, and push the leaders to prompt action.""

In this context, politics, or "the struggle," and everyday life are not two things apart. It is the effective development of the struggle which establishes the possibility of quotidian existence. But chis effective development is itself possible only if it evokes the concerned and voluntary involvement and participation of the indigenous populace. This commitment in turn is assured only if the organized movement seriously engages the needs of the rural mass and is actively recognized as doing so. The struggle, in short, secures the support of the mass to the extent that it concretely involves the common folk on al1 levels, and in doing so helps them metamorphose themselves from inen ahistorical beings absent from history into active and jealous protagonists of their own historical becoming existence. In this inter-implicative dialectic between armed groups and their popular mass base, daily life is not defined by its indifference to politicsl history but becomes that which makes for its pos~ibility.'~ In this context, the urban militants stranded in the interior have t o learn to

.. . ..

...

It cannot be emphasized enough that this process of fusion does not happen as a result of official and formal proclamations or affirmations. It occurs out of cohabiting the same historical, political, and existential space in the midst of the most concrete and ultimate of human possibilities-death. It occun by osmosis and diffusion-the way an exile assimilates the mannerisms and language of his hosts. Just as the urban militant is cultured into the values aiid concerns of the rural native, conversely, in this context, the peasantslnomads reclaim their human existence and cultural heritage not as a frozen relic of a dead past, but as the living culrure of an actuality-historical and political-in thc process of self-institution. As we nored in chapter 3, in L'An C h q de la Révolution Algérienne, Fanon gives us a detailed

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account of this process of historical revival. He concretely documents for us Castoriadis's metaphor of magmatic gush, flow, and solidification as he lived and experienced it in the first five years of the Algerian anti-colonial struggle." It is in this concrete sense then that, for Fanon, the struggle at a fundamental leve1 necessitates the radical metamorphosis of traditional society." It is in this context that contemporary concerns are appropriated into the lived actuality of the liberation movement. From this point on, aucient/ossified customs and traditions are not merely discarded out of hand by the urban native, nor are they desperately held on to by the rural native. Rather, their preservation loses its inertia and becomes a process by which society is historically reinstituted out of the needs of the present mediated by the struggle. The future is here not the inert and continued perpetuation of colonial dominance; rather it is the projection of the possibilities embedded in the fusion of the rural and urban native. In this process the arrested heritage of native society is vitalized in discarding and appropriating that which is necessary for its sumival. Borrowing a phrase from Hans-Georg Gadamer, the struggle as embodied in the encounter of the urban and rural native can be described as a "fusion of h o r i z o n ~ arising " ~ ~ from the concrete historicity of the colonized in the process of self-emancipation. For Gadamer, the lived consciousness which is saturated with history-in our context, the consciousness incarnated in the historicalness of the liberation movement-is open and predisposed to the possibilities of its own historicity. Thus, in this encounter of the urban and rural native, the standpoint of the present is put in question and what is appropriated is not the inert past but the effective historicity of the fusion of these two elemental and dynamic forces. This is what Gadamer refers to as the "effective-historical consciousness," concretely grasped within the context of the African ~ituation.'~ lt is in this sense that Fanou's referentes to history and to reinstituting the history of the forrner colonized has to be understood. In this regard Fanon writes:

ficd, it testifies against in mcmbers. Ir defines them without appeal. i h e culrural mummification ieads to a mummification of individual thinking. The apathy so universally noted among colonial peoples is but the logical consequence of this operation."

The setting up of the colonial system does not of itself bring about the death of the native culture. Historic observation reveals, on the contrary, rhat the aim sought is rather a continued agony than a total disappearance of the pre-exisíing culture. This culture, once living and open to the future, becomes closed, k e d in thc colonial status, caught in the yoke of oppression. Both present and mummi-

Colonialism petrifies the subjugated culture. It hecomes estrangement and abnegation (tribalism?) for the Wesrernized native. On the other hand, it prescribes for the rural native an inert existence whose present is an irrelevant past. This is the state of affairs that needs to be overcome. lf decolonization is truly to be what it claims ro actualize-the "advent of peoples onto the stage of history""'-then it has to become a truly lived historical and political actuality. To be sure, this is notan argument for cultural autarchy. It does not mean reinstituting a dead but an "authentic" African past, "living it as a defence mechanism, as a symbol of purity, o salvation." It does not refer to a "culture put into capsules, which has vegetated since the foreign domination."" In al1 that has been said thus far, for Fanon, the liberation struggle overcomes the "Pitfalls of National Consciousness" only when that which was affirmed de facto in the process of the struggle-the eruptive fusion of the urban and rural native-is concretely instituted de jure as the lived actuality of the independent state.

.. .

ihestrugglefor freedom does not give back to the national culture its btmer value and shaoe:.this strueele which aims at a fi4ndamentallv different set of relations between men [¡.e., "the piacrice ot freedomn] cannot leave intact either the form or thc content of the people's culture. After the conflict there is not only rhe disappearance of colonialism but also the disappearance of the colonized man."

.

vw

These are inspired and hopeful words! Indeed, those ok us of the present are painfully aware of the fact that the demise of colonialism has not, as of yet, resulted in the "disappearance of the colonized rnan." Most of Africa today suffers neocolonialism under the rule of such "men." This historical observation, however, does not in any way detract an iota from the verauty of the position articulated by Fanon. It says nothing, in principie, against the future prospects of this position. It only indicates that, to date, the African liberation struggle has failed in its promise-articulated in a multitude of documents and programs-to reclaim the historicity of African existence. Guarantees are, of course, out of the question in things human

102 / The Libemtion Stwggle

The Liberation Stwggle 1103

and historical. The above notwithstanding, however, in the theoretic perspective of Cabral we see the viability of Fanon's hopes articulated from within the concrete context of Guinea-Bissau. Let us now turn to Cabral for, as Fanon tells us, beyond absuact affirmations the African liberation struggle is the lived experience of specific national movement~."~

historieslcultures that disclose and are disclosed by the lived actuality of a people. For Cabral historylculture is always and unconditionally to be understood in the plural, as the various modes of being and doing of human existence. In this framework the idea of "advanced" or "retarded" cultures or histories is completely out of place. This is precisely because such a judgment necessarily and always surreptinously privileges the cultural and historical context of Europe out of which it is being made. Thus, Cabral's basic starting point necessarily presupposes the critique of any metaphysics of history (Kant, Hegel, Marx, etc.) which views human histodcity as a singular and totalizing world-historical process. Cabral, for example, would be in categorical agreement with Castoriadis when the latter affirms that the European self-centered conception that "in truth, there is but one history and for al1 that matters, this one history coincides with our own," this view which sees European history as the truth of human history as such and as the " 'transcendentally obligatory' meeting point of al1 particular histories,"" this narrowly confined Eurocentric universe in which the West is still immersed, has to be concretely overcome. Thus, for Cabral, given this theoretic framework, colonialism or any form of externa1 subiugation is understood as the interruption of the historicity of the colonized.

It is necessary to note at this point that the process of reclaiming history which 1 have been describing thus far in the thinking of Fanon was the actual lived experience of the generation of Westernized Africans who fought and participated in the dekat of Portuguese colonialism-the first and last European empire in Africa. As Cabral puts it: 1 remember very well how some of us still snidents, got together in Lisbon, influenced by the currents which were shaking the world, and began to discuss one day what could today be called the reAfricanization of our minds.1°

Tbese discussions led Cabral and other assimilados of his generation back to Africa to reorient themselvesand reclaim their African heritage. Prior to becoming one of the key figures in the founding of the Partido Africano da Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde (PAIGC), the movement that defeated Portuguese colonialism in Guinea-Bissau, Cabral worked for a number of years as an agronomist for the Portuguese and in this capacity smdied the soil while absorbing the differing cultures of his native land.'' It is this lived experience of "re-Africanisation" which Cabral systematically develops into the conception of revolution-in the African context-as a "return to the s o ~ r c e . "Let ~~ us now closely follow and probe Cabral's thinking on this point. The basic premise of Cabral's thinking on colonialism and the anticolonial struggle, which he formulates as the "return to the source," is a heteronomous and multivalent conception of history. For Cabral as for Heidegger, "existence is revealed in many ways."" History or culture is the actuality of engagements, intellectual (artisticlspiritual) and material, in which a people unveils its existence. In commerce with their natural environment and in the context of d e b i t e social relations and an inherited past, differing histories and cultures are formed. Differing peoples always exist within the confines of specific

If we do not forget the historical perspective of the major events in the life of humanity, if, while maintaining due respect for al1 philosophies, we do not forget that the world ir the creation of man himself, then colonialism can be considered as the paralysis or deviation or even thc halting of thc history of one people in favour of the acceleration of the historical developrnent of orher peoples."

To the extent then that national liberation is the overcoming of the colonialist interruption of the historicity of the colonized, it is a process of returning "to the source" out of which the colonized spun their history prior to being colonized-¡.e., thingified. In other words, the struggle against colonialism is a reaction to a presently frozen reality in terms of the suppressed possibilities of this reality itself. But what does this mean? 1s it a going back to an archaic past? What is the "source" toward which the "return" is directed? "Paralysis," "deviation," "halting" these are the terms used by Cabral to describe the actuality of colonialism. These terms suggest the interruption or blockage of a process whose patterns of unfolding do

104/ The Libemtion Strvggle not precede the actual process of unfolding itself. For what has been halted is the lived life, the historieslcultures of the various African communities which in their totality constitute the peoples of Africa. In other words, this interruption itself has already been incorporated as a specific historic event-the memory of a defeat, among other things-in the lived actuality of those it subjugated. What the colonized "might have been" had colonialism not occurred is not a historically pertinent question, preusely because it posits and presupposes, on the ontological leve], a false dichotomy between history and the historicity of existence. Rather the central concern of the "return to the source" is the drastic cffect of this interruption and the possibility of overcoming this negative inheritance of the African present. For Fanon as for Cabral the abstract affirmations and declarations regarding the existence of a pre-colonial culture/history is not to the point. What matters is to disclose a futurc out of what has endured against colonialism and out of what European domination itself has established in its histonc African odyssey. Cabral fully recognizes the impact of colonialism on African societies-the introduction of money, the building of cities, the creation of new urban classes-but insists that this is nothing more than the aberration of a people's history. To be sure, the negative effens of this aberration can and do become part of the posinve historical reality of the coionized once decolonization is actualized. When the colonial situation as a whole is put inquestion, the negative and negating experience of colonialism is then positively reappropriated and reclaimed. As Cabral puts ir: In the colonized countries where wlonization on the whole blocked the historical process of the development of the subjected peoples or else eliminated them radically or progressively, imperialist capital imposed new types of relationships on indigenous society, the stmcture of which became more complex and it stirred up, fomented, poisoned or resolved contradictions and social conflicts; it introduced together with money and the development of interna1 and external markets, new elements in the economy, it brought about the birth of new nations from human groups or from peoples who were at different stages of historical development.J6 In "blocking the historical process," which constitutes the historicity of the indigenous populace, colonialism superimposes a different order

The Liberntion Struggle 1 105 of historicity on the occupied territory. lt thus brings about new histotical circumstances "in favour of the acceleration of the historical developmentn of the colonizing society. The residue of these colonialist eventuations, which among other things have brought about the "birth of new nations," has resulted in a paradoxical reality divided unto itself as the actuality of contemporary Africa. lnstead of being organic wholes, these "new nations" are EuroAfrican hybrid constructions which do not arise out of the internal constancy of an indigenous historical formation. They are, furthermore, and in addition to the above, the amalgams of differing ethnic "human groups" without any internal or organic cohesion, either with each other or with the vertically superimposed hybrid construction. This then is the historical and political actuality created by colonialism and perpetuated by neocolonialism. Within the confines of this situation the African past, "untouched" or minimally affected by colonialism, exists as a subordinated historicalcultural totality. Repressed, persecuted, humiliated, betrayed by certain social groups who have compromised with the foreign powcr, culture [history] took refuge in the villages, in the forests, and in the spirit of the victims of domination.17 In other words, colonialism brings about a double society insubordination: on the one hand, the rural mass who experience colonialism as an external limit and imposition, and on the other, those whose existence is directly tied to the new developmentsbrought about by colonial conquest-¡.e., the Westernized urban populace. Such societies divided within themselves are impaired actualities for they do not have internal to themselves a common stlios that constitutes them as organic historic wholes. It is toward overcoming this truncation that the "return to the source" directs itself. This process of "return" is a cultural and political recovery of the suppressed historic possibilities in the existence of the colonized. Thus, the confrontation with colonialism assumes, as we have already seen with Fanon, the character and disposition of two distinct groups: the urban and rural native. A distinction must be made between the situation of the masser,

who preserve their culture, and that of the social groups who are

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assimilated or partially so, who are cut off [ k m the indigenous history] and culturally alienated.''

The Westernized urban natives who join the anti-colonial eruption d o so by rejecting their assimilation, their cultural indigence, and successfully indigenize themselves into the historicity of their people. In fact, as we have already seen, the reclaiming of one's indigenousness is, for the Westernized native, the originative moment of his anti-colonial commitment. It is the moment of a historical and existential decision, a t which point the assimilado begins the cultural and historical metamorphosis that will positively reimmerse him into the historicity of the indigenous f ~ l k . ~ ' This whole dynamic is thur a response to an existence of estranged marginality. It is a dialectic stimulated and provoked by colonialism which boomerangs by internally undermining the coherence of colonialist snbjugation. It is not a futile attempt to dig out a purely African past and return to a dead tradition. Rather, it is the "denial" by the urban native of the culruraVhistorica1 supremacy of the "dominant power over that of the dominated people with which it must identify."63 ln turning mward the rural native the Westernized urban native critically recognizes his own self-negated historical and cultural identity. Now, this self recognition-and the ambience of cultural anxiety in which it is generated-becomes a political and historical force only when it concretely annihilates itself as its own lived self-negation. When this happens (¡.e., the "negation of the negation," in MarxistHegelian language) the "return to the source," beyond absrract cultural/political affirmations (Africanité, Pan-Africanism, etc.), becomes a lived historical and political actuality manifested in rhe nacional liberation struggle of a specific history and people.

For Cabral, as for Fanon, this distinction is fundamental precisely because it dictates the specific direction, in terms of the anti-colonial struggle, that orients those assimilated and those negatively affected by the culture of the colonizing power. The Westernized native turns toward the struggle for liberation only when confronted by the futility of his attempts at integration. In the compartmentalized actuality of the colonial setup this failure translates either into existence in a cultural limbo, or into a direct identification (engaged or absuact) with the subordinate rural mass." For the rural mass, on the other hand, the conflict with colonialism is a lived actuality felt as an externa1 confinement and imposition. In fact the beginning of the organized armed struggle is nothing more than the resumption of the conflict with the original intruders. It is necessary t o emphasize, at this point, that the conflict with colonialism does not initially arise as an effort to "return t o the source." As we saw with Fanon, in like manner for Cabral, the "return to the source" arises out of the failure of the politics of the urban parties and is grounded on lived historical experience. In 1958-1959 in the cities and urban centers of Guinea-Bissau, Cabral and the PAlGC experienced this failure and ir was by way of reorienting the struggle that the "return to the source" was established as the basic direction of the m~vernent.~' This changing of direction was thus not a quest for an uncontaminated romantic past but a concrete practicai effort grounded on the lived historic actualities of the struggle. This is how Cabral describes the sociological dynamic out of which it develops: It is within the framework o€ this daily drama [o€ marginal existence], against the backcloth of the usually violat confrontation benveen the mass of the people and the ruling colonial class that a feeling of bitterness or a frustration complex is bred and devclops among the indigenous petite bourgeoisie [the urban native]. At the same time, they are becoming more and more consciousof a compelling need to question their marginal status, and to re-discover an identity. Thus they turn to the people around them, the people at the other extreme of the socio-cultural conflict-the native mas^.^' This turning toward "the native mass," which ir a decision of conscience is the first moment in the fusion of the urban and rural native.

When the "return to the source" goes beyond the individual and is expressed through "gmups" or "movements," rhe conrradicrion ir transformed into stmggle (secrcr or overt), and is a prelude to the pre-independence movement or of the struggle for liberation from the foreign yoke. So, rhe "nturn to rhe source" ir of no historical importance unless it brings not only real involvement in the struggle for independence,but also completeand absolute identificationwith the hopes of the mass of the people, who contest not only the foreign cuiture but also the foreign dornination as a ~ h o l e . ~ ' In order to truly grasp what Cabral means by the "return to the source,' it is necessary at this point to examine the above formulations in somc detail. This "return" is not a return to tradition in its stasis. We are not,

108/The Libemtion Struggle

The Libemtion Struggle1 109

therefore, engaged in an antiquarian quest for an already existing authentic past. Rather, we are engaged in the affirmation by the Westernized native of the historicity of the rural indigenous mass. Simultaneously, this 1s the self-negation by the Westernized native of his own cultural legitimacy. The obverse of this denial is the positive affirmation of the stunted indigenous culture. This affirmation, hrthermore, is not a theoreticailabstract assertion in need of proof. It is the "complete and absolute identification with the hopes" and aspirations of the dominated rural mass which is aimed a t a joint process of struggle. It is, in other words, a practical and engaged affirmation which asserts what it struggles t o institute: the historicity of the colonized. It is in this context that the reinregration of the Westernized native into the indigenous heritage comes about. In "returning," the urban native brings with him the European cultural baggage that constitutes his person. He is a doctor, a student, an agronomist, a taxi driver, a skilled worker, etc., and thus brings, in the facticity of his Being, European values, skills, mannerisms, attitudes-lived aspects of European culture. The "complete and absolute identification" of the urban native is reciprocared by his acceptance and reintegration into the indigenous milieu. The Westernized native is appreciated for the skills and wider horizons that are incarnated in him. Simultaneously. in daily interaction in the midst of dire hardships and struggle, he comes t o fully appreciate and value the resilience and elasticity (Nietzsche's "plastic power") of the indigenous history and culture-which, until recently, he saw as petrified and inert. As Cabral puts ir:

Eurocentric frame that stnictures his consciousness. The "return" is thus a two-way process of cultural filtration and fertilization. In this dialectic European culrure/history is recognized as a particular and specific disclosure of existence, aspects of which are retained or rejected in terms of the lived historicity and the practica1 requirements of the history that is being reclaimed. Simultaneously, this process discards elements of the indigenous cultureniistory which are found to be antagonistic to the struggle.

"petite bourgeoisie" (intellectuals, clerks) or the urban working class (workers, chauffeurs, salary-earnersin general), having to live day by day with the various peasant groups in the heart of the rural population . . . discover at the grass roots the richness of their cultural values (philosophic,political, artistic, social and moral) . . . [and] realize, not without a cerrain astonishment, the richness of spirit, the capacity for reasoned discussion and clear exposition of ideas, the facility for understanding and assimilating concepts on the part of population groups who yesterday were forgotten, if not despised by the colonizer and even by some nationals."

Considcr thcsc features inherent in an armed liberarion struggle: the practice of democracy, of criticismand self-cridcism,the increasing responsibility of populations for the direction of their lives, literacy work, cnarion of schools and health services, training of cadres from peasant and worker backgrounds-and many other achievement~.~'

. ..

