| Africa;n Sysu:emfoJf Thought
General Editors
Charles S. Bird
!van Karp
Contributing Editors
Thomas 0. Beiddman
James Fernandez
Luc de Heusch
John Middleton
Roy Willis
Gnosis, Philosophy, and the
Order of Knowledge
MUDil\ifBE
lNDlANA UNJVERSJTY PRESS
and
JAlv!ES CURREY
London
0004230142
© 1988 by V. Y. Mudimbe .
AH rights reserv~d
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by
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Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catafoging-in-PubHcation Data
Mudimbe, V. Y., 1941-
The invention of