European values and skills are thus absorbed into a new synthesis. This is possible because in embracing the indigcnous historicity-in the very act of doing so-the Westernized native purges himself of the

As we know, the armcd liberation struggle requires the mobilization and organizarion of a significant majority of the population, the political and moral unity of the various social classes, the efficient use of modern arms and of other means of war, the progressive liquidation of the remnana of tribal mentality, and the rejection of social and rcligious rulcs and raboos which inhibir development of the struggle (gerontocracies, nepotism, social inferiority of women, rites and practices which are incompatible wirh the racional and national character of the saugglc, etc.). The struggle brings about othcr profound rnodifications in the life of [the indigenous] populations. The armcd liberation struggle implies, therefore, a veritable forced march along the road to cultural progress.66 The ossified African past-embodied in the rural native-is thus not preserved intact, but is cut and cast t o fit the historic requirements of the struggle. Any aspect of tradition that hampers the concrete development of the movement is thus part of the dead past that must be sloughed off,

All of the above "achievements" which are indispensable for and constitute the success of rhe struggle as such require, as a prerequisite, a free and critica1 relation with the indigenous culture. A society in stasis cannot libcrare itself. Liberation-"the practice of freedomnrequires a radical dialectic of mass participation and popular democracy. From al1 that has just been said, it can be

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The Liberation Shuggle 1111

concluded that in the framework of the conquest of national independence . . .the objectivesmust be at least thc following: deuelopment of a popular culture and of al1 positive indigenous cultural values; deyelopnrent of a national culture based upon the history and the achievements of the smgglc itself; constant promotion of the political and moral awareness of thc people to the cause of independence, of justice, and of progrcss; development of a technical technological, and scienrificculture .on the basis of a critical assimilation of man's adiievements in the domains of att, science, literature. . .6'

It is in this context that Cabral confronts the Eurocentrism of Mantist conceptions of history, class, and class struggle. In other words, "this leads us to pose the question: does history begin only with the development of the phenomenon of 'class,' and consequently of class struggle?" To give an affirmative reply to this foundational question is to place "various human groups in Africa, Asia and Latin America outside of history, at the time when they were suhjected to the yoke of imperialism."" It is, in other words, to justify European conquest. Anterior to the history of class and class struggles and serving as its ontological underpinning we have, for Cabral, the "productive forces" of a human group-the material/historical disclosive and creative situation of human existence. It is chis reality that manifests itself in the formation of classes and the dynamics of the class struggle in the history of specific peoples. The "history of class struggles" conceived as a world-historical totalizing process, as Marx understands it in the Communist Munifesto, is a specific ontic manifestation-peculiar to the historicity of European modernity-of this ontological fact, which Marx universalizes and ontologizes as the historicity of human existence in toto. Addressinghimself specitically to this point Cabral states:

...

..

.

In the process of undoing colonialism the colonized culture as colonized also undoes itself. It destroys the frozen and mummified forms of existence imposed on it. Thus, it should be clear by now that "the practice of fteedom" is possible only within the context of "the return to the source" which is the internal sttucture of African self-emancipation. Propedy speakig, the "return" is the dialectic, internal to the African liberation struggle, which allows for the possibility o£ African freedom. As Cabral tells us-in keeping with Fanon-if in some form or other the "return" is not instituted as the actuality of the movement then the "struggle will have failed to achieve in obje~tive."~'This is so because the "return" is the liberation of the stunted possibilities of the colonized. It is within this context that, in a polemical encounter with dogmatic Marxism-Leninism, Cabral pointedly asseas that beyond historical "stages" and other such fashionable formulations what is at stake is the freeing of the "productive forces" of the colonized. The struggle is not aimed at a certain "stage" nor is it directed by or toward a given pre-established "ideology." Its only theoretic concerns are the possibilities opened up by the struggle itself which are properly explored and aiticulated as its own grounded self-awaren e s ~ . ~Thus, ' national liberation, affirms Cabral, "exists only when the national productive forces have been completely freed from every kind of foreign domination."" We need now to examine what the term "productive forces" means in Cahral's usage. The "productive forces," a technical term borrowed ftom orthodox Marxism, does not refer to the relations and forces of production in . the strict economic sense. Rather, it refers to the sum total of cultural resources that constitutes a people in the open-ended process of its historical becoming. The term "productive forces" is thus a formulation which is inclusive of, but not exclusive to, the economic realities of the coloni~ed.~'

...

.

Thcre is a preconception . . thar imperialism made us enrer history at thc moment whm it bcgan its aduentures in our countries. This prcconception must be dcnounccd: for somebody on the left, and for Matxisa in particular, history ir the history o€rhe class struggle. Our opinionisexacrlythe contrary. We consider that when imperialism arrived in Guinea it made us leavc history-our hisrory. We agree that history in our auntry is the result of class srrugglc, but wc have our own class srruggle in our country; the moment . colonialism artived ir made us leave out history and enrer another history."

..

The reality of colonialism is thus the violent superimposition of European historicity on African historicity. It is, in other words, the truncation or paralysis of the dominated "productive forces." In this context national liberation is the freeing of these "productive forces3'-the reintroduction of the colonized into history." Against the history of an "adventure" Cabral counterposes "our" history and "out own" struggles, which are interior to the specific historicity o£the indigenous folk. Once this fundamental and axiomatic premise is accepted, then the struggle can properly be understood as a concrete attempt to solve problems peculiar to specific histories. In

112/The Liberation Sl~ggle a "Brief Analysis of the Social Structure of Guinea," Cabral gives us a concrete example of what this mean~.'~ In this text we are presented with a systematic analysis of the various cultures and ethnic groups that collectively constitute Guinea-Bissau. The aim of the text is not to force Marxist (or any other) categories or justify an apriori schema of how a liberation struggle should unfold. Rather, the text is descriptive and concerned with the various egalitarian-horizontal and hierarchical ethnic communities, their interna1 social-economic-political structures, the position of women, their relation to the land, the history of relations (hostile or friendly) that each particular ethnic group has with other ethnic groups and with the Portuguese, and how this relates (if it does) to the group's particular mode of life and political organization. Regarding the urban centers, the analysis is concerned with locating those groups that are susceptible to the cal1of the movement and those who give it a deaf ear, and in each case locating the reasons (historical or sociological) why this is the case. In both the rural and urban contexts, Cabral's analysis is descriptive and explorative of the concrete possibilities imbedded in this context. It takes its theoretic cues and suggestions from the lived situation with which and in which it is engaged. Thus, against fashionable dogmas and "theories of revolution," the "return to the source" is a concrete assessment of one's own lived historicity. To "have ideology [theory]," says Cabral, "doesn't necessarily mean that you have to define whether you are a communist, socialist, or something like that. To have ideology is to know what you want in your own condition."" It should be noted that Cabral's descriptive presentation in "Brief Analysis of the Social Structure of Guinea" parallels, in its basic direction, Fanon's discussion of the Algerian situation in L'An Cinq de la Réuolutione Algkrienne. lnstead of mimicking Fanon's analysis, Cabral does for Guinea what Fanon did for Algeria: he engages in a distinct and hence novel theoretic assessment of a specific historical situation. Thus "to know what you want in your condition" is to have a concrete theoretic understanding of one's lived historical situation. For both Fanon and Cabral, then, theory, properly speaking, is always the concrete hermeneutics or interpretation of the needs and requirements of a specific historicity." Their theoretic labors are focused on an engagcd hermeneutics of their lived situation. This knowledge, furthermore, arises from and is grounded in the exigencies specific to a particular history at a particular moinent of

The Libemtion Shugglel113 its self-unfolding. As already noted, the "return" is directed toward creating the socio-historicalcontext in which "the practice of freedom" becomes the lived actuality of a formerly colonized people. Indeed, this is what it means to triumph over colonialism or neocolonialism: to reinstitute the world of the colonized beyond the residues of ~ o n ~ u e s r . ' ~ As Cabral categorically affirms: Ten years ago [bcforc thc struggle], we wcre Fula, Mandjak, Mandinka, Balante, Pepel, and others. Now we are a nation o€ G~ineans.'~ To the extent that it is successful, the struggle effectively rransforms those who through it secure their freedom. As Fanon tells us, the struggle sublatcs "old beliefs and friendships from the time before life began."" This is so precisely because it inaugurates a new life. "Ten years ago," "before life began," the people of Guinea-Bissau were differing ethnic groups forcefully imprisoned within the confines of Portuguese colonial subjugation. "Now we are a nation of Guineans," a nation created in the active pursuit of autonomy and freedom.

In both Fanon and Cabral we see the thinking of a synthesis of traditional and modern aspecn of African society in the context of actualizing the possibilities of the African liberation struggle. This thinking, furthermore, is inscribed at a fundamental level with democratic values and aspirations. Indeed, for both of these thinkers the effort of thought is directed at articulating the process of liberation as the self-formation of African nation states from out of the confines of the former colonial territories. The patriotism or nationalism on which such a metamorphosis is grounded is, furthermore, a multiethnic national awareness arising from the rccognition of difference and the establishment of a common histoty of emancipatory struggle. In fact each former colony as an independent state is an aggregate of ethnic groups. Thus, we have an inclusive and emanciparoty nationalism in contradistincrion to an exclusive and retrograde nationali~m.~' Indud, as Cisaire put it, "our liberation placed us on the left."" Or, as Sartre rminds us, "colonialism creates the patriotism of the ~olonized."~'This is a patriotism that derives from the " hermeneutical

114/The Libemtion Smiggle

...

The Liberation Shuggle/ 11S

...

situation of the formerly colonized, the oppressed struggling for more justice and eq~ality."'~It is the patriotism of those who reclaim their historical existence in terms of and by referente t o the historicity of the values inscribed in the charter of the United Nations,'6 a nationalism grounded in the recognition that drfference is what constitutes the concrete existence of each nation state and people in their particular and specific historicity. This is what 1 referred to, in the first chapter of this study, as the basis for global eanhly solidarity.8' T o think through the historicity of lived existence, this is what Fanon and Cabral d o from within their lived situatedness in the African liberation struggle. In their work, African philosophical hermeneutics finds a living example of its vocation. Thus, in terms of contemporary concerns-political, economic, scientific, cultural, etc.-the hermeneutics of African philosophy must engage in situared reflections aimed at the pragmatic and practical aim of enhancing thc lived actuality of post-colonial Africa. It is only in this way that African philosophy, as the reflexive hermeneutics of its own historicainess, can grow and cultivate itself as a concrete contemporary philosophic discourse.8' As Marcien Towa puts it, African philosophic thought is deeply committed t o an auto.centtic Africa which is the center o£ its own conceptions, of its decisions and the actualization of the totality of its spheres of essential activicy: political, economic and spiritual; a fraternal Africa, which will respect this same auto-centricprinciple as it applies to itself and as it applies to other pe0ples.8~ Indeed, an "auto-centric Africaml The effort t o theoretically assist in the actualizing of such a possibility is, for African philosophy, a noble and worthwhile cause. Furthermore, as we have seen in our explorations of Fanon and Cabral, this is the continuation of the age-old African struggle t o reclaim, beyond colonialism and neocolonialism, the existence and historicity of contemporary Africa. To enslave [¡.e., colonize] a people means to contain [or restfla] them to activities which do not serve their needs, but someone else's, for an end [or purpose] which is not theirs, but someone else's. The enslaved pcople is thus inscmd, as a merc instmment, into a practical proccss Whoie movemcnts and goals rcmain alien and unkñown to it. Hencc. the culture ~roducedis not their own, but somcone elsc's. The enslávement of apeople dries up i a culture at its source?'

Taking the negativity of this situation as its immedi~tebackground and source o r point of departure, African philosophy airns at reviving the cultural and historical actuality of the formerly colonized/enslaved peoples of Africa. As we have seen in this chapter, Fanon and Cabral, in their theoretic articulations cultivate a radical hermeneutics of the colonized in the process o£ self-emancipation. This then is the concrete and practical example that African philosophy must follow in its own engaged musings and reflexive reflections. ln so doing it will explicitly constitute itself as a radical and emancipatory African philosophical hermeneutics. Consciously and in a critica1 and rigorous manner, it will appropriate and add to the practical and engaged theoretic herirage of the African liberation struggle. In so doing ir will become a radical and emancipatory hermeneutic inventory of our post-colonial African inheritance." For as Foucault tells us: "philosophy is precisely the challenging of al1 phenomena of domination at whatever leve1 o r under whatever form they present themselves-political, economic, sexual, institutional, and SO ~ n . " ~ '

Conclusion Africa in the Present Context of Philosophy

Man aspires to know truth and the hidden things of nature, but this endeavour is difficult and can only be attained with great labour and patience. . . . Hence people hostily accept what they have heard from their fathers ond shy from any [critical] examination. -Zor1a Ya'oqob Sixteenth-century Abyssinian philosopher

In philosophy, the end is the synoptic recapitulation of the whole.' Thus, by way of a conclusion, 1 will present a brief overview of what this study has hoped to achieve. In so doing 1 will locate and stake out, within the framework of contemporary thought, a critical position in terms of the question of what African philosophy-in the last decade of the twentieth century-can and should be. This will reflexively specify my own position in the ongoing discourse oi contemporary African philosophy. That such a thing exists is beyond dispute. What needs to be done is to preliminarily trace out its theoretic role in the present situation of the continent. For the effort to appropriate the historic and emancipatory possibilities of our post-colonial present is-as argued in this study-the compelling theoretic and moral responsibility of African philosophic work.

The introduction abstractly aniculated the basic premise and grounding thesis of the study as a whole: that philosophy is inherently

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Africa in the Present Context of Philosophy 1119

and in its very nature a hermeneutics of the existentiality of human existence. This was done by exploring, in a preliminary manner, the contemporary actuality of the debate in African philosophy. By way of substantiating the above, chapter 1 queried the relation of philosophic reflection to the actuality out of which it constitutes itself. In like manner, chapter 2 explicated this historicity further by critically engaging the failings of contemporary African philosophic thought in terms of its thematic relations to the discourse of the African liberation struggle. Thus, the first half of the study provided a metaphilosophic attestation to the hermeneuticity of contemporary African philosophic thought. The second half of the study, on the other hand, presented a hermeneutics of the possibility of African freedom focused on the violence and the emancipatory hopes and possibilities of the African liberation struggle. Beyond the disputes and squabbles of Ethnophilosophy and its "Professional" critics, chapters 3 and 4 presented substantial philosophic explorations of questions that pertain to the actualities and possibilities of the present. Through al1 of the above, this study has presented African philosophy as a critical hermeneutics of the African situation. In its specific arguments and formulations this study has been grounded in the concrete awareness that philosophy in general and African philosophy in particular is, above al1 else and necessarily, a hermeneutical thinking through of its own lived historicalness. By taking Fanon's and Cabral's work as paradigmatic for African philosophy, 1have argued that the hermeneutics of African philosophy is, in effea, a situated emancipatory thinking akin to the theoretic labors of these two leaders of and participants in the African liberation struggle. In their work African philosophical hermeneutics finds its paradigmatic forerunners. Where then is this situated thinking located within the larger framework of contemporary thought?

in terms of the exigencies of the African world, of the prevalent ascendance of context-oriented modes of philosophizing in the discipline as a whole. In this context, as Fanon puts it:

As Theophilus Okere has convincingly argued, the "historicity and relativity of truth-and 61s always means truth as we can and do attain it-is one of the main insights of the hermeneutical re~olution"~ in contemporary thought, which substantiates and in turn is substantiated by the efforts embodied in African philosophic discourse. Indccd, contemporary African philosophy is an articulation from within, and

Universality resides in this decision to recognize and accept the reciprocal relativism of differcnt cultures [and histories], once the colonial status is irreversibly excluded.' Contemporary African philosophy, in this regard, originating as it does out of the "heart of darkness," is an added critical questioning voice in the varied current discourses of philosophy. It is the questioning voice of those whom the modern European world compelled into voicelessness in the process of its own violent and self-righteous establishment. As Outlaw puts ir: In light of the European incursion into Africa, the emergente of "African philosophy" poses deconstructive (and reconstructive) challenges.' The "deconstructive challenge" of African philosophy is directed at the Eurocentric residue inherited from colonialism. The institutional structures that the "independent" states of Africa have taken over from their former colonizers-the grounding parameters and cultural codes inscribed in these political, economic, educational, and social organizations-remain, in their essential constitution, oriented by colonial and European condescending attitudes. In every respect these vital societal structures remain unthought and unchanged. Thus, the unmasking and undoing of this Eurocentric residue on the leve1 of theory is a basic task and challenge for African philosophic thought. Conversely, and in conjunction with the above, the "reconstructive challenge" of African philosophy is aimed at supplying a positive hermeneutic supplement to the concrete efforts under way on the continent. lt is an indigenizingtheoretic effort in the service of revitalizing the historicity of African existence within the context and the bounds of out contemporary world. Paraphrasing Ngugi wa Thiong'o, one can say that this is the process of "decolonizing the rnind"' or, with Cabral, as we saw in chapter 4, one can describe it as the struggle to "return to the source." ln chis theoretic double venture, the hermeneutics of African philosophy finds itself allied with the various and varied critical voices that

12O/Africo in the Present Context of Philosophy

Africa in the Present Context of Philosophy/ 121

constitute the contemporary intellecnial panorama. As Edward Said has observed, in this panorama,

ultimately-when al1 is said and done-this is the ethical, political, and existential impulse of African philosophic thought.

the real issue is whether indeed there can be a tru; representation of anything, or whether any aud al1 representations, because they are representations, are embedded fitst in the language and then in the cilture, institutions, and political ambience o€the representer. If the larter alternative is the correct one (as 1 believc it is). then we must be prepared to accept the fact that a representation is eo ¡pro implicated, intertwined, embedded, interwoven with a great many other things besides the "truth," which is itself a representation. What chis mustlead us to methodologicallyis to view representations (or misrepresentations-the distinction is at best a matter of degree) as inhabiting a common field o€ play defined for them, not by some inherent common subject matter alone, hui by some common history, tradition, [and] universe o€discourse.'

For a long time, in the night, his voice was that oí the voiceless phantoms of his ancestors, whom he had raised up. With them, he wept their death; but also, in long cadence, they sang his birth.'

This then is what 1have argued, in this study as a whole, from within the problematic of philosophical hermeneutics and Li terms of the basic character of African philosophy. nius, in full awareness of its own lived situatedness and starting from it, African philosophical hermeneutics is engaged in articulating the truth of i u lived present. This "truth" is, furthermore, nothing more than its own reflexive selfrepresentation on the plane of philosophy, in the service of fulfilling the emancipatory hopes and aspirations inscribed in our "common history, tradition, [and] universe of discourse" as post-colonial Africans. This then is, in my view, the sense and meaning of the "post-" in "post~olonial"~ as it relates t o contemporary African philosophic thought and practice. Now more than ever, at the end of the twentieth ceniury, we contemporary Africans engaged in philosophy have t o undertake the practice of our discipline in full awareness of i u limits, implications, and possibilities. Hermes rendered the messages of the gods; in our context, this is the service of deciphering and interpreting the senseof our mortal existence within the bounds of the present post-colonial situation. The hope of this study has thus heen to contribute its efforts toward the augmentation of this cumulative and worthwhile project. For this is the calling and duty of African philosophical hermeneutics. In this interpretative service we will contribute our share in consummating the self-emancipation of Africa. In so doing we will acknowledge and partake of the process of repaying our collective debt to those whose sacrifice and hard struggle anualized our freedom. For

Notes

lntroduction All emphasis in rhe original unless orhenvisc indicated. 1 The Epic of Gilgamerh, ed., inr. by N. K. Sanderr (NewYork: Penguin B o ~ k r , 1980).

2 If one looks at Homer, Hesiod. the Sumcrian epic 01 Gilgamcsh, and rhe West Aftican epic of Sundiata-and I am sure rhis observarion can be verificd in ormr of addirional myrhs from other parrs and pmpleo of the world-it ir clear rhat, despin rheir many differcnces, al1 these texts articulan rheir discourse from widiin rhe limia of human finimdc. In al1 four, the myrhological narrative never thrcatcns rhc compars of human mortaliy wirhin which ir unfolds, and al1 rhe tanrastic deeds rhat involve rnd even implicared the gods occur. As is well known, strmng from Plato. in the tradition of G m k and later Euroucan merauhvricr.. rhe effon of phibsophy-except for rhc udark honcó" of rhe rradinon-is dircctly aimcd at doing prcciscly rhis: overcoming rhc limits of human finimdc. Among thc Platonic diaogua the Phaedo is the best illvsnation of chis basic and grounding oricntation in Europcnn metaphysie. In rhw segad-mmenting on Edmund Hwserl, an intluenrinl exvoncnt of this orimmtion roward hunun himde-lacaues Derrida writcs that, ior H u f ~ r l"death is recoyizcd as but an emp.rtc~l and cxninnc significanon, a wocldly accident." SpeerhandPhrnomena (Evanrran: Northwerrern ~niveisitvPresa. 1973). ...D. 10. To mv knowledee. - . howcver. the suoneest statsmmr of this perspectivc is Hegel's asserrion that 'logic [¡.e., his Logic] is to be understwd as the svsnm of uuse season. as rhe realm of vurc thouaht. It can rherefore be said thir this co&enc is rhe &porition of God u he ir iñ hir cierna1 essmce before rhe crearion of namre and 01 finite mind." Hegel's Scimce of Loftc, rnns. A. V. MiUer (New York: Humanirics Prcss, 1976),p. SO. In contras;ro rhis kind of "infinire rhinking" hermeneutics enunciares a 'finitc" descriptivc kind of thinking, which is gmunded in rhe inhercnrly intcrprctarive and morral chancar of human exisrence as such. This is the kind of rhinking or human wirdom-the knowledgc of our own limitedness-that the Socrates of the Apology daimed for himself in conrradisrinmion to the Sophists. 3 Drcw A. Hyland, The Originr of Philoraphy (New York: Capricarn Books, 1973), p. 24.

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124 / Notes 4

Henry Odera Oruka. "African Philosophy: A Brief Penonal Histoiy and Currcnr Debarc," in Contentporary Philosophy: A New Suwey, vol. 5, Africmt Philosophy, cd. Cuttorm floisrad Dordtecht: Mattinus Niihoff. , . 19871. ..sce cs~cciallv , m.4655. For a recent discussion of the concemporary sinialion in African philosophy, see Fidelis U. Okafor. "Issues in A f n a n Philoswhv Reexamined.' Iniernational Philosoph~cal Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 1, issuc io..129 (March 1993). Sce also Lunur Outlaw. ^Africnn. A h i a n Amcrican. Africana Philosoohv." .. Thc Philoso~htcal Fomm, vol. 29, nos.-1-3 (Fall-Spring 1992-93). Lucivs Outiaw. "African 'Philosoohv*: Demnstniccive and Rcmnstmaive Challenger," ~ o n t & ~ o r . ~t ~ h i i o s o ~ & :New ' ~ Survy, vol. S, Afncan Philosophy. ed. Gunorm floirtad 'Dordrechr: Maninus Ntjhoff, 1987). In this rame anrhology, ree also Hcnm Oderi Oruka. "African Philosoohv: A Brief Personal Hirtorv and Current Debate." Marrin Heidegger, "The Age of the World View," in The Question concerning Technolom íNew York: Haroer & Row. 19773. D. 116. Kwasi Wiredu, "On Defining African Philosophy," African Philosophy: The Lcsenr ~ o lReodingr, ed., int by Trcnay Serequeberhan ( N m York: Paraaon Housc, i s s i ) , p. 80. The label "Professional Philosophy" is the sclf-dcsignation of the above-named four African ohilosoohcrs and rckrs to thc ha that, at some levcl, thev al1 sharc a modcrnist bias in terms of which cheir respective vims in and on ~ f r i c a n philosophy arc arnculatcd. In chis rcgard, scc Hency Odera Orukn, "Four Ttmds in Currcnt African Philorophy;' ~ h t l o r o ~mh the ~ Prerenr Sttrhv:Wiredu. Phtloso~hv and An ~ f r i c á nCulare (Cambridge: ~ a m b r i d ~~ ne i v e n i ~rero, k 1980); ~oun&'dji, Africon Philosophy, Myth and Realify (Bloomingwn: Indiana Universiv Press, 1983); Bodunrin, "Which Kind of Philosophy for Africa," Philosophy in thePresent Siruation of Africa, ed. Alwin Diemu (Wiesbadcn: Franz Sniner Vedag Gmbh, 1981); and Oruka, Saae Philosophy (New York: E. J. Brill, 1990). The above texts are rnostly cornpilati&s and &ll&ions of papes-published by their respective aurhorr in rhe 1960r, 1970s and 1980s. As indkand above, 'Ethnophilosaphy' is a derogatory term coined by Hounmndji in 1969 (ibid., p. 34). b has also bsen used in the contemporaiy debate to nfer without disparagement m ethnographic work in African philosophy. Onc last point: In my last very pleasanc and fruithil meeting with Kwasi Wircdu, a t thc Caimal Division APA m ~ t i n ain Louiwille. ~ e n n i c i y(April 2 4 2 6 , 1992), he vcry strenuously. but cordially.objecrcd ro my ponrayal snd characrcnzation of his posinon in African philosophy. For thc record 1 repeat now what I dien urprcssed to him verbally, thai my rcbr.&entation of his viewr ir bared on his published work and specifically on his book, Philosophy and an African Culture. In al1 fairness to Wiredu, I would also like to note that his most recent views, both oral and writtcn, are nor, properly spcaking, in kecping with thc hiitoricallv ariainative oosition of Profesnional Philoso~hvas Dottraved above. In rhis regard my &narkr apply only to his book, ~ h i l o í o bnd& ~b~ ~frhan Culture, and to his articlu on this subiect that precede the publicarion of thc abovcindicated book. In this rcgard scc the "dassic" statcmmt of this Eumcenuidmodemist view in Hountondji, African Philosophy, Myth and Raaliiy, p. 66. On chis point Lucius Outlaw correctly poina out that:

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As Hountondii plays out his argument it quickly unravcls. It takcs only a few prohing quesrions m uncover the fact that Hountondji uses "African' as a signifier nat just for geographicd originr, but alro for raceiethnicicy. This anempt to urcumscribc -African" ir frustrated by the pby of forces that brings on a dcconstructive encounrer wirh the "whice mythology" infecting Philosophy. At the core of this mythology ir a rubsrance-accident meraphysin groundinp,a philosophical anthropolom: . supplemencal .. . . . -. rhe saul, consciourness. orrhepcrson ir rcgarded as rhe rssenccof rhc human bcicp: rhcir racc.cthnic,ty, or pender is sccondary or accidental. T h ~ sir at best naivc. i\'o .Irtng (or deadl oerson is accidenrallv or secondaril~African or E U L O D chat ~ P ~is. to sav. is of a particular racc or cchniciry "accgdcntally" vntlc being a "pcr
r =

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At this point it should benoted that Hountandji ha-sincc hir original formulntion in 1973-presend a dcfcnse of his original position which begrudgingly and very slightly qualifies ics srylc if not irs content. In fact hir defense is a forceful 2nd more vigorous resntement of hir original position. My vie\v of Hountondji's quali. ficd position res= an a reading o í his paper "O~cidentalism, Elitirm: Answcr to Two Critiques," which appeated in Quert, an internatiunal .ifrican journal of philosophy, vol. 3, no. 2 (December 1989); foi the original French version. ree Recherche, Pedagogie et Culture, Parir, no. 56 Uanuary-March 1982). Since an author is usualiy consulted, by way o í tequesring permission when his work is prcsented in rranslation, 1 must assume that this piece represents hir latest view, which is not oubsrantially diffeccnt fram hsr original pasirion. In any case, 1 arn resradne Hounmndii'r orieinal oosition oreciselv becausc 1 am intercrted in lavina . " out thc&crall original situation, in contradistinction to whzch the hermeneutical orienmtion in contemporary African philosophy was inirially coniriruted. On this last point please see the remarkr ro note 10. For a diffcrrnr and more sympathetic reading of Hounrondji's qualified position, please see Kwame Anthony Appiah, In Mv Father's House íNew York: Oxford Universiw . Press.. 1992). As Aodah .. .uuts it: *Hounrondji ha-for cxamplc, in a mlk at rhe African Lireraturc Association meeting in Dakar, Senegal, in April 1989-accepted thir poinr, iniiaing now rhat his originalprise depmition was polemical. In a situarion where African philosophy w a s s u p p o ~ d wbeexhausrcd by adescripnveethnophilox>phy, ir ir undcrstandable that his point-thar thir war by no means al1 thcrc was to philosophy-war ovcrsnted, as the claim that ethnophilosophy had nothing to do with philosophy" (p. 203, note 47).

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10 On this point, SK Hounmndii, African Philosophy, Myth und Reality, pan one, xction nne, 'An Alienatcd Literature." 11 Theophilus Oken, African Philosophy: A Historico.Hern!eneutical Investigation af the Condiiions of Its Possibfiilv [Lanham. Md.: Univcrsirv Press of America, i983). p. viii. ~ e ~ a ; d i nthis g tefcrence I wouid likc to point &t that, while being in complcte agtcementwith O k m o n mort everyrhing, 1 find thir tefercnee parrially problematic. The nferencc in qucstion reads: 'Samewhere in bctwcen, on the onc hand, the chauvinism of rhosr who claim that philosophy is of i a n a m z a rreasure hidden in thc sccret recesses of highest Olympus inaueorible ro non-westernerr 1i.c.. , Pmfessional Philosoohvl. , and on the other rhe a Briori ciairns of hose who think thar philosophy is so natunl a thing that if the Greeks had it at all, al1 people

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Notes1127 and, therefore, Africans must already havc it [¡.e.,

Ethnophilosophy], this cssay finds i a place." What 1 find problematic in rhis statment is that it uncritically acnpts thc vicw advocated by Professional Philosophy that, prior to the modern age Africa was innocent of philosophy as such. Okere fails to note rhat, on good hermeneudc grounds (and leaving the methodological naiverk of Ethnophilo~oph~ and of Oruka's Sage Philosophy aside) the foundational wondering and musing of tradicional African sages have-in their conrinuous crirical and safeguarding relarion to the rraditions (¡.e., che erhuic world-views) thev inhabit-a hcrmeneutic and philosophic function. To this extent, it has to be conceded in pinciple that thcir reflections and intellectual productions are pmducn of philosophic effort. The alternative would be to say that the wuntless and intrican African worldviews that we have inherited beyond the castrating experien~cof colonialism, have been preserved and perpetuated without rhc mediative and critkal cffort of human thoughr Bur can rradirion be transmitted without B e critical mediating cfforr of rhoughr? And isn't this kind of thoughr inhucntly philosophic, inasmuch as iris concerned with h e perpetuation and the transmission of thc existential actuality of a livcd and living heritage? To be sure, along wirh philmophy, one will also find other kinds of intellectual products: myth, art, music-thcse. however, do not in any way nulliiy, by their presence, the actuality of philosophic thought in their midst as the grounding uision of their distinu specificity. How these differing intdlecmal activiries and products are differentiated is an issuc wc nced nat ~ u r s u e ar the present moment. One last poinr: Okere's book was first produced in 1971 as a doctoral dissertation at the Instirute Superiw de Philo~ophieof the Catholic Universiw of Louvain and as V. Y. Mudimbc ooints out. i a main and loftv, meiit ~~~-~~ is that of having inaugurared the hermcncu&al orientátion in thc discourse of contemporary African philosophy ("African Gnosis: Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge," African Studies Review, vol. 28, nos. U3 lJunclS/~cptember19851, pp. 210-11). As a pioneer Okere is thus, unbeknownsr to himsclf, implicared, on this particular, in rhe views and posirians he crirically overcomcs. Rarely docs a pioneer escape sudi backlashl 12 Kwame Gyekye, An Essay on African Philosophical Thought (Cambridge: Cam. bridge University Press, 1987), p. 11. 13 Ibid., p. 43. 14 Okere, African Philosophy, A Historico-Hemtene~ticalInvcstigation, chapter five, "Philosophy and Non-Philosophy: Lessons from thc History of Philosophy," pp. 81-113. For Okere's discussion of the hismricity of African philosophy, see pp. 114-31 and specifically p. 121. 15 Franrz Fanon, Towards the African Revolution (New York: Grovc Press, 1967), p. 23.

16 Amilcar Cabral, Rerurn to the Source: Selected Speeches (New York: Monthly Review Presr, 1973), parsim, and spccifically,p. 63. It ir of rhe utmost importante to keep in mind thar the ~ h r a s e"return to thc source" ir not meant to iueeest a u"tenun" to a primordial "truth" or somc uncontaminated "African o,&"-as if rhis were possible or even dcsirable! As Cabral cmphatically points out in thc tcxts cited above, what ir ta be rcturned to and Fntically appropriated is the vigor, vitality (life), and cbullience of African exiscence which is rcawakened by the anticolonial srruggle. In other words, iris rhe reignited historicity of lived existence-

not the relia of a dead past-rhar is the "source" m which the "return" is dkcted by the lived exigcncies of the present moment of hismry. In this regard Cabral's formulation is akin to Martin Heideggcr'r nouon of wieder-holen (rcpctition). as ir oertains to Dasek's (¡.e., rhe arnialiry of human cxirrence) hisroricality. . Beina . a"> Time (New York: Harper & ~ o w , 1 9 6 2 ) .p. 437. 17 Marcim Towa, "Conditions for the Affirmation of a Modern African Philaraphical Thought," African Philosophy: The Essential Readings, p. 192. 18 For Senghor's own defenrivc rcmarks regarding thir rather controvcrsial, if not obsccne. statemenr. see "The Suirit of Civilizarion or the Laws of African Negro C u l ~ r c , "Presence Africaine, nos. 8-10 íJune-Novembcr 1956), p. 52. For a more recent and vcry sympathetic reading of Senghor's perspecrive. sce Olusegun Gbadegesin. "Negritude and l a Contribution to thc Civilization of h e Universal: Leopold Senghor and the Question of Ulrimaa Reality and Meaning," Ultimate Reality and MeanDlg, Interdisciplinary studies in the philosaphy af undentanding lcanadian ,iournall... vol. 14.. no. 1 lMarch 1991). On thir oaint ree alra: Lucius . Outlaw, "African 'Philosophy': Deconsttuctivc and Rcconstrucrive Challengcr," pp. 26-32, and Abiola Irele, The African Experience in Litemture nnd ldeology (Bloomingmn: Indiana Univeairy Press, 1990), pp. 67-124. Fot a sysrcmatic destrumring of Senghor's nonon of Négritudc rec chaptcr 2 of rhir study. 19 Towa. "Conditions for the Affirmation of a Modern hirican Philosophical Thought," p. 193. 20 Ibid., p. 191. 21 [bid., p. 194. 22 Ibid., pp. 194-95. 23 Antonio Gramsci, Prfson Notebooks, ed., trans. Q. Hoare asid G.N. Smirh (Ncw York: International Publishers, 1975). p. 345. 24. AimC CCsairc. Return to My Native Land (NEWYork: Pcnguin Books, 1969). p. 88. 25 Kwame Anrhony Appiah, "Ir the Post- in Postmodernirm the Posr-in Postcolonial?" Critica1 Inquiry, vol. 17, no. 2 (Winter 1991), p. 353. This paper ir now chapter seven of Appiah's imporranr book, In My Father's House. 26 Amilcar Cabral. "Thc nrtional movrmentr of the Portugucsc co.onics," rheopening addrrss at the CONCP confcrcncr hcld in Dar.Er-Salaam 196,'. collecred in Rewlunon in Gutnec Selected Textr (Ncw York. Monrnly Revlew Prers, 1969), p. 80.

27 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (Ncw York: Grove Press, 1968), p. 316. Cabral expresaes subsonrially thc samc view in "Connecring rhc Strugglc: An lnkrmal Talk with Black Americans," Return to the Source: Selected Speeches (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973), pp. 75-92, pnssinr. 28 Corncl Werr, Prophes) Deliurrenre! (Philadelphna: Wertrnin,rer Prcss. 1Y82 p. 24. Werr m ~ k e rhir r point in nferencc to African.Arnerican inrclicctuals and their work. Therelevant scntcnce rendr: "In fact, imnically. h r ancrnpr by blackinrellcctuals to escape from their Americanners and evcn ;o bcyond ~ e r r e r nthought is itself vcry Amerim." In the contexr of contemporary African philosophy, onc needs only ta substiture "European" for "Amcrkan" and "African inteiicc~als"

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128/ Notes

Notes1129

for "black inrellectuals' ro scc rhc rclevance of this senrence for the discussion developed rhus far in rhis introduction. 29 Frana Fanon, Black Skins, White Mnsks (New York: Grove Press, 1967). p. 12. On this point for Cabral, see "Brief Analysis of the Social S t m m r e in Guinea," Revolution in Guinea: Selected Texts (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969). 30 For examples of what this means pleasc see my papero, "Karl Marx and African Emancipamry Thoughc A Critique of Marx's Euro-Centric Mctaphysifn," Praxis International, vol. 10, nos. 1/2 (April andJuly 1990),and "Theldcaof Colonialism ui Hegel's Philosophy of Right," I n t e n u i t i o ~ lPhilosophical Quanerly, vol. 29, no. 3, ksue no. 115 (Seprember 1989). Scc also, Emmanucl Eze, -On Modem and Mythic Worldviews: Thinking with and agains Habermas," Conference, Alournol of Phiiosophy, vol. 1, no. 2 (Fall 1990). In my vicw this process of challcnging the universalistic claims of Wesrern philosophy is and should bc an onaoinn dcsrructivc mncctn of conrcmporary frica" philosóp-hicthnughr which itwillhnv~toncccssartly develop in the process of atablishing and mnsolidating m own rhcorcric poiitions. It could not be otherwise, furrhermom, ~reciselvbccause Euroocan cul&philosophy included-historically and thcmátically &rablisha i a d f by radidly diffcrenriating itself from barbarism-the Othernus of the Other-rhe oaradimatic case of which is the Black African.

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1. Philosophy and Post-colonial Africa MI emphasis in the original unless otherwisc indicated. 1 Thcophilus Okere, African Phibrophy: A Historico-Hermmeutical lnvestigation of the Conditions of Its Possibility (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1983). p. vii. See also, Elungu Pene Elungu, "La philosophic, condiiion du developpement en Afrique aujourd'hui," Presettce Africaine, no. 103, 3d quarrerly (19771, p. 3. 2 Marcien Towa, "Conditions for thc Affimation of a Modern Afrian Philosophical Thought," in African Philosophy: The Essential Readingr, ed. Tsenay Scrcqueberhan (New York: Paragon House, 1991), p. 187. 3 Frantz Fanon, Towards the African Revolution (New York: Grave Pren, 1988), p. 120. 4 Unlike most orhcrs, as early as 1961 in his seminal work The Wretched of thc Eorth (New York: Grove Press, 1968). Fanon had ooinred our the class and historico-political difficulttes tnat lay ahcad for rhe ~ f r t c i nanii-colonial srrugglc. In rh;s regard ree parncularly rhe rccrion tirlcd. 'The Pirlalls of National Conrciouoness." O n rhis poinr Kofi Buenor Hadjor, a onc time prcss aide in rhe publicity xcrerariat of the Nkrumah governmenr, pays rribute ro Fanon's keen insight at rhe time of his exile with Nkrumah in Guinea Conakry. "Ir was in Conakry rhat 1 first read Fanon, especially his Wretched of the Earth which my n i l e companion, John K. Tettegah, now Ghana'r ambassador to the Sovin Union, gave me as a presat. Ir did not take me long 10 realizc that Fanon's analysis had much more m offer than Machiavclli and many of rhe other clasoiu. T e n c p h and I literally devoured rhc chapter on 'Thc Pitfallr of National C o n s ~ o u s n c s sas~ we felr irs analysis was too truc ro rhe Ghanaian siruarlon." On Traasformlag Afilen Discoursei with Afiicn's Leaders (Trcnmn, N.J.: Africa Wodd Press, 1987), p. 3.

5 Noria rhat this las1 s e n n n a projtcts an African fumre thar will "recognizc" in our immediatc wsr-colonial oasr thc disaoooinrments of [he hooes and asoirations of thc African libcrarion movemcnr. In no doing it p r o l e a into the hnirc the validiw of i n own assumorions niven the simaredness of irs own hermeneutical actualiry. Now thir 'recognition" ir not thc "rccognition" of somc " o b ~ ~ i rnte ve of affain tn the hnire," much lerr a pndiction of whnr ir to come Rilher i r ir a 'recognirion" that will be possible o; will be possiblized only if the disappointcd objcctiva of thc African libcrarion srruggle-yet to be explored in this rext-are fulfilled (ar leasr in part and in tome way) in rhe f u ~ r thc e senrence pmiecu and on which ir s m k a its a n a n a p a m q hopes. ln other words, if thc neocolonial praent c n d u ~ into i the immediare and remore fumre of Africa. al1 of rhe above will be no more rhan unfulfilled and los1 posribilities of African hirtorical exirtence. 6 Enrique Duasel, Philosophy of Liberation (New York: Orbir Bmks, 1985), p. 13. 7 Thia is the basic heme of Georae Bush's fint ~residencv, rhe beginning . .of h e "second American cennrq' u he puf it in his inaugural addrerr. With rhc collapsc of thc Soviet Union (the othcr supupowcr) and its Eastern Europcan allies, Bush, in kccoina with the rhnoricof his~redeceasor,has claimcd al1 of thesc developmenrn as vickr&i for what has m m c m be k n o k as rhe Reapn-Bush cons&ative revolution in mntcmporarv Amcrican politics. Thc Auaust 2, 1990 lraqi invasion of Kuwair, 2nd the 'i00 hiur" ~ u l~f áunleashed r by &e Uoircd Sraar if Amcrica on lraq (in mnjunction with and in rhcguisc of thc Unircd Nsrianr! rianingJanuaq 16,1991-al1 rhese devclopmcna are, by acodcnt or derign, framing rhc charactcr of this "new world order' as extrcmcly bellicose for rhc non-Europcan world as a whole. Americ~n/Occidcntal milirarv miahr. as in the days of old, seems ro be, in a much more intenac manner, rhe~sra~dard of "justic2 in this "new warld order." In thir regard s e , Noam Chomrky " V h a r We Say Caer': Thc Middle Eapt in thc New World Ordcr," Z Magazine (May 1991); Edward W. Said, "Ignoran[ Armics Clash by Night." The Nation, February 11, 1991; Anron Shammas, "A Losr Voicc," The Ncw York Times Magazine, April 28, 1991; and Eqbal Ahmad, "The Hundred-Hour l a r , " Daum, March 17, 1991. 8 Basil Davidwn and Anronio Blonda, Cross Roads in Africa (Noningham. Eng.: Spokesman Prcss, 1980). p. 36. 9 Ibid. 10 Hans-Gcorg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Crosrraad Publishess, 19821, pp. 158-59. 11 Ibid.. semnd pnn. section 1: *Schlciermachcr's Projcct of a Univerral Hermcneurifn," passim. 12 Hegcl: The Differmce bctwrm The Fichtean and Scbellingirr>tSyriems of Phiiosophy, tranr. Dr. Jere Paul Surber (Atascadero, Calif.: Ridgc\,icw Publishing Co., 1978). .. D. 10. 13 In this regard sce Abiola Irclc, In Piaise ofAiienation, an inaugural lecnire delivered on Novcmbcr 22, 1982, ar the University of lbadan (Publirhrd by Abiola Irele, 1987), passim. Ir ir inreresting to nore, however, rhat lrelc failr to capiralhe on the negative value of alienarion whcn he ir conccrncd with rhe conremporary dcvelopments of Akican philosophy. In chis rcgard scc his subsrantial introduction ro Paulin J. Hounmndji't book. African Philoiophy: Mytb and Redity (Bloomingron: Indiana Universiry Press, 1983), passirn.

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1301Notes 14 Hani-Geore Gadamer. Philoso~hicalAovrenticeshius (Cambridae. Mass.: MIT Pres~,198ij, p. 177. kadamcr'ir hcrc dcicnding himvlf againsr;hosc who havc reduccd herrneneutier ro a lid and urc ihir fadcithcr to hidemcthodoloaical rrrrilicy or as a ]ustification for the absence of method. Even if sudi a defens; is justified, it ir ironic that Gadamer-who claims that philosophy is hcrmcncutical in i n vcry namre-should rake offense and reaa so suongly to the "popular" acclaim of his basic and produaive insight. As 1hopc the reader will s e , my use of Gadamer is nor "fadish" but concr&ly groundcd in rhe naturc of the questions with which 1 am concerned. 15 Ernrst Warnba-Dia-Warnba, "Philosophy in Africa: Challenges of the Afrtcan Phi. loropher," in African Phtlosuphy: The EIsential Readings, ed. Tsenay Serequeber han iNew York: Paraeon House..19911. ...D. 230. As Wamba aun: 'Whv...indccd.. are hermeneutics, phenomenology, Althusserianism, logical positivism, Hegelianism, srrucruralism, piagmatism, dialcaical materialism, Thomiam, etc., all products of r ~ e c i 6 material c and svmbolic mnditions ~mcclficideolozicíl st~zdes).understood . . by our Atrican philorophcrr as so many correa cesponocs to thc philosophical suesnon tn Afriea>" (ibid.,. All I would Iike m say ar this poini ir that Wamba's ouestion has a boomerane cffcct on his own '~fncanized"~arxisr-~eninist nosii o n , which he docs not addrus. To be sure, thc question is to thc point aid, as 1 shail show in chis chapter, can be adequatcly engaged-in al1 its c u i ~ r a iand .. historico-political richness-only from an Airiunin hnmrneutic pcrspecrive radi. cslly and crir,cally inlormed by and absorbed in ia own livcd historicalncss. 16 V. Y. Mudimbe, "African Gnosis: Philosophy and the Order of Knowledgc," African Studies Reyiew, vol. 28, nos. 213 íjunr/Scptcmbcr 198S), pp. 210-11.

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17 1 derivc this distinction from an exploration of Manin Hudeggu, Discourse on Thinking (New York: Harper & Row, 1966); Hans-Georg Gadamu, Tmth and Method (New York: Crossroad Publishers, 1982), second part; and Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of ScienrificRevolurions, M ed. (Chicago: Univcrsity of Chicago Pres, 1970), possim 18 In this regard see Manin Heidegger's "Modcrn Science, Mctaphysics, and Mathematicr," in Baric Wgtingr, ed. David Farrell Krcll (New York: Harper & Row, 1977). 19 For the work of these IWO thinkers, please sce Ethiopian Philosophy, vol. 2, The Trearise of Zar'a Ya'aqoh and Waida Hcywat, a x t nnd authorship (Addis A b e b ~ : Printed for the Addis Abeba University by Commercial Printing Prcas, 1976), prepsred by Dr. Claude Sumner. 20 Elungu, "La philosophie, condition du developpemuit en Afrique aujourd'hui," p. 8, my own translation. 21 Okere, African Phiiosopby: A Hirtmico-HermeneuticnI Investigatia, p. xiv.

22 Marrin Heidegger, B&g anATime (New York: H a v e r & Row, 19621, division ouo, seaion 69, passim and specifically p. 416. Sec also, sation 68 and section 73, pnssim and spcafically p. 430. For Heidcggcr, who is thc mostimportant figure in contcmporary hermeneutics, the m m "has bnn," which appears aporadically in diffcring formr in the t c x n indkand and throughout Being and Time, designaw the pasr thnr 1s blt and m a k o irrelf b l t in the prnrnce of the ptnmr. Iris a living past that StNCtUrCSIhe livcd actuality of histotlcal Dasein-the concrete historlciy

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28 29

of human existcnce. As wc shall soon sec in our funhcr elaborarion of chis point in chis chapter, chis is whar Cadamer rcfcrr to and appropriarcs as "effecrive history.' 1 have placed the term 'greamess" in quotarion marks to indicate thar my mnccrn, in using ir, ir not to praise and exrol rhe "grearncrr" af ancient Africa but merely ro poinr to rhc ha that rhe African past did have momenrr of greatncss cmbodied in a variety of ancient civilizarions,such as Axum, Mali, Saghai, Ghana, and Egypr, with al1 their contradicrions and interna1 problems. MYproiecr ir rhus nor dcfincd by a "Diopian" (to bormw a word from Arante) la&;ig far rhc 'grcamess" of ancient Africa, but by a critica1 and hirtorical engagemenr with rhe hirmricity of the African simatinn; As the reader will scc. the recond scction of chaoter 2 will m n f ~ t c l yrubstantiatc this pcrspcaivc in i a critica1 and destructuring reading of [he csientialist Ninitude of Lcopold Sedar Senghor. This is what Gadamer rcfcrs m as the 'effective-hirtorical conrriousncsr." For s discussion of chis term and l o r a thematic explorarion of in ariginr in Hcidcggcr's Being-quertion, s n my papcr, 'Heidcggcr and Cadamer: Thnnknng as 'Mcdiorive' 2nd aoqEffrnivc-HirrorinlConxiousncrr.'" Mnnond World. \"l. 20.no.1(19871. Okonda Okolo, "Tradition and Desriny: Horizons a f an African Philorophiul Hermeneutics," in Afncan Philosophy: The Euential Readingr. ed. Trcnay Screqueberhan (New York: Paragon House, 1991), p. 207. Kwasi Wircdu, Philosophynnd An Africun Culture (New York: Cambridgc University hcss, 1980). p. 1; Paulin J. Hounrondji, African Philorophy, Myth andReality, p. 67. Heidcgget, Being and Time, p. 255. In this rcgard s e also, "Letter on Humanism," in Basic Writings, ed. David Fancll Krcll (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 209. Ibid., p. 67 For an overview of rhe discussions pmvoked by Heidegger's Narism broughr rbout by Victor Fariaa's bwk, Heideggcr n ~ Nnrirm d (Philadelphia: Temple Universiy Prcui, 1989). scc Kathlccn Wright, "The Hcidegger Cantmvcrry-Updated and Appnked," Praxis Intmationai, vol. 13, no. 1 (April 1993). For a cancisc and revealing discussion of this scrndalous affair, sce, Thomas Sheehan, "Heidegger and thc Nazis," in Thc Nnu York Rcview of Bcoks, vol. 35, no. 10 Uune 16, 19881. For a varietv of vicws on this uucsuon by Cadamer, Habermas, Derrida, Blanihot, ~acoue-iabarrhe,2nd ~ e v i n Aal1 , cont;mporacy Europenn philoxiphcrs whose work has bcm critiullv influenced by. Hcidrggcr's . . Bcing-quertion, scc Cntical 1nquiy.vol. 15. no. 2 ( ~ c n t c 1989). r "Symporium on ~eideggerand Naztsm," ed. Acnold l. Davidson. ln chis regard ir ir impcrnnvr ta mmcmber rhc wordr of Aimt Esaire. thc Martiniquian poct and philorophcr of Ngntude (a Négritude fundamentally at oddr wsth Scnghor's esscntialism of 'Ncgro-ncrr"). On this point rrsnire writcr: "Yes. it would be wonhwhilc to rmdv clinically, in dctail, the swps takm by Hitler and Hitlcrism and m reveal ro &e ve. distinguished, very humanistic, very Chrisrian bourgeair of thc wenticth century that without his being aware of ir, he has a Hitler inside him, rhar Hitler inhabia him, rhat Hitler is hi drmon, thnt if he mila aplnsr him, he is being inconsistcnr and that, at bonom, what he cannor foreive Hitler for is not crime in inclf, !he crime againrt man, it is not the humiiiation of man as such, ir ir [he crime against the white ~

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man, the humiliation of the whire man, and the fact that he applicd ro Europe colonialist ptocedures which until thm had bcen reserved cxclurivelv for the Arabo of ~ l ~ e r i a , - t hwolies e of India, and the blacks of Africa [and, we kight add, rhe exterminahd aboriginal populations of Australia, Norrh and Sourh America, and more recenrly rhe Palestinian Arabs, at rhe hands of the victimizing vicrims of thc Holocaust]." Discourse on Coionialism, originally publishcd in French in 1955 (New York: Monrhly Review Press, 1972), p. 14. Nccdlcrr to say, not one of the above thinkers-who approptiatcly lamcnr and condemn Heidegger's Nazi connecrion-least of al1 Jürgen Habermas, thc "philosopher of moderniry" (the age of "imperialisr colonialism," to borrow Lenin's phrax), has made racism, colonialism, or theexpansionisr aggressivenature of Europcan moderniíya problem for his thought nr the focus of his reflenions. This silence, this un-said, might just be the "demon" that needs to be exorciscd. But undcr what "bannet" is rhis cxorcirm to be performed? Who is to be &e cxorciscr? 30 Marrin Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 377. As rhc rranslarors, J. Macquarrie and

E. Robinson exnlain: "The root-meanine of the word 'ccstasis' lGreck er-ara: German, Ekstase) is 'standing outside'. Used generally in Creek for the 'removal' or 'displacement' of something, ir camc to be applicd to rtans-of-mind which we would now cal1 'ecstatic'. Heidcnncr usuallv, keeos thc basic root-meaninz in mind. but he also is keenly aware of i n d o x connectió" with rhc root.meaning of the word 'uristence' " (p. 377, note 2). This affiniry of the tcrms "ccstatic" and "existcnce" ir central not only for Being and Time bur for Heidegger's work as a wholc. In "Lcner on Humanism" and throughout his latcr works rhe term "existence" ir rendered as "ek-rirtence" in ordcr m accentuatc this affiniry and to ruggert that human exirtence ir the procers of itr own ecstatic going beyondhence "standing outsiden-inclf. The human beina is the Da-the "rhere" or opennes-f ~ i i which n ~ ir interior m Being itse~f.~ln other words, Heidegger U notmerely rejecting humanismoutof hand; rather, heisthinkinganonmetaphysical humaniam grounded an &e Da's inrcrioriry r8 Bcing. Throughout this chapter and the study as a wholc, thc readcr is adviscd m kecp in mind rhc above kcy innrpreration of the nrm "existence" as "ek-sisrence." Finally, on p. 205 of &e "Lettcr on Humanism." Heideeeer writes that the statemcnt: "Thc 'ersencc' of Drcrein lies in its existen&," does-ñot "contain a universal staremenr about Dasein, since the word came inro fashion in the eighteenth centuv as a namc for 'obicct'. intendine to cxprcrs thc mcraphyaicnl conccpt of &e acrualiry of rhc amal." As thc carefui reader can casily asccrrain, this referr to rhe trrm Dasein and ir3 onginr and nor to the existcntialiry of human exirtence which ir indicans. "U

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31 Heidegger himself suggesn'rhis poinr in hir dbcussions wirh a Japancse philosophcr in. O n the W ~ to Y Lanpua~e.fNew York: H a r ~ e r& Row. 1982). Sce the k s t

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section titlcd, "A Dialogue on Language," passim. In his a k a d y cited book, Theouhilus Okere also notes this uoint. Howevu. in his mdicarion he undulv resrricts this fecund suggestion. In this regard rce Afncon Philosophy: A Hirtorico-Hermeneutical Investigation, pp. 118-19. 32 In this rcgard, x c Hddegger'r last statemcnt of h b views, "Modern Natural Science and Technolopv." ed. T. Sallis lArlantic Hiehlandr. . in Radical P h e n m m i o m w,.. u , N.J.: Humanities Presr, 1978), p. 4. For Hcide&s ovcrnliperopective on technology ond the siruation of the modcin world, ree Thr Question concrrning Tcchnology nnd Other E~$ays,trans. William Lovin ( N mYork: Harper & Row, 1977). For

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the smw of the nrm Ce-riel1 and irs English rendering as 'cnftaming," x c Lovin's introduction ro h e text, p. u i x , and in thc tcxt, s~ p. 19. 33 Wamba, 'Philosophy in Africa: Challengcs of the African Philosopher," African Philosophy: The h m t i a l Readings, p. 239. 34 Hcidcgger, Being and Time, p. 346. 35 Basil Davidson, Africa in Modern History (New York: Penguin Bookr, 1985), p. 44. 36 Anmnio Cramsci. Quuderni Del Carcere, vol. 2, eduione critica dell'lnsrimro Gramsd, a cura di Valentino Gerrarana (Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 1975), pp. 137677, my own tranrlation.

37 Ibid., p. 1378, my own translation. 38 Fora dassicdesaiption of this morncnrous momentin thcrclf-institutionofmodcr. niw and the destruction of thc non.Euroocan world which iurtifies and wclcomer ir ;S the objective self-unfolding of ~ e i t i e i r tsee , Karl ~ a r i a n Fredcrick d Engelr, The Communirt Mdnifesto (New York: lnternational Publirherr, 1983), pp. 1039 Okolo, 'Tridirion i n d Desnny: Horizons ot an Afiican Philorophtcal Hcrmcnrurico," in Afncan Philosophy: Thr Essentini Reodingr, p. 201 40 Ibid. 41 In this regard, ree Martin Hcidcggcr, Discourse on Thinking (New York: Harper & Row, 1966),the sec~ndpa~~Conversatianona Counrry Parh abour'ihinking,"

pmrim. 42 Okolo, "Tradition and Dodny," p. 204. 43 Martin Heidcggcr, An Introduction to Metaphysics (New Havcn, Conn.: Yale Universiry Press, 1977). p. 176. 44 Ibid.

Okolo, "Tradition and Dcstiny," p. 203. Gad~mcr,Truth and Method, p. 325. snd pp. 273-74. 47 Hans-Geog Cadamer, Rearon in the Age of Science (Cambtidge. Mass.: MIT Press, 1981). pp. 109-10. In rhii regard sce also my already cired paper, "Heidegger and Gadamer: Thinking as 'Meditative' nnd as 'Efkctivc-Historical Consciousness,' " p. 56 and pp. 59-60. For an inrercsting discussion of this point cenrued on the Habennas-Gadamer debate and on Via's notion of "smrus communis," sec John D. Schaefer, S m u i Communk (Durham, N.C.: Duke Universiry Prcss, 1990), pp. 117-22.1 would like ro rhank Nuhad Jamal for thir last rcference. 48 D m Hyland, Thr Origins of Philosophy (Ncw York: Cipcicarn Books, 1973). .D. 289:.and bv. rhe a m e author. The Vtrnir o/ Philosoohv IArhens: Ohio Univenin Presa, 1981), pp. 12-13. This is a central problun of Hcidcggcr's thought locand in rheontic-ontoloeical ambieuiwof - . his ontoloeical analvsisand its onticsr>ccificiw. .. orla& thueof, in relarion to particular political and hismrical quesuons. I cannot hcre conaider, at ~ r e nlengrh. t rhir impomnr concctn cxccpt m say thar thc specific way in which African hnmanitica ir h u e bting articulared and the dirtinnivc himry out of which ir cmerges predudcs the dangers inherent in Hcidc~er's position. This ir so prccisely because the hermeneutical orientation of African

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philosophy is Brmly wedded ro an emancipatory political pmxis and an ontic h i s t o r i d orientation aimed at rhe remgnition and celebrarion of nilniral-historical variery and differencc. Gadamer, Trutb andMethod, pp. 267-68. For rhe source of Gadamcr's conception of "cffecrive-hismry,'> see Heidegger, Being and Time, division two,. part . five. secuon 73, p. 430. Okolo, "Tradition and Destiny," p. 208. See also, S. K. Dabo, "Negro-African Natianalism as a Quest for Jusuce," Presenu Afihine, no. 107, 3d quarterly (1978), passim. Okolo, ibid., p. 205. Amilcar Cabral, "Anonymous Soldiers for the Unind Nations," in Revolution in Guinea: Selected Texts (New York: Monrhly Review Press, 1969), pp. 50-52. In view of what has been said in nore 7, it should be noted that rhc Unired Nations just as any other complex body rhar encompassea wirhin imelf conflicting and conrending forces around formal princiriles and norms of behavior is a sire of rtrugglc a i d hegcmonic conrcntioa In tiis regard, whar Cabral is affirming ir an achievcmcnt that is sancrioned by thc formal principlcs of the Unind Nations and yet has been senired against thc innresrs of thc dominant forceí within ic. ¡.c.. . the UniredStatesandim ~h allics. For an intcrcstingdiscueionof rhc'íuncrioning" of rhe United Nauons in terms of 'm" most rcccnt i n n m b o n a l crisis, thc colonial legacy of the non-European world, and in the context of supupower reconciliation, see, Erskine B. Childers, "The Use and A b u a of rhe UN in the Gulf Crisis," Middlc East Rebort. 1991). For a dctailed exoosition . .no. 169..vol. 21.. no. 2 iMardi/Aoril . ' of the United Narion'r paniality in itr relective npplication of internatianal norms and scandards, see Norman FinkclsrUn, "isnel and Iraq: A Doublc Standard," Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 20, no. 2 (Winter 1991). Cabral, ibid., pp. 51-52. See nore 44. See nore 44. From within the concrete situarion of B e Eritrean inri-colonial srrugglc lssavas Afnvsrki sxvrcsscs this vicw in the followine manncr: "rhc artainmenr of the objecrivea of o& national cause-indepcndencc lnd liberarion from Ethiopian colonial r u l e r a k e precedence over othm issues, and beuuse of various orher regional considerations, we have choscn m avoid involvement in any regional conflicrs or inter-Arab disputes. We have chosen ro concmtrate our cfform on our main obiecrive, which ir victorv ovcr Erhio~iancolonial rule.' Foreim Bmadust 1nforma;ion ~ r w i c e ,Daily ~ e b r t Sub-Saiaran , Africa, Thursday July 1990, p. 8. For the relevant quotation in full and reference plcase re,in chis chapter, note 48. Fanon, Black Skins Wbite Maskr, p. 229. The character of rhis hisrorically grounded and oriented inventivcness-rhat invmm out of im *has becn" its as-ofyet unrealized original f u ~ r possibilitics-will e be the main c o n c m of chapter 4. Chcikh Hamidou Kane, Ambiguo- Aduenturc (Pommouth N.H.: Hcinemann Educntional Books, 1989), pp. 79-80, cmphnals ndded. On chis poinr, rce also, Lucius Oudaw, "African 'Philosophy': Dcconstnicrivc and Rcmnstrunive Chalknges," in Contemporary Philosophy: A Ncw Suruy, vol. S, African Philoaophy, ~~

53 54 55

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Notes / 135 ed. G u m r m Fioisnd (Dordmht, Nctherlands: Marrinus Nijhoff, 1987), pp. 3536. 59 Fanon, The Wretched of the Emth, p. 31 1. 60 ThePortable Niltzschc, trans. Walnr Kaufmann (New York: Viking Press, 1974), p. 125. I would like m thank Robert Gooding-Williams b r helping me locare rhis rcfcrcncc. 61 Amilcar Cabral, Revolution in Guinea: Selected Textr, p. 76. 62 Fanon, Thc Wrnrhed of the Ea&, p. 233. lt is imporrant ro note, 3s is clcar from rhe mnnxt, chat Fanon'r remarks-which I havc slighrly modified in quotingrcfcr in rhe aingular ro all ihe difledng hisrorim-cultural totalities rhat in sum constintn rhc cultural and historical acrualiry of rhe conrincnt in al1 irs diversiry and differmse. 63 Aimt Césaire, "Lctter 10 Maurice Thorcz," English translation, Presence Africaine (Paris: Prsencc Africaine, 1957), pp. 6-7. 64 Okolo, "Tradition and Destiny," p. 209. 65 Ibid., p. 202.

i

this .~crsoectivesee mv. oaoer. 66 For ancxvemelvcondensed svnoosisof . . . . . "The African Libcration Srnigglc: A Hermeneutic Explorarion of rn Afncan Hirtor.cal.Polirical Horizon.' Ultimate Realto and Measna, Intcrdisci~iinarvSnidio in thc Philoro. phy of Undcrrranding ( ~ a h d i a ~ournai), n val. 14, no. 1 ' f ~ a r c h1991). 67 Herdegger, Being and Timc, p. 358. Rcgarding prcruppusinonr and rhc cducarionsl and livcd background or context in which and out oí which onc philorophtrer, Kwaii Wiredu wrires: "Suppose now rhat a critic snould a n r i b ~ t cwhat I havc wrinen to my particular edi&ional background; 1 am bovnd to concede as much. In a certain obvious scnsc wc are al1 childrcn of our árcumrrancer. But were rhc exirtencc of ~ u e ha 'bias' prwf of falriry, univcnal silence wouid be obligarory oo al1 mankind* (Philosophy and mr African Culturc, p. 36). On rhc samc cnicial point Ernesr Wamba-Dia-Wamba observes rhat: 'Thc paradax in philorophy is that thc alection of a conccotion or thc dcfinition of ohtloso~hvone m a k e ~is ncceasarily an expnssion of onc's philosophical position, stand, and ourlook." "Philoso~hvin Africa: Challcnaes of the African Philoso~hcr."in African Philosopby: ~ h e ~ i s c n t iReadings, nl p:236. In both of thcsc rcnkki(rcmarks by cantcmpornry African philosophcrs) rhcrc is a failure to rccognirc thc hcrmencurical tturh ~hatthelivcdsi~atcdnessof philosophy ir not a bkrnish but thcsourccofphilorophical rcflccrion as such. In f s n onc nccds ro begin from rhc recognirion rhat philosa. ~ h irv "im own time a ~ o r c h a d c din thouehts." as Heeel outr it in rhc orehce m ;h; Philosophy of ~ i & i ,rrans. T. M. KII& (Oxford Ünkcrrity ~rcrr,'1973), p. 11. Once this poinr is grasped the 'fear" of "bias" and "paradox" ir dissipated and thc hcrmcneuucally circular characnr of philosophy and ir5 pracuce, grounded on "Darsin's circular &ingn (Hcidcggcr, Being and Time, p. 3631, can properly be seen as thc fccund ori& of philokphy itself. In this r&d. see Th;oihilui Okue's already aced book, Aftican Philosophy: A Hisrorico-Hermeneutical lnuesiigation, chap. five. Scc alro, Luciur Outlnw, 'Africanand African-AmecicanPhilosophy: Dewnstniction and thc Critica1Management of Tradirions," in Thr Joutnlil, vol. 1, no. 1 (Winter-Spring 1984).

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2. African Philosophy Al1 emphasis in the original unless orhenvise indicated. 1 For an inrercrting, if undcrstarcd, d o m c n r a t i o n of thc polirical conflins and war expendimrcs of rhis pcriod of "world pcacc" fot Afnm, see 'What Pnce the Ahican ~o¡dier?" Afncc N&, no. 15 Uuly 1982). pussim, and spccifically p. 22; aurhor not @ven. 2 For a concise dixussion of Porniguesc colonialism as a Europan-Norrh American vhenomenon. see lay O'Brien, "Pormnal in Ahica." Monthlv R d w Press. vol. 26 (May 1974); oee alro ~ i c h a r dGib;on, A f r i c a i ~ i b n a t i o ~Movements ~ N C W York: Oxford University Prcss, 1972), part five; and Basil Davidson, The Liberation of Guinea (Baltimore: Pengu, BOO& 19691, pasrim. 3 ln other words, beyond Europcan colonialism. onc has to rcmanize rhc aucstion of rhe formcr ~ ~ a n i s h - ~ a h a r a -Erimea a n d an casta of Afncan cdonia~ismby Morocco and Erhiopia, ccrpcnively. On rhe othcr hand, the Ogaden, Oromia, and South Suden are also in a semisolonial rclationship m the dominan1 erhniegroup(s) which conrml the particular geographic arca(s) rheae pmple inhabir. In spitc of rhcir diffuenccs al1 these situations are carta of cmernal occupatbn of an ethnic or national nrricorv. For a simibar v i m o n thia ooint. nce Basil Davidsan's ureface to Richard ~hermui'sEritrea: The ~ n f n i s h d ~ e u o l u t i o(New n York: 1;racgcr, 1980). 4 The paradigmatic examplc of this is thc Hom of Africa, wherc the Ethiopian povcrnmenr of Mcn~istuHailemariam 11974-1991) for sevenreen vears used famine as a weapon of war not only agaimt the mlonized peoplc of Eritrca bur also againsr its own cidzens in Tigray and Wollo. 5 By rhe term "African peoples" 1 mean m rcfcr m rhe inhabirann of rhe contincnt as a whole minus the Whires of Sourh Africa. 1use rhe term allecrivcly, morcovet, not in order to leve1 off rhe varim, and m u l t i ~ l i,cthar i ~ consrimter the inhabirants of rhe conanent, nor ro establish some "tme" African 'Easencc" ¿ la Senghor, but rather to hiehlieht rhe common exoenencc of Eurooean colonialism and neocolonialism rhar, since rhe last quarrer of rhe nineremrh century, has imposed on thc inhabiranrs of rhe continent a shared dcstiny or a r a s e of hisrorical place in rhc anragonistic mntcxr of a European dominared world. 1 excludc thc Whites of Sourh Africa prccisely because they x c rhunselvcs as distincr and aparr-Apartheidfrom rhe rest of rhe contincnt in this spccific particular. 6 By the t e m "probkmatic" 1 mcan a group of texts cmtered around an intcrnally inrermnnccted cluster of concerns enaaecd in exolorina a theme which converselv defines and govcrns rhc qucrtions an2 Qnswerr ;ha< a; porsiblc from wirhin rhe confines of said "problematic." Thc communur philosopher Louir Althusscr inaueurates the term in For Marr. trans. Ben ~rewGer(NCW York: Pantheon Books. i969),pp.55-71,speci6cally~.66andp. 253.Tobe~ure,thcuseandappropriatio~ of this term doer not in anv wav imolicatc mc in Althusxr's rcadine of Mam fmm which ir ir dcnvcd. For an inrcrcsting commcnt on and apptopriation of Althusser'r concept of "problematic" x c , Edward W. Said, Orienralwn (New York: Vintagc Books. 1979). p. 16. Thc use I makc of rhis rctm is also akin m Thomar S. Kuhn's conccpt of "paradigm," as ertablirhed in The Sm
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notion of 'dis-closure" ir c m r e d around rhc idea rhat n x n and discourxs are hatched out of an originative ground of pmblems and concerns which ir then mnsriturcd and ntablished in thex texn and dismurres. For a discussion of thc similitude in Kuhn and Heidggcr, on this point, see my already cind paper, "Heidegger and Gadamer: Thinking as 'Meditative' and as 'Effedvc-Hismrical Consciousness; " p. 43. 7 Theophilur Okere, African Philosophy: A HNtorico-Hemmeutical Investigatwn of the Conditions of ID Pouibility (Lanham, Md.: University Press of Amcrica, 1983), p. 121. 8 1 do nor inrend ro prescnt an exnnsive dixussion of every ideological posirion rhat muld be locatcd in the dixourse on thc African liberarion srruggle. I thcrcforc resvict mysclf to thenc nvo perronalirics, prc"sc1y bccaurc thcir ideologiul posirions enclox-from contrary pointr-rhe limanire of rhe Aftican libcration struggle as a whole. One morc poinr: ihroughout rhissmdy, in connecrion with Scnghor, 1 will use and show a prcfercnce for rhc rerm Africanitd as opposed to Négrirude precincly bccause, for Senghor, this is thc more inclusive and appropriare rcrm, as a designarion of hb work and ideolonical ~osition.On rhls ooinr. ree Leo~old Sedar Senghor, Tha Foundationr of "ifricA1tdw or "N.Sgritude" ahd "~rabité" (Paria: Prescna Africaine, 19711, pp. 7, 39, and 61. In connadirrincrion ro h e above, the a r m Nigritude will be reserved and uscd in connecrian with AimC Gsairc's work.

4

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1

9 Kwame Nkrumah. Towardr Colonial Freedom (London: Panaf Bookr. 19791. Ir is intcresongro no; rhat this pamphletcndr wirh rhe slogan: '.Colon,ni and Subpcr Peoolrs of thc World-Unme!' libid.. D. 45). This is rhc mncludnne" rlomn - of rhe Communist Maniferto propcrly adlusted, ar lcast on rhe leve1 af rerbiage, m thc African colonial simation. Publtshen, 10 Kwame Nkrumah, Class Struple in Ahica (NcxYork lni~cnirion~l 1975). pp. 51 and J3. For an inrcrcsring dixussion of Nkrumah's Marxism-Lcninism.sce Ali A. Mazrui.'BorrowedThcorv andorieinal Practiccin Afnran Politics." in ~atfernsof~~rican'~ew1oprnent: ~ i v ~ ~ o m p a & ocd. n s Hcrbcrr , j. Spira (Englcwood Cliffs, N.J.: Prcnricc-Hall, 1967). pp. 105-17. 11 Nkrumah, Clars Struggle in Africa, pp. 52-53. 12 To be sure, rhis is an existential and hcrmcneutical truth of our livcd fadciry rhat philorophic thought neglenr at i a own pcril. In rhis regnrd ree also Gerard Chaliand's inreresting but more convcntional and limited rcmarks on this poinr: Revoiutians in the Third World (Ncw York: Vikina Presr.. 19771. .. Darr M.O. secuon six. Antonio Gramsci maker this same point in his remarkr on Kant and rhc proien of rhe Enliahtcnmcnr, in Antonio Cramscr Quademi Del Carcere, vol. 2, cd. Valentino ~ e r r a t a n a(Torino: Gulio Einaudi, ¡975), pp. 1484-85

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13 In this regard, s n AimC Cdsain's hisroric 1956 Letter to Tl?orez, trans. Prscncc Africainc (Parir: Prcxncc Africainc, 1957), passht, and the polirico-philosophic orientarion rcpresentcd by Fanon and Cabral. 14 AimCCCsain,Discourseon Colonialism (New York: Monthlg Rcview Press, 1972). pp. 78-79. 15 Marrin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics (New Haven and London: Yalc University Prar, 1977), p. 152.

138 / N o t a 16 The Marx-Engelr Reader, ed. Robert C. Tuckcr, see 'Contribution m the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introdunion' (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1978), p. 65. 1 7 In other words, the politia of African iibcration cannot presuppose an alrcady established historial and philosophical ground. In hct, on thc lcvcl of thmry, chis ir precisely what the struggle aims m achiwe and thus cannot simply presuppose it without neglecting irs very r a i s a d'éhe. 18 Within the context of the African libcration sttuggle 1 am sugguting that we need ro rake senouslv, the oroblematic of historicirv and the hermeneuticirv of human cxlstencc if we are to grarp rhc orignanvc and world-found~ng character of h e Africsn rrruadc -- for freedorn In thir regard, see Marnn Hcideggcr, Bewg and Ttme (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), d:ivision Wo, aection five. 19 Paulin J. Hountondji, African Philorophy, Myth andRrality (Bloomingmn: Indiana University Preís, 1983), pp. 135-37.

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20 Ibid., p. 136. In chapter 3 of Conrcienckm Nkmmah a m m p u m indicate the specific African orienration of his work.

21 Ibid., pp. 141-42. 22 O n chis point, sec Martin Heidcgger, The Qurrtion concming Trchnology and Othm Ersays, trans. William Lovirt ( N m York: Harper & Row, 1977). 23 What we have done chus far is to merely problematiee the Marxist-Leninisr pcrspec6ve in trrmr of che concrete connxt of ;he Ahican siniaaon. For &e largcr framcwork out of which chis cacique is dcvcloped, %e Kosras Axelos, Alimation, Praxis, Technetn the Thhought o/ KmlMmx (UnivcnityofTcxis Pre* 1976);Cornclius Castoriadis, Tho lmilginary Insriwtlon of Soeiety (Cambridge, Mass.: MiT Press, 1987), parr 1; and by rhc rame author, C~orrroadrm thr Labyrinrh, the sccrion tirled. '+alue. Eauaiior. lurticc. Politics: Fmm Marx m Arismtle and from Aristotle to ~"rselves*(&mb;idge, ~ á s s . :MIT Pms, 1984). pp. 260-330. 24 Hounrondji, African Philorophy, p. 160. 25

Ibid., part one, sections 1, 2, and 3. According m Hountondji Temples's work does not qualify as African philorophy prccisely becauseTemplu is not an African. This ir the depth of Hountondji's i ~ i g h t i formulatinghis n "geographic" conception of Abican philosophy.

26 Kwame Nkrumah. " 'African Socialism' Rwisired" (1966), collecnd in Rerolurronm y Parh. a Panal rclcct anrholoay of Nkrumah's work (London: Panaf Bookr, 1980), p. 444. 27 Nkrumah, Clars Struggle in Africa, p. 25. 28

" 'AMcan

Socialism' Revisited" (1966) and " i h e Myth of the 'Third World' " (1968), in RevoLtionary Path, parsim.

29 Ibid., "The Myrh of the 'Third World,' " p. 438. 30 Ibid., 'African Socialism' Revisited," pp. 4 4 4 4 2 . For Hountondji's explicit endorsement of this text, see African Philosophy, Myth and Rurlity, p. 137. 31 In this respece, sec F. Engds, Socblinn: Utopian andScientiflc, and The DLalecHcs of Nature, in which Marx's thought, from a uitical perspecrive on and a critique

Notes/ 139 of capitalist society, is rransformed into an encyclopedic campendium of wisdom and "objectivc" tnith. 32 Lmpald Sedar Senghor, Pmseand Poetfy, tranr. John Reed and Clive W a k e (London: Heinemann Educational Baoks, 1976). p. 33. 33 The clarric rcxn in thb rerard are Marx'n writinas from the Grundrisre which have becnpublished separately undcr ihetitlc, Pve.Capirahrt Economn Fom~lrtoni, inrroduccd bv, E. l. Hobrbawm iNcw York. Intcrnational Publirhrrs. 19751. and thc wo ccnrral works wrincn in coniuncrian with Engelr: Th* Germon fdeology 118451. . .and Thr Commre Foundazionr of "Africanitd* or "NCgritude" and "Arabité," trans. Mcrcer Cook (hris: Presence Africainc, 1971), pauim. 35 k o p o l d Sedar Senghor, "Constructive Elements of a Civilization of African Negro Insoiration." . in Prascnce Afiicaine. nos. 24-25 (February-May 1959), p. 290. Ir ohould be noted that, two icars earlier (1957), rhe only ~ l a c kAfrican &unvy to have mincd indepcndence was the Goid Coast, which was renamed Ghana under o f ~ w a m cNkrumah. the l;dership

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36 Ibid., p. 291. 37 Leopold Sedar Senghor, 'ihc Spirit of Civiliiation or the Laws of Aftiean Negro Culnirc," in Prrrence Afiicnine, nos. 8-10 (June-November 1956), p. 52. 38 Ibid., p. 52. 39 Ibid., p. 29. 40 Ibid., p. 58. 41 Ibid., p. 64. 42 Ibid. 43 For a concisc presentarion of Lucien Levy-Bruhl's views, pleasc rm L. A. Clairc's introduction m Primitive Mentalify (Bosmn: Beamn Press, 1966). 44 Senghor. (1959), p."Consttuctive 268. Elcmcnts of a Civilizarion of African Negra Inspiranon" 45 Indeed, as ir well known, for Hegel in thc Phenomenology, the arduous labor of conxiousness ir aimed at elwating inelf to the leve1 of sclf-conrciaur frcedom, ¡.c., human/spirinial existencc in conrradistindon to its initial and unfree-nonhuman-natural dctermination. lndeed as Hegel categorically affims in paragraph no. 187. human cxistcnce-which is self-conscious freedom-ir nar 'natural" but is gained at thc risk of natural cuistencc. Thir in the r,gnificancr o1 Hcgcl's martcrrlavc dialectic, On the social.hismrical lwel t h ~ is s also rhe procrsr o)' which human cxisence is ertablirhed. In thc Philorophy of Rtght (pnrngrnph 141 and rcmarks), this is ihe lcvrl at which the mor31 consciousncr< or "moriliv" ir sublatcd and cmergcr a n m ns "cthical Iifc" which, bi Hegel, is rhr truc hurnan communiv.

140 / Notes 46 Lwpold Sedar Senghor, "Latinity and Ntgritude,' in Prcsence Afdcaine, vol. 24, no. 52, fourth quartcrly (1964), p. 14. On this point, see also Edward W. Said. Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), p. 206. lt is innruting m note how Senghor's clear distinction betwecn "an"and "xiencen-Africa and Europefits flawlessly the uaditional European metaphysical distinction on chis point, first arriculated by Plato in book X of the Republic. For Plam, howcvcr, thc supuiority of "science" and thc infcriority of "a-" was itsclf thc normative ground of this distinnian. In effect, this is rrue for Senghor as wcll, cvm if ir is unwimngly that he gets implicated in this rarher derogatory self-mnccption. Senghor's "Icarned" submirriveness to this position mighr cvcn be thc mark of his personal infcriority, which he "generously" claims for al1 of ur.

47 Leopold Sedar Senghor, "Négritudc: A Humanism of thc Twmtinh Century," in The Akican Reader: Independent Africa, ed. Wilfred Cartey and Martin Kilson (New Yark: Random Hourc, 1970). p. 180. 48 Said, Orienwlism, pp. 67-72, and 73. 49 For Smghor, the Negro-African and Arab-Bcrber is, ethnographically and essentially spcaking, a "Fluctuant." a being d e r d n c d in i u esscnce by emotion. On this point, sec Senghor, The Foundntions of AfnMlitl, pp. 3 7 4 5 and passim. As Said points out this is the basic perspective of thc Orimtaht. Scc Odentalism, pp. 40,70, and 273. 50 Franrr Fanon, Black Sbin, White Masks (New York: Crovc Presa, 196i), passim. In this rcgard ir is important to note thar in "Otientalism Rcvisind' (Culfural Critique, vol. 1 [Fall 1985]), Said acknowledges Fanon's and Ctsaire's strong influence on his own work. 5 1 Said, Orientalism, pp. 45-46. 52 Gcorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hepl, The Philosopb of History, introduccd by C. J. Friedrich (New York: Dovcr Publicntions, 1956). pp. 91-99. 53 Frantz Fanon, Towardr the African Revoluiion (New York: Crove Press, 1988), p. 44. Thir quoration is takcn from the nsay, "Racism and Culture," which originally was Fanon's contribution m the First Congreas of Negro-African Writers and Artists, held in Paris in 1956. At this same congress Smghor read his papcr, "The Spirit of Civilizarion ar thc Laws of African Ncgro Cuiture," from which 1 have already uted uansively. 5 4 Said, OrienfaIism, p. 277. Indccd, Africanitt is, for Smghor, not the empirical cnumcration of characreristifs but thc esential constitutinn of what it means to be a Ncgro. 55 As quoted by Said, ibid., p. 97. See also Said, pp. 221-25. 56 Ibid., p. 108. 57 58 59 60

Ibid. Senghor, The Foundarions o/ "Afrimit6," p. 15. lbid., p. 83. Leopold Sedar Senghor, O n African Socialimr, mns. Mercer Cook (New York: Pracgcr, 1964), p. 75, emphasis added. 61 lbid., p. 165.

62 63 64 65 66

Ibid., p. 70. Ibid., p. 72. [bid., p. 74. Ibid., p. 12; and sec also pp. 136-37. Senghor quotcs rhex lincr: "those who never invcnrcd anything . . who ncvcr explored anphing wha never ramed anything" [but who abandan thcmrelves] "to the erscnce of al1 thingsn-and givcr them hir own essentialist reading ("Construcrivc Elcments of a Civilizatinn of African Negra Inrpiration," Prerence Africaine. nos. 24-25 IFebruarv-Mav 19591. . ...D. 2671. Ir shauld be nurcd rhar Aimé Césaare, rhe author of thcsc Iiner. doer not subscribe m Senghor's rcading. In thtr rcgard ser Ctsain's 1967 intcwiew wath Rcne Dcpcsrrc. tn Dtrcoursr on Coloniuitrm (Neu, Yotk: Monthly Rcvicw Prcss, 1972),pp.65-79; and Cliyton Eshlemm's and Annette Smith's introduciion m Aimé C¿rn,re: Tbe Collecred Porrry (Berkrlty: Univenity of Caltfornta Prers, 19831, PP. 1-28. On this point see, in chis chapter, my earlier discussion of Hegel. ln Ambigs
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67

68

69 70

71

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3. Colonialism and the Colonired Al1 emphasis in the original unless othemix indicated. 1 Kwasi Wiredu, 'Thr Quchon of Violenn in Contemparary African Polirinl

Thought," Praxis Intemational, vol. 6, no. 3 (Octobcr 1986); and Henry Odera Oruka, Punuhmnit and Terrorism in A/ric
142 1Notes

Notes / 143

2 As Jean-Paul Sartre has observed. since Sorcl, fanon is rhe one thinker who has scriously engagcd and examined the inrernal dialcctic of violen= and counterviolence, in the specific context of an opprwive rctup. (See thc prefacc to The Wretched of the Earth [New York: Gmve Press, 19681, p. 14.) In thii r a p e n , Kenneth David Kaunda's book, The Riddle of Violmce (Ncw York: Harpcr & Row, 1980), is not useful for our present discussion. precisdy because it is not a systemic study of a violent setup, but the conscientious musings of a Christian nonviolenr politician in the face of the all-pervasive presence of violence in politics. 3 Aime Chraire, Discourse on Colonialism (New York: Monthly Rcviw Pnss, 19774, p. 9. In this respecrsee also Cornelius Catoriadis,"The Criscsof Westem Sodeties," Telos, no. 53 (fall 1982), pp. 26-28. In "Defending the West," Panisan Review, no. 3 (1984), Castoriadis argues that South Africa cannot be conridcrcd part of the Weaern world because it violates the basic prcmisen of the European heritage. He fails to note, howcvcr, that the Wcst os a Wholc ir responsible for rhe prescnt uostence of South Afnca snd furthermorc, thc Wcsr has nerer acnd in accordancc with its her.tage (i.c.. ir, relf-conccption) tnits rclations withnon-Eumpean peoples.

11 T. S. Eliot, A Choice of Kipling'r Verse (New York: Anchor Books, 1962), p. 143. 12 It should be noted that, to this day, the Ianguagc of economic "developmcnt' rnd political 'maturity" or lack thcrcof, with which United Nations and World food expens assess the emnomic and political situarion of non.European territaries is interna1 to this colonialist conccption of human existencc. 13 Karl Marx, "Bitish Rulc in India," in Kad Marx and frederick Engelr, On Colonialimr (Ncw York: lntcrnational Publishers, 1972). p. 41. 14 For a detailed exposirion of thc mlonialist orientation of Marx's "matcrialist mnccption of hismry" sec my papcr. *Karl Marx and African Emancipatory Thought: A Crióquc of Marx's Euto-Centric Mctaphysics," Prdxis International, vol. 10, nos. 112 (AprillJuly 1990). 15 Hegel's Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox lNew York: Oxford Univcrrity Ptcss, 1973). p. 151, paragraph no. 246, rrnphasis added. 16 Ibid., pp. 131-52, paragraphs no. 2 4 6 4 9 . 17 For a detailed discussion of the mlonialist orientationof Hegel's thought please see my paper, "Thc Idea of Colonhlism In Hegel's Philosophy ofRigbt." Intemationdl Philosophiurl Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 3, issuc no. 115 (September 1989). 18 On this point we Loren Eisely, Darwin'r Century (New York: Anchor Books, 19611, pussini; Cornel West, Prophery Deliverance! (Philadelph~a:Wesrminsrcr Press, 19821, chap. two, "A Gencalogy of Modern Racism"; and Edward W. Said, "Rcpracnting rhc Colonized: Anthropology's Inredocutorr," Criiicill Inquiry, vol. 15, no. 2 (Winrer 1989). 19 As quorcd by Richard H. Popkin, 'Humc's Racism," The Philusophical Forum, vol. 9, nos. 2-3 (Winor-Spring 1977-19781; for Hume's remarks, see p. 213; for Kant's remarks, scc p. 218. 20 Placide Templa, Bantu Philosophy (Paris: Prescncc Africainc, 19691, pp. 171-72. 1 1 Aristotlc, Politicr, cd. Stcphcn Everson (Ncw York: Cambridge University Prcrr, 19891, 1260b6-7, p. 20. 22 On this point sce H. D. F. Kino, The Creekr (New York: Penguin Books, 1979). See also, Aristotle, Politicr, 1252b5-9, p. 2. 23 Alan Ryan, UProfesmrHegel Coes ro Washington." a rcview of Francis Fukuyama'r The End of H i r m y und the Lan Man (New York: Frec Press,1989), in The New York Revicw of Books, vol. 39, no 6, March 26, 1992, p. 10. 24 Edward Said, 'The Burdens of lnrerpretation and thc Qucstion of Palestinc," lourna1 of Palcstine Studies, vol. 16, no. 1, issuc 61 (Auwmn 1986), pp. 29-30. 25 1n thc twcnty-sinh chaptn of Capital, vol. 1, M a n explicares in grear detall this whole devdopmcnt, which he rcfcrs to as "primitive accumulation." As a true nincteenth-century European, however, Marx's mncern is much more focuscd on thc economic mechanisms of accumulation and not on the extirpation of aboriginal popularionq which is just mentioned in passing. 26 Aimt Césak, Letter :o M a u ~ c eThorez (1956). Englirh rranrlation by Prerrncc Africaine (Paria: Presrnce Afiiuine, 19571, p. 6. 27 Chinua Achcbe, Things fa11 Apart ( N w York: A Faucctt Premiet Book, 1959), p. 191.

4 Cesaice,. ibid.... o. 11. 5 Edward Said, The Quesrion of Palertine (Ncw York: Vinrage Books, 1980), p. 78. For a similar descriotion of the colonial cxpcrience in its dehumanizarion of the colonized ice fanon', The Wretched of the ~ a r t h p. , 250. 6 Kari Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communirt Mantfesto (New York: International Publirhets, 19831, pp. 9-13. The rclwant parraga are: "The dircovcry of Amcrhci, dir roonding of rhe Capc, opcned up frcrh ground [sic] for the riring bourgeoisie. Thr Earr lndgan and Chinese markcts, the colonization of Americn, nade with thc colonies, rhe incrcare in the meanr of cxchange and in commodities gcnerally, gave to commcrce, to natigation, to indurrry, an ~mpulscncvcr bcforc known" (pp 9-10. ln othcr wordr: *.Modcrn indurtry has cstablirhrd the world market. for which the d.scover, l i s . , rhe mloniirttonl of Americo. paved the way. This marker has given an im&&se dcvelopment ro commcrce. to navigation, to mmmunication" (p. 10). Thus: "ln a word, it [¡.e., thc European bourgeoisicl creates a world aftcr itr own imagc" (p. 13). In everything that h e bourgcoiiie docr to globalize Eurape it is the "tool of Hiotory" and ir has Marx's unconditional support. In other words, in the above passages Marx, like a good colonialist, ir celehrating the globalizauon of Europcan nmporality. This is the temporality grounded on, as Said tells un, "thc conversion into produciivity" of the human and natural rcsources of thc non-Europcan world (sce note S). 7 On the theme of colonial fascism sce, Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonired (Bosmn: Beacon Press, 1967). p. 55, and also pp. 62-65, On this point see also-in this s u d y , chapter 1note 29-Aimé Césaire's alrcady cited insightful remarks on Hitler and Hiderism and Europe's hypocritical stance toward colonia¡ fascisin. 8 Memmi, ibid., p. 3. 9 V. Y. Mudimbc, "African G n o s k Philosophy and rhc Ordcr of Knowledgc," African Studies Review, vol. 28, nos. 2-3 Uune-Septcmber 1985), p. 154. 1 0 V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa (Bloomington: Indiana Univerrity Prcss, 1988), pp. 47-48.

28 Ibid. 29 Fanon, Block SRm, Wbite Musks, p. 1 2 (New York: Gmve P n o , 1967). 30 Hegel's Pbmomenology ofspirit, trans. A. V. Miller (New York: Clarendon Press, 1977), paragraphs 187 and 188. 31 In chis regard, as Kwame Anthony Appiah poinrs out (In My Father's House [Oxford University Prers, 19921, p. 4) the Eumpean colonial animde mward the colonized was nor uniform or homageneoun. For example, the Frcnch practiad a policy of aisimilation the British did not. This, however, does not invalidan my point that the character of Obierika ir rhe spirimai anccstor of the subjugated éuolué or Westernized African. My point is not thar the British and rhe French had similar palicies or results, but that different as their polices Mght be they both 'aresunoose the cultural. hirtorical.. and ~oliticalsubiueation and subsetvience of &e colonized. In this regard &en Obifflka symbolizer, in Achebe's narrative, that initial momcnt of humiliation and subordination rhat is rhe necessary point of oriein for the mnrciousnesr of the Westernizcd African. In othcr words-whether ~-~ it was so intended by the colonizcr and whaher o r nor it was accepnd on thcse terms by the colonized-the process of Westernuation neassvily pnsupposes the subjugation and deprecation of the indigmous colture and hiitoriciry. This is so precisely because, on epirtmic grounds, it ir the acr of surreptlriowly privileging, on a metaphysical level, a particular mimre and historicity as being corerminous with Being or existente as such. 32 For an intcmsting but fundnmentally differmt reading of this text, sce Rhonda Cobham, "Problems of Gender and History in the Teaching of Things Fa11 Apart," in Matatu, no. 7 (1990). 33 Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Ambiguour Aduenture (Pornmouth, N.H.: Heinemann Educational Baoks, 1989), pp. 48-49. 34 For this referente see note 5. 35 Kant on History, ed. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Educacional Publishing, 1963), p. 3. 36 Frantz Panon, Towards the Africon Reuolution (New York: Grove Press, 1988). pp. 158-59. (Ithaca: Corncll University Prcss, 1989). 37 PatrickTaylor,TheNo~~ntiveofLibnation p. 74. 38 Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "Crirical Fanonism," CriticalInquiry,vol. 17, no 3 (Spring 1991), p.,459. Gares's charge against Said r s t s on projeaing &e singular situation a f minorit~esin the U.S.A. as the norm in the non-European world as a whole. Ir should be noted that the historico-political conflim that engaged and produced the tcxn of Fanon are, on the wholc, the lived amality in which w e - o f the nonEuroAmerican world-still find ourselves. 39 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 38. 40 Ibid., p. 112. 41 Regarding chis key norion of colonlratlon as "thingification," see AimC CCsaire, Discouire on Colonialhm (New York: Monthly Revicw Press, 1972). p. 21; and Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, pp. 3637. 42 Ibid., p. 40.

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jl

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43 This is the contradidon b m e n the statc as thc embodiment of "ethical life" and the unrcsolvablc contradictions of "civil society," the realm of socio.economic exisnnce. On this point, see my already a n d paper, "The Idea of Colonialism in Hegel's Philorophy of Rtzht." 44 Fanon, The Wretched of the Enrth, p. 36. 45 Ibid., p. 41. 46 Lorm Eisely, Darruin's Century (New York: Anchor Baoks, 1961). chap. ten. Scc also Edward Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Vintage Books, 19801, pp. 56-83. 47 Fanon, Thc Wretched of the Earth, p. 118. 48 Ibid., pp. 152-56. 49 lbid., p. 51. SO Ibid., p. 43. 51 Ibid., p. 51, emphasir added. 52 Jean-Jacqui Rousscau, 0 n the Social Contract. trans. Donald A. CRSSand introduced by Peter Cay (Indianapolis: Hackerr. 1983). p. 17. The relevant lines read as follows: "Wcre 1 to considcr only forcc nnd thc cffcct that floas from it, 1 would say thar sn long as a people is constrained to obcy and docr abey, ir dacs wcll. As soon as ir can shake off the yokc and docr rhake it off, it docs cvcn betnr. For by remvsring i n l i b e y by means of rhe same right that srole it, either thc populace ir justified in getting ir back or else thosc who rook ir away were nor jusrified in thcir actions." 53 Fanon, The Wntched of the Earth. p. 69, mphasis added. 54 Memmi, The Coloninr and the Cohiized, p. 9.2. imphasis addcd. 55 Oliva Blanchetre, For a Fundamenral Social Ethic (New Yorki Philorophical Li. brary, 19731, p. 28. 56 Regarding this conception of the human being as a being that consrirutcs inelf in an ongoing manner in the actuality of its lifc, sce notes 27, 28, and 3 1 in chaptcr 1 of this study. S7 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 51. 58 Albcrt Mcmmi, Dominared Man (Boston: Beamn Press, 1969), in section 4 "The Domntic Servant," p. 178. It is impornnt m note that thc condirion of uner humiliation and sexual domination thar Memmi highlighis based on his reíledoni on the film The Seruant (by Harold Pinter and Joseph Loney) is a rather accorate representariori of rhe realiry of liíe, especially for female servants, in mosr African countrics. This is panicularly rrue if the master oremployuis himself a Wcstcrnized African a n d a member of rhe neocolonial ruling class, who culturally aspires and "sees" himself as incarnating European culture. 59 lbid., p. 179. 60 Ibid. 61 Fanon, Ths Wretched of the Earth, pp. 36-37. 62 Hcgel. Phmomenology of SpMt, p. 10. paragraph no. 18. As is well known, for Hegel Wirkbchkeit (acrualiry) ir grounded on rhe adequation of concepr and oblect.

146/ Notes

Noies / 147

63 Frantz Fanon, Les damnes de la t m e (Paris: Franpis Maspcro, 1974), p. 6. 64 Patrick Taylor, The Narrative of Liberation, p. 49. On thu point, it is nccessary to emrrhaoize that. Tayior's position, if left unqualified, suffers from a naive essentialis& which is grkunded on.reifying and e ~ c v a ~ i n ~ a b thc o v chistoricity of exisrence the pre-colonial humanity of rhe colonized. 65 On rhis point see the upcoming discussion latcr in this chapter. In The Wretched of the Earth, dease eee PP. 55-59. 66 For mi inreruting cxposit.on of chis poinr. pleav v e Michad Ryan, Marxism and Deconrrructaon (Balrsmore: Johns Hopkins University Prus, 19841, p. 6. 67 Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to M#taphyricr (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 62. 68 Ibid., p. 152. 69 Ibid., p. 155, and the additinnal exploration of this point on PP. 143-65. 70 Taylor, Tha Nmrative of Ltberation, p. 60. 71 Jcan-Paul Sarrre, in the preface to The Wretched of thc Earth, p. 14. 72 Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York: Harmun Bracc Jovanovich, 1970), p. 65. 73 Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future ( N m York: Penguin Books, 1980), p. 4. 74 In rhis regard see Edward W. Said, "An Idcology o1 Differencc," Critica1 Inquiry, vol. 12, no. 1 (Autumn 1985), p. 47. To my knowledge the one European philoso~ h e rhar r is not snarcd bv this Eurocmtric doublc standard h Jan-Paul Sanre. 0 n the orher hnnd, one of the most blatant offenden on rhis score~isAlben Camus. On rhis las1 point, see Aloerr Camus, Reststance, Rebellton and Dearh (New York: Vintage ~ o o k s 1974), , specifically connast "Letters to a Cerman Fricnd" and rhe sccrion ritlcd "Algcria." 75 As V. Y. Mudimbe poina out: "Until rhe 195Os+nd 1 am not cemin a t sll that things have chaoged roday for the general public in thc Wcst-Africa is widcly pcrccivcd and prcrcnnd as thc mntincnt wirhout mmory. withovt past, wirhout historv. More ~rccisclv.her historv is suiiooacd to commenn with her contacu with Eurapc, okdficaily with thc progrcs~heEuropean invasion of the continent rhat beeins at thr end of the fiheenth ccnruw." The Surrmtitious S~eechIChica~o: University of Chkago Presr, 1992). p. u. 76 Ir should be nond, as Fanon poinn out in his articlc, "Accra: A f ~ c aAffirms 11s Uniw 2nd Defines t e e Ifirst v~ ~ ~ublished in EIMoudiabid. - ~ -~ - -~ , ~ -lm- ~~t r a~-, ~ . .no. 34..Dccember 24,1958; presently collecred in Towmds the Africun Rniolution, section 16 [Crove Pmss.. 19881). that thc counnrclaim o í the colonized has to do with thc rclation ... of forces within which the colonizu-colonized mnfrontation unfolds. It is only when this relation-globally or regionally-tilts againsc rhe mlonizing power rhar we here talk of "non-violent decolonization" (p. 155). 77 Frana Fanon. A Dvmr. Colonialim (New York: Crove Prcss, 19651, P. 78. In her alrcady Oted ~ o r k Ó ~ ~ r o l e n c c , ~ rwritea e n d r rhat, "if only thc prraiceof violence would makc it possiblc to intcrrupt automatic proccsses ln the realm of human nffairr, thc preachrrs of v.alencr wauld havr won an lmportanr point" (p. 30). In point of fa;, as Fanon poinrs out, in thc quotation just citcd, this is precisciy thc

case in the colonial mntrxt. The inermess of submission to colonial tyranny is replaccd by rhc vitaliry of anri-colonial resistancc and rcvoiurion. 78 lronically Alben Camus was onc of rhc "prcstigious French inrellectualr" (V. Y. Mudimbe, The Surreptitiour Speech. p. xvii), who in 1947 was rympatheric to and supponive of Aliounc Diop's efforrs to establish Presmce Africui,re, a solitary African cuimrai instimtion in rhe heart o( post-&r France.

.

.

79 Memmi, The Colonirer ond the Colonized, p. 3. 80 Amilcar Cabnl, Retum to the Source: Llected Speeches (New Yark: Monrhiy Revim Prcss, 1973). p. 79. In On Violence, Arendt ir of the opinion that the "civil-righm movement was entirely nonvioknt" (p. 76). For a deailed discussion which conrradim Arendt's unsubstantiatcd assertion, see William R. Jones, "Liberation Smtcgics in Black Theology: Mao, Manin or Malcolm?" Philosophy Bom of Struggfe (KcndalMunt Publishing Co., 1983). 81 Fanon, Tbc Wretched of the Earth, p. 56. 82 On thir point ter, Paul Nizan's interesting short novcl, Aden Arabit (Boston: Beaeon P w , 1960).

.. .

83 Fanon, Tbc Wretched of the k r t h , p. 58 84 Ibid. 85 Aimt Ctsaire, The Tragedy of King Christophe (New York: Grove Press, 1969), p. 13. 86 On this point sec Michel Foucaulr, "Thc Erhic of Care for thc Self as a Practicc of Frccdom," an intervicw translated by J. D. Gauthicr, S. J., in The €mal Foucault, ed. T. Bcrnauer and D. Rasmusscn (Cambridpc, Mass.: MIT Press. 19881, p. 3. As thcreader will see, this basic and crucial thc& o í "the practice of treedok" and how it a n possibly be esrablishcd beyond the muntcr-violence directed against colonialism and n&mlonialism will b; rhc central focus of chaprrr 4. 87 Claairc, The Tragedy of King Christophe, p. 19. 88 Fanon, The Wrctched of the Earth, p. 47. 89 Memmi, Ths Colonuer and thc Colonized, pp. 51-66. 90 On this point sec Memmi, The Colonirer and the Colonired, pp. 58-61. Scc alsa in this chapter note 7 and the relatcd discurrion of fascism and criloninlism. 91 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 60. 92 Memmi, The Colonirn and the Colonized, part two, rhc scctionr rirled, "Mythical Portrait of the Colonized.>' and "Situations of the Colonized," pasrtm. chaprer Y 3 On this point sce Fanon's pioncriing dircuss~onin Blnrk Skm,U'hlte .\I~rrs. fuut. "The So.callcd Dc~endencvComole%of Colonired Proplrr." Scc ~ l r owhar ~Colonued, e m mcalls i pp."The 52,53. UsurperosRole (or rhe Nero complex)," ~ j >Ci>loni;rr e dnd the

.

.

.

94 Sce rhe recond aection of chaprer 2. Y5 See the fimt seaion o í chapter 2. 96 The film, a 1968 praduction is basrd on Sembrnc'r rhort novel, Ti~ebloney Order (Pornmouth, N.H.: Heinemann Educacional Books, 1988).

148/ Notas 97 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 150. On this point Sembene's novds and soecificallv The Monev Order and Xala (Chicano: . " Lawnnce Hill Bouks. 1976) aindispensable reading. 98 Tavlor. The Narrative of Liberation. D. 10. As Taylor . .~ o i n t sout. for Fanon, nrocolonialirm and thr dominarion of thc libcration strugglc, by rhc degcncrate and counrrrfeir Afrfican "narional bouracoisien-¡.e., "Caliban k m m e Prospero"-ir thc negative possibüity that can develop (as índeed has happened in most óf frica) as aresultof the failure af the African liberation strugnle . . m mncretely instimtionalire l o emancipaiory pasi~biliries.The obverw of chis tcagic situarion .r thc as of yet unrcaliicd possibility of conaetcly consolidating the gainc of the African liberation otruedc. s - ~ h .i nositive .ooasibili~.the duiderafum of the Ahican liberation rtruaalc, will be the main foms of ou; discussion in chaprer 4. For Fanon's pione;nng discussion of chis ctucial point, scc the s d o n of The Wrnched o/the Earth titlcd. "ThePitfalls of ~ a t i o n aCoosciousness." i 99 1 barrow this nouon from Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Mcthod (New York: Crossroad Publirhing Ca., 1982). pp. 273-74. By rhe qualification 'sociological~ 1 mean only to suggert rhat, forme, *the hsion of horiwns" is a conuetc historical and antic procss that occurs in engaging real life isrues and pmblmis within the connxt of a specific hismricalnss. On the fundnmental importanceof this moment in thc Afncan liberation strugglc, scc Cabral, R e r m to thc Source: Selecred Specches, p. 63. 100 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 41. 101 Ibid., p. 146. 102 lbid, p. 150. 103 On this point sce chapter 1 in chis srudy. 104 On this point, see Marx's chird thesis in "Theser on Fcuubach," in Karl Marx and Frcderick Eneels. The Gennan ldeolom (New York: lntemational Publisherr, &

,

4. T h e Liberation Struggle All mphasis in the original unless orherwiae indicared. Ethic of Cate for thc Self as a Practicc o£ Fmdom," an 1 Michd Foucault, interview nanslated by J. D. Gauthier, S, J., in The Final Foucault, ed. J. Bernauer and D. Rasmusscn (Cambridge, Mass.: MiT Pms, 1988). p. 2. 2 Ibid., pp. 2-3, emphasir added. 3 Ibid., p. 4.

4 Ibid., p. 6. 5 Basil Davidson, Africa in Modern History (New York: Penguin Books, 19851, p. 374. 6 klichel Foucault, Languoge, Comter.Mmoy, Pracricr (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Unlvcrriry Pnss, 1977), p. 233. Foucault m a k s the above temark in a discussion wirh mlitant studenro in 1971. three vean aher May 1968. It should be nored rhar what Poucault affirms here was alio affirmed loningo by Mafx, againsr thc utopian socialis&.

Notas /

149

7 Davidson. Africa in Modern Historv. pan 6. reccion 32. Tu eet a measure of Cabral's ind'the PAIGC's radical pe&;ctive, ;ee Cabral's addrrir st thc CONCP (Confederarion of the Nationalist Organiznions of Portuguese Colonies) held in Dar-Es-Salaam in 1965: "ihc National Movcmentr of rhe Portuguese Colonies," in Revolution in Guinea: Selected Texfr (New York: Manthly Revicw Prcss, 1969). The orher movement thar Davidson mentions is rhe ~rirrcanPeopk's Liberation Fmnt (EPLF). A h r thirry yeats of struggle in which the EPLF was rhe leading armed movemenr, stamng from the early 19705, rhe Eritrean rerirtance won a complete political and militar, victory in May 1991. 8 Such s n undertakinp would requite a srudv unro irseif. Here I 3 m onlv concerned with Cabtal as anex~mpleof'eKiddle o/ Vaolence (New York: ~ a r p c i b rROW, 19.90) p. 52. 13 Senghor, OnafricnnSochlism, p. 82. With Albert Memmioneneeds to arkSenghor and his ilk: "How can onc d a x camnare thc advantnecr and diradvancaes of colonization? What advanrages muld makc such interna1 and cxtcrnal catastrophes [¡.e., thc con~iropheof being colonhed] acceprablr'" The Colontro ond rhe ~ o l o n i r c d(Boston: ~ i a c o n~cess;1967). p. 118. 14 Franu Fanon, Block Skin, White Masks (New York: Giove Press, 19671, p. 12. 15 Fnnz Kafka, "A Repon to an Acadcmy," in Selected Storier of Franr Kafia (Ncw York: MdemLibrary. 1952).ihccmtralcharacrerof Kafka's story-a h u m a n i d ape-is, m my mind, an apr examplc of the mcnrality and charaeter of rhc unreformcd Westernircd African.

. ..

16 The ponrayal of Wesrernized Afrin prcscnted by Sembenc Ousmane in his filmr Mandabi (1969) and Xola (1974) are rxcellcnr cxampler of rhe charaocr. or lack thereof. of this se~mcntof contemoorani A h i n n soci;tv., Bcine- mvrclf. , . t o a limited exrent, the offspring of ihiu segment of Aftican sociery, I can say from my awn life cxwriencei that Kafka's ape and Sembene's drscription are true to life in thcir chara&rizations., 1 7 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 113.

. .

Notes / 1S1 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., pp. 67-68. 21 lbid.. D. 68. The sentence as a whole reads: *Thismeetinnof revolutionaries comine fram the towns and countty dwellrrs will be dealt with latcr on." This "later on" rrfrrr to the central idea of thc Wretched which ir thc radical sclf-transfonnat~on of decolonized society such thar the Westernized and non-Westernizcd native overcome their mutual self-estranaement and in rhtir culmral-historical fusion institute and acniaiizc the possibiliry of African sclf-emancipation. To be sure, thc abovc ir, in sum and very concisely, my reading of Fanon's politico-hismrical perspective. 2 2 On this point, see note 60 in rhi chapter. 23 Fanon, The Wretched ofthe Eanh, p. 119. 24 Ibid., p. 127. 25 Ibid., p. 125. 26 Fanon, Black Skin, White Marks, p. 224. 27 1 borrow thc notion of originative history from Castoriadis's already cited work, The Imagina? Institution ofsociety (scc note 10). 28 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Aduantage and DUadvmtage of H b t o y for Life (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980), p. 23. 29 In The lmaginay Institution of Society, Castoriadis devclops this notion of hismry as a process of radical novelty in contradistinction to the tradition of Europcan thought which basically sees history as a process of self-replication. Onthis point, please oee specifically pp. 198, 272, and 343. On this point, see also Fanon's insighthl remarks in Black Skin, White Markr, p. 229, and his cal1 to inventivcness and creativity which conciudes The Wretched of the Enrth. 30 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 147. 3 1 Ibid., pp. 153-54. 32 Ibid., pp. 164-66. It should be notcd that Fanon was an opponenr of the singleparry stare fmm itr inception, when rhis self-xrving idea was popular among many African leaders, who argued that to avoid cthnidtribal confliet and to scriauily engage in "development," single-minded government based on a single-party sute waa a neccssity. Thirty ysara aftcr the fact African popular opinion is beginning to apprcciatc, out of bittcr cxperimcc, the critique of the single-party statc articulated by Fanon in Tbe Wretched of the Earth. On thk point, please see Christopher Mulci, "Afica Needs Democracy," New Africa, no. 285 Uune 1991), p. 26. 33 Fanon, Tbe Wretcbed of the Earth, p. 176. 34 Ihid., p. 169. 35 For a dctailed discussion of this central point in Fanon, which is seldom dixussed in the literature an Fanan, pleasc rcc The Wretched of the Eurth, pp. 185-205. It should also be nored, as Fanon points out (p. 48). rhat the idea of mass popular democracy is not a novel idea in the connxt of Africa. Even in kingihips and aristocratically ruled societies, problems of daily life, on the local level, havc a rradition (on the whole) of being dealt with through rhe village arsembly and in demacratic delibcration zmong the elders rnd thc rerponsiblcpersons of the village.

In ertablirhing pcopler' ssrcmblirs, thc libcration movments re-instinite an old idea in a n w context. Thus, thc claim that Africa has no rradition of political democracy lon this point, see Ibrahim K. Sundiata, "Thc Roors of African Dcspotism: Thc Question of Political Cultute," African Studies Review, vol. 31, no. 1 (April19881) isa rather bogur claim. Onrcouldraythar ir ir limired by agandsocial rtandinh bur in this respect cven Athenian democracy-the pride of Europc!-was, one has m . vainfullv. rcmcmbrr. a demacracv of rlave marterr which exduded women and thc msiaved maioriry. Even conremporary Western democracies are not what they seem or avwar .. 10 be. On rhis last point, olease ser Goran Therborn's classic paperi "The Rule of Capital and the ~ i s e i ~f e ~ ~ c New ~ a Lefi ~ ~ Review, , ' ' no. 103 (May-June 1977). 36

Fanon, ?he Wrerrhcdof the Eatih, p 194. Ir shauld be notrd rhir thc much aburcd word ^rcpublic" derives from thr Latin res publira, wh.ch Iitcralls meinr thc thina or affair of the people.

37 1am referring to Hannah Arendt's insighrful rcmarks in chapter three of thir rmdy (nore 73) which-in spite of her duplicity regarding rhe emanciparory efforts of non-European pcoplcs-basinlly affirms what Fanon articulares rcgarding thc possibilities of frcedom created by the African liberarion struggle. 38 Frantz Fanon, Towardr the African Revolution (New York: Crove Press, 1988), p. 78. Ovcr a periodof ten yearr (circa 19741984) the Eritrean rerirrincc rcpulred ten ruch campaignr-comprising 31 any one timc scventy to nincty thousand troopr-whilc rimultancausly instituting itr dcmacratic organs of popular mass democracy. 39 On thii point, see also Karel Kosik, DLlectics of the Concrete (Dardrecht and Bosmn: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1976). pp. 42-49. 40 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth. pp. 126-27. 41 On this noint olease scc chavrcr 3. rection 2 of thir rnidv. It is im~rrarivem notc that ~ a n o nw& not mcrely akpecrator o r a "rhcoiist" of sócial cha&. His writings are desctiprive narratives of the pmcess of decolonization. in this xnse . experiential . one can say thar Fanon is a phcnomcn~lo~irt of decolonization rnd his texa are dacumcnurions of rhin expcrienec in rhe procerr of irr unfolding. 42 Frann Fanon, A Dying Colonialism (Ncw York: Crove Press, 196% scc thc first three chapters. Ir rhould be noted ar rhis point thar rhe facr that post-colonial Algeria n g n s x d on many of its achicvements and never achieved al1 rhat Fanon had hoped fordocs not in any way detract from rhevalidiry of Fanon's observationr. As should be clcar for anvone who has n a d his workr, for Fanon thc frcedom and vitality of a peoplc is.something that has ro be conrtantly strugglcd fcr m d maintained. 11cannot be achicvcd once and for all. Each generation has co acdvely hold on to the fttedom it has inhuited or forccfullv rcclaim thc frcedom rhat the previous gcncration failed to rransmit to ir. 43 See notc 99 in chapter 3 of this study. 44 Fora uitical discussion of Gadamer's notion of 'cffcctive-historical consciousness," please see my papcr, "Hcidegger and Gadamcr: Thinking as 'medirativc' and as 'effeuivrhistorical Consciousnerr,' " Man and World, vol. 26, no. 1 (19871, pp. 59-61. For a more recenr critica1 reading of tadamcr's notion of "cffective-histori-

152/ Notes cal Consnousness," see Gail Soffer, "Gadamer, Hcmensutics, and Objenivity in Interpraation," Praxis International, vol. 12, no. 3 (Onobcr 1992).

Notes 1153

45

Fanon, Towards the Ajricmr Revolution, p. 34.

53 Martin Hcidcgger, What 1s Philosophy? (New Haven, Conn.: College & Univcrsity Press, 1956), p. 97. Unlike Heidegger, howcvcr. Cabral is quite ranguine and comistent ngarding thc veracity of chis view in his political involuements.

46

Ibid., p. 146

S4 CorneliusCasmriadis, 'The GreekPolis and rhe Creationof Democracy," Graduate Faculty Philosophy ]oumal, vol. 9, no. 2 (Fall 19831, p. 93.

47 Ibid., p. 44.

55

48 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 246, emphasis added. In convadiction to Fanon, Memmi assetts chac "We shall ultimately find o u n d v n beforc a counter mythology. . To hear the colonired cverything is good, cverything must be rctained among his cuitoms and traditionr, his actions and plam; cvcn the anaduonous or disordedy, rhe immoral or mistaken. Evcvthing ir juotificd bccause everything can be explained." The Coloaieer and tbe Colonired, p. 139. In terms of his own depiction of the differing pomaits and the possibilities of both the colonizer and the colonired, the above position r a m s to be mmpletely untenablc, preciscly because it fails to take account of the dialenies of change thar Memmi himelf cxplorn so well in rhe res1 of his texr. See alro note 66 for Cabral's remarks on this point, which are in complere agrecment with Fanon.

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49 Fanon, Tbe Wretchedofthe Earth, p. 216. As is wdl known, Fanon always thought through his reflenions based on his own concrete expcriencu and obseniations in Martinique 2nd in Europe and, more important. b; focusing on the experienccs of the Algerian Revoluuon and the &m dynamic situation of Africa. In al1 of this Fanon utiliues ro the maximum these limited histoncal expcricnccs by thmrctically exploring and unfolding the historical and dialmical nccnsitics cmbedded in these concrete situations. As we have seen. this ir why his reflcctions on the vroeess of Afncan self-emanciparion o r the present actualitics of neocolonialism (thirty years ahead of time!) are so nue 10 life. hdeed, Cabral's thcoretic position mncretely vindicates rhe deurh and foresieht of Fanon's much ncelected work. As Pietro Clemente had notcd IFrnntz Firnon, tra e s i r t e ~ t t a l ~ me orivolurione. Cara edirricc Guis, Larcna 8: Figli. Bari Italna, via Dante 51) as early as 1971, the rcason for this neglen in borh Europe and Africa ir the f a n that Fanon makes-by thc veracity oi what he riys-many pcoplc uncomfortable. On this point, sce also Mrs. Jorie Fanon, "Hir Soiidariw Knew No Nationnl Boundarin." in Intarnn~~onal Tribute to Frantr Fanon ( ~ c i o r dof the Special meeting of thc Unitcd Natiuns Special Comminec against Aparrheid, 3 Novembcr 1978), p. 33. 50

Amilcar Cabral, Revolution in Guinea: Selected Texis (New York: Monthly Review Presr, 1969), p. 76.

51 O n this point, please ree Mano de Andrade's biognphinl notes in U@ amd Struggle Speecber and Wrltings of Amilwr Cabral (Ncw York: Monthly Revicw

Press, 1979). 52 Amilcar Cabral, Return to the Source: Selected Speeches (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973). p. 63. The central point of the discussion ro follow will b; to explicate and detail rhe significance of thir key formulation. Ir should be notcd that cabra1 ~ l a c e sthis ~ h r a r cin invcrred mmmas in order ro differentiate himsclf from n mcrely personal ond abrrrnn-Pan-Alricanism. NCgritudc, crc.-lreturn" ro the African pnrt oc appropriacion of ir ar a dcad reltc. On this point. rcc ibid., pp. 59-64.

Amilcar Cabral, Revolution in Guinea: SelectedTexts (Ncw York: Monthly Review Press, 1969), p. 76.

56 Amilcar Cabral, Return to the Source, p. 58 57 Ibid., p. 61. 58 Ibid. 59 This ir also one of the central points that Fanon maker in The Wretcbed of tbe Earth, see thc semon tirled, "On National Culmre." 60 See Mario de Andrada'r "Biogtaphical Notes," in Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings, pp. xxvii-xxviii. Scc alro the tcxt and remarks in note 22 of this chapter. Ir should also be notcd in thir regard thar initi?lly, thc Algcrian struggle was a mmemmt aimed not at independence but at obtaining equal righn-¡.e., assimilation-for Algcrians who, in the official propaganda of French rolonialism, were rupposcd to be French citizens. 61 Cabral, Reiurn to the Source, p. 62. 62 For an in-depth discussion of this histarickxistcntial decision as a concrete possibility for human exisrencc, plcase see Martin Hcidcggcr, Being ond Tirm (NcwYork: Harpcr and Row, 1962) specifically scction 74, p. 434. 63 Cabral, Rsnrrn to tbe Source, p. 63. 64 Ibid., p. 63. 65 Lbid., p. 54. 66 Ibid., pp. 54-55, 67 Ibid., p. SS. 68 Ibid.

69 Ibid., p. 56. 70 On chis point scc Cabral's cssay, 'Thc Weapon of Thcory," in Revolution in Guinea, specifically,p. 93. See also, Our People Are Our Mountaitrs, Specchcs o[ Amilcar Cabral, Collecccd by the British Commime for Freedom in Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau (Noiringham, Eng.: Russeli Press Ltd., 1971). Cabral dcscribn rhe "ideology" of his movement thus: "Our deiire ra derclop our country wirh social iustice and power in thc hands of the people ir our ideological baris. Never again do we want to see a group or a classof people exploitingor dominating the work of our people. That's our basis. If you want m cal1 it Marsism, you may cal1 ir Manism. That'r your rerponsibility. A iournalisr once arked me: "MI. Cabral, are you a Manirt?" 1s marxism a religion? I am a frccdom fighter in my counrry. You musr judgc from whar I do in pncricc. Bur thr labcls are your nffair: wedon't likc thore kinds of labcls" (D. 21). In orher words, ior Cibral,as for Fanon, in the conrext of rhe hberation rrniggle, throrv is thc mncrcrc ncrrncneuric elucidation of thc necdr and rrquiremcnrs of the Inberat~onrrrugglc

...

154 / Notes 71 Cabral, Revolutian in Guinea, p. 102. 72 Cabral, Retum to the Soutce, p. 43. 73 Cabral, Revolution in Guine~,p. 95. 74 Ibid., p. 68. 75 Cabral, Retum to the Source, p. 43. 76 Cabral, Revolution in Guinea, pp. 56-75. 77 Cabcal, Return to thc Source, p. 88, on this point s u also note 70 in this chaptcr. 78 On this point, pleasc see nores 70 and 77 in this chaptu. 79 On this poinr see the concluding discussion of secrion 3 in chapter 1of this smdy, starting fmm note 48. Please also note notes 5 0 and 53 in the indicated section of thc first chapm. 80 Cabral, Return to the Source, p. 78. For intercsting remarks on post-mlonial Guinea-Bissau, see the preface by Basil Davidson m No Fist is Big Enough to Hidd the Sky (London: Zed Books, 1984), pp. viii-xii. See also Basil Davidson, The Fortunate Irles (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Pms, 1989). 81 Fanon, The Wretched ofthe Earth, p. 311, emphasis sdded. 82 For a mntrary perspeaive, see Comelius Castoriadis, "Refleaions on Rausm," in Thesis Eleven, no. 32 (1992). The prohlem with Canoriadis's position is that it is incapable of making any meaninghil distincrions bctwecn an aggressive and expansionist nationalism (¡.e., of the ripht) and the nationalism of brmerlv colon&d people, which stakea B Uclaim to eiistence on the rccognition of inter;ulmril 2nd intcrhierorical difbrence 2nd oolidarity. Erirrea, Cuinea-Bissou. and poar.1991 Ethio~ia - are..within the African context. the bcst examnlcs of thii kindof nationalism. Aimt Césaire Discourse on Colonialism (New York: Monthly Rwicw Press, 1972), p. 78. Jcan-Paul Sartrc, inttoduction to The Colonuer and the Colonized, p. xxviii. See nore 50 in tht firnt chapter of this smdy. See the quotation given in note 53 in the first chaptcr of this study. See thc concluding discussion of chapter 1 starting from note 48 to the end of thc chapccr. See also Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 247. For similar views on this point, scc Kwasi Wiredu, "On Defining African Philosophy," p. 105; and Lansana Kcita, UContemporaryAfrican Philosophy: The Search for a Method," passim; both in African Philosophy: The Essential Readings. Marcien Towa, "Propositions sur I'identitié cultutellc." Prescnce A h i n e , no. 109, 1st quarnrly (1979), p. 87. Thc English vcdon of this text is my own slightly altered rendering of a private rransiation by Dr. Victor Manfredi. Ibid., pp. 84-85. 91 For the notion of philosophy as a hermeneutical inventory of one's lived historicity, which 1 bormw from Gramsci, sce non 36 and thc rclated discursion in chapter 1 of this rtudy. 92 Michel Foucault, "The Ethic of Care b r the Self as a hanice of Frcedom," p. 20.

Conclurion 1 Hegel has perspicuously observed rhat, in philosophy, the end ir and can only be the rystanatic rccapimlation of the whole. In thc Phenomenology of Spirit, for example, the seaion titled 'Absolun Knowing," which ir thc apex and condusion of the phmomenal manifestation and amializarion of Geist ir nothing more h a n a concix rwiew of 'thc Scicnccof knowingin the sphcrcof appcarancc." (Oxford: Oxford University h r s , 1978), trans. A. V. Miller, paragraph 808, p. 493. In this regard, sce also Hegei's Philosophy o/ Right. trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Oxford Univcmity Press, 19731, the addition to paragraph 256, thc fccond pangraph to thc addition on page 155. 2 Theophilua Ohrc, Afnc.n Philosophy. A Hiktorico-Hmeneutical Investigrrrion, p. 124 (Lanham, MD:University Preas of America, 1983). 3 Frantz Fanon, Towards thc Afriun Revolution, p. 44. (New York: Grove Press, 1988). 4 Outlaw, "African 'Philosophy': Demnstructive and Rcmnrtrucrive Challengcs," in Contempwaiy Philosophy: A New Surwy, vol. 5, Afnan Philosophy, p. 11. cd., Curmm Floistad (Dordrccht, Ncthcrlands: Martinus Niihoff, 1987). 5 Ngugi wa Thiong'o, DecolonizingtheMind (Poriomouth,N.H.: Heinemann Educational Bwk, 1983. It cannot be empharized mough that the phtasc 'rctum w h e source" ir not meant to suggcst a "return" to a primordial "truth" or some unmntaminated "African arche.. As we saw in c h a ~ r r 4. r . whar Ir to be remrncd to and appropriated is thevigor and acruality of Afncan cxistence which ir rcawakened by the liberation s t r u d e . In other words, it ir the rcignited historicity of African existmcs that is t h c ' s o u ~ ~ e "to which the 'rcturn" is direaed bv thc exigmaes of the liberation struggle. 6 Edward Said, Orientalirm (New York: Vintagc Bookr, 1979). p. 272. 7 Kwame Anthony Appiah, "IrthePost- inPostmodcrnirmthc Pasr- in Postcolonial?" Critica1 Inquity, vol. 17, no. 2 (Winwr 1991). 8 Cheikh Hamidou Kan+ Ambiguous Adventure, p. 73. (Portsmouth NH: Heincmann Edueational Boakr, 1989)

.

lndex

Abstract universalism, 5. See also Universalism Achebe, Chinua, 63-64, 144 Africanism, 130 Africaniti, 44041, 44-53, 83, 137,

Being 69, 72, and 73, Be-ing, 97, 20, 132 24, 44, 57, Berber-Arab civilization, 43 Blanchene, Oliva, 72-73 Bodunrin, Peter, 5

140

African liberation struggle: African philosophical hermeneutics and, 9, 19,30,32, 118, 138; ethnophilosophy and, 53; Fanon on colonialism and, 14; and historicicy of the colonized, 28, 101, 138; neocolonialism and, 15-16, 148; "practices of freedomn in context of, 85, 95; "rcmrn to the source" in context o€, 6, 110; self-formation of nation states and, 113-15 Atrican philosophical hermeneutics, 1-11, 16-30,33,85,114,115, 118, 120. See also Hermeneuncs; Philosophical hermeneutics Afrocentrism, 114 Anti-colonialism, 6, 22, 93, 10213. Sec also Posccolonialism Appiah, Kwame Anthony, 9, 125, 144

Arendt, Hannah, 76-77, 147, 151 Aristotle, 62 Assimilado, 64, 92, 102, 107. See also Assimilation Assimilation, 144, 153. See also Assimilado

Cabral, Amilcar: African philosophical hermeneutics and, 118; on counter-violence and historicity, 79; on process of "re-Africanisation," 29; on race and colonial exploitation, 9; radical hermeneudcs of the colonized and, 115; reclamation of historicity of contemporary Africa, 114; "rerurn to the source" in context of African liberation srruggle, 6, 110, 119, 126-27; theorerical perspecnve of, 11, 22,27, 28, 90, 153-54; thinking on colonialism, 102-13; United Nations poiicies and, 134 Camus, Albert, 78, 146, 147 Castoriadis, Comelius, 91, 96, 100, 103, 142, 150, 154

Césaire, Aimé, 9, 35, 40, 56-57, 62,70, 81, 113, 131-32 "Civilizing mission," 59, 61 Cohabitation, 99 Colonial fascism, 58, 70, 83

Glonialism: African anti-colonial struggle and, 22, 27-28; African philosophical hcrmeneutics and,

lndex 16, 19, 23, 26; Cabral on, 9, 102-13; and cultural experience of contemporary Africans, 6, 13; end of in Africa, 31-32; European modernity and, 14, 56-57; historicity and, 38, 67-85; Marx on, 142; native culture and, 100101; neocolonial "independence" and, 89; phenomenality of African existente and, 11; violence and the colonized, 91-92. See also Aoti-colonialism; Neocolonialism; Postcolonialism Colonial setup, 106 Colonized, the, 3, 36,57-85, 9192, 103, 115, 144, 146-47, 152 Counter-violente, 76-82, 85. See Violence Davrdson, Basil, 22, 89, 90 Deconstruction, 119 Derrida, Jacques, 123 Descartes, Rene, 1 8 Destructuring, 128 De-thingification, 78-79. See also Thingificatlon Dialectics, 110 Discourse, 2, 17-19 "Discursive reason," 51 Dussel, Enrique, 15 "Effective-histotical consuousness," 26,100 Effective past, 109 Elungu, Elungu Pene, 18-19 Encounter. See "Fusion of horizons" Enlightenment, 34, 35-36, 66 Essentialism, 7, 22. See also Essentialist particuiarism Essentialist particularism, 42, 52. See also Particularirtic antiquarianism Ethnographic, 124

Ethnophilosophy, 5, 6, 7, 8,40, 53, 85. 124, 125 ~ t h o i 69,, 85, 88-89 Eurocenuism, 3, 4, 42, 48,49, 77, 103, 111, 119 European modernity: African philosophical hermeneutics and, 24, 28; C saire on, 56-57; Hegel on, 60-61; Heidegger and, 20,40; historicity of, 36, 39, 41, 111; Kane on, 65; Mantism-Leninism and, 52,111; Professional Philosophy and metaphysical singularity of, 7; "scientific socialism" and, 34,52; subordinate passivity of African existencc under, 83; violente of, 58, 62, 79 European proletariat, 3 6 3 7 Évolué, 64, 144 Fanon, Frantz: African philosophical hermencutics and, 118, 119; anti-colonialism as "mecaphysical experience," 6; on colonial setup, 83; on colonial subjugation, 6667; on colonialism and cultural estrangement, 22; compared to Cabral, 112, 113; eurocentrism and Otherness, 47; on historical imporrance of African liberation struggle, 14; historicity and, 56, 114; insights on African anti-colonial stniggle, 128; as opponent of single-party state, 150; on violente in colonized and neocolonized Africa, 67-82, 91-102 Fascism. See Colonial fascism Fluctuant, 140 Foucault, Michel, 87-89, l l S Freedom. See AMcan liberation struggle; Liberation; Self-standing frcedom "Fusion of horizons," 100, 148, 150

Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 2, 16, 17, 26, 100, 130 Gatcs, Henry Louis, Jr., 67, 144 Ge-stell (enframing), 20-21, 40, 70 Gilgamesh, 1, 123 Gramsci, Antonio, 8, 23 Gyekye, Kwame, 6 "Has heen," 130-31, 134 Hegel, Georg: Africa and eurocentrism of, 46,48, 52; on colo. nialism and violence, 68, 75, 82; European moderniry and, 60-61; negativity and, 90; on philosophy and sysamatic recapitulation of the wholc, 155; on self-conscious freedom, 1 3 9 4 0 ; and tradition of ~hilosophicalhermeneutics, 16;123 ' Hegelianism. See Hegel, Georg Henemonv. 20-22.37 ~ e i d e ~ ~ e i , . ~ a rcolonialism tinI and historiciry, 80, 102; contemporary philosophical hemeneutics and, 1-2,24; eurocentrism oí, 4, 20; and Fanon's views on vioIcnce, 75, 76; formulation of Be. ing, 20, 127, 130-31, 132; notion of "dis-dosure," 137; on philosophy and historicity, 25, 30,53,133-34 Hermes, 1 Henneneutics, 1-11, 16-17, 112, 115,118,119-20,123,130, 133. Sce also African philosophical hermcneutics; Philosophical hermeneutics Historical materialism, 34, 39, 4142, 52 Historicity: African philosophical hermeneutics and, 5-9, 13-30, 118; Cabral on colonialism, anticolonial struggle and, 102-13; and Fanon's discussion of colo-

nialism and violence, 67-82; neocolonial counter-violence and, 82-85; reclamatiun ot in context of African situation, 90, 91-102, 114-15, 119; theoretic positions of Nkrumah and Senghor on, 3342; and violence in Airicas encounter of Europe, 56-67 History, theories ot, 26-L7,45, 60, 61.96, 97, 100-101, 103, 150. See also Historicity ; Reclaimiog history Hobbes, Thomas. 75-76 Horizon, 2,4, 17-19 Hountondji, Paulin, 5, 19, 38-39, 41,42,52, 84, 85, 125, 138 Hume, David, 61 Hyland, Drew, 2, 26. 28 lrnperialism, 57-58. 11 1 lndependence, Africaii, 5, 8, 13, 22, 30,31-32,89, 96 Indigenousness, African politics and history, 37, 107, 108 Indo-Eumpean civilizatioii, 43, 46, 50,51 Kafka, Franz, 92, 149-50 Kane, Cheikh Hamidou, 22,28-29, 63,64-66, 69, 141 Kanr, Immanuel, 18, 61, 66 Kaunda, Kenneth David, 142, 149 Kipling, Rudyard, 59, 61 Lenin, 15 Levy-Bruhl, Lncien, 46 Liheration, political and cultural, 8, 14, 15-16, 87-90,91-102,10213. See also African liberation struggle Logocenrrism, 3 Magma or magmatic, 96, 100 Malek, Anwar Abdel, 48-49, 52

ndex Marx, Karl, 36,58, 60, 61, 74, 75, 85,136, 139,142,143 Marxism-Leninism, 22, 33-43, 51, 52,57, 84, 110, 111. See also Marx, Karl Materialism. See Historical materialism Mbiti, John, 3, 40 Memmi, Albert, 58-59, 72, 79,84, 145, 152 ~etaphysicaltradition, 11, 123 Modernity. See European modernity Mudimbe, V. Y., 47,59,146

85. See also Colonialism; Postcolonialism Ngugi wa Thiong'o, 119 Nieache. Friedrich. 29.80 Nkrumah, ~ w a m e '15; 22.33-42, 52, 53, 84, 85 Nyerere, Julius, 40 Okere. Theo~hilus.5. 6. 18-19. 118; 125-26 . . . Okolo, Okonda, 19, 24, 25-26, 27, 30,53 Ontic-ontological, 28, 133-34 Ontological difference, 28 Orientalism, 49 Oruka, Henry Odera, 3,5, 56 Othcrncss, 46,47,49, 57, 68 Outlaw, Lucius, 3, 119, 124-25

Native, 68-69, 70-75, 78-82, 8485. See a b o Rural native; Urban native Negativiry, 90, 115 Patticularism. See Essentialist particNégritude, 9, 20, 40, 46, 137 ularism; Particularistic antiquariNegro-African, 11, 43,4445, 46, anism 47, 50,51, 52 Patticularisnc antiquarianism, 5 Negro-ness and negrocentrism, 20, Philoso~hical hermeneutics. 1-2. -47 16. i e e also African philósophical Neocolonialism: African anti-colohermeneutics; Hermeneutics nial srruggle and, 27-28; African Plato, 1, 13, 16, 32, 123, 140 philosophical hermeneutics and, Polemos, 75 16, 17, 19, 26; Afcican political Politics. See Anti-colonialism; Posttradition and struggle against, colonialism, Single-party srate; Ur37-38; and cultural experience of han political parties contemporary Africans, 6; European hegemony in present-day Af- Postcolonialism, 2, $7, 8, 13-30, 120. See Neocolonialism rica, 20-22; Fanon on violence "Practice of freedom," 88, 90, 95, and, 67-82; fusion and African 98,109-10, 113 liberation, 96; in international pol"Prior question," 32, 40 itics, 15, 27-28; phenomenality Professional philosophy, 5, 6 7 , 53, of Aírican existence and, 11; 85, 124, 126 "practice of freedom* and AfriProletariat. See European proletariat can independence, 89; reclamation of history and, 101, 105; "Re-Africanisation," 29, 102 self-conception of African liberaRcclaiming history, 90, 91-102, tion as, 8; single-party statc and, 102-13. Ser also Historicity; 97; violence and wunter-violence History in past and present Africa, 82-

lndex "Retum m thc source": Cabrals concept of revolution as, 102, 112, 119; in context of African liberation struggle, 6; dichotomy bcwecn history and historicity of existence, 104; implications of Nrm, 126-27, 155; "practice of freedom" and, 113; urban and rural nativa and, 105, 106, 107-10 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 71, 75, 145 Rural native, 83, 91, 92-102, 10513 Ryan, Alan, 62 Said, Edward, 47,48,49, 52, 5758,62,65-66, 120 Sanre, Jean-Paul, 76, 113, 146 "Scientific socialism," 33-34, 39, 40,41 Scientific universalism, 8, 42, 43, 52. See also Univenalism Self-emanapation, 92, 94, 100, 115, 120Self-negation, 107, 108 Self-standing freedom. 139 Sembene, ~Üsmanc,53, 84,150 Senghor, Leopold Sedar, 6,20,22, 40-43, 83,91,137,140,141 Single-party state, 97, 150 Situatedness, 120, 129, 135 Socialism. See Marxism-Leninism, "Scicntific socialism" Superpowen, 15, 129. See ako United Nations

Temples, Placide, 3,40, 47, 61, 138 Theoretic formula, 112 Thingification, 68, 71, 72, 73, 7475, 78, 103. See also De-thingification Towa, Marcien, 7, 13-14, 114 Tradition, 25-26,36, 85, 109, 126. See also Metaphysical rradition Truth, 118, 120 United Nations, 15, 27-28, 129, 134 Universalism, 43, 52. See also Abstract universalism: Scientific universalism Urban native, 83, 91, 105-13 Urban political parties, 91-102 Violencc, 21,55-56, 56-67, 6782, 85, 142, 147. See also Counter-violence Walda Heywat, 18 Wamba-Dia-Wamb~,Ernest, 1617,21, 130, 135 West, Cornel, 11, 127-28 Westernization, 106, 107, 108-109, 144 Westcrnized African(s1, 11, 83, 8485,92,101, 144 Westcrn metaphysics, 11, 123 Windu, Kwasi, 5, 19, 56, 124, 135 Worldviews, 4, 126 Xala, 53

Taylor, Patrick, 67, 75, 76, 146, 148

Zar'a Ya'aqob, 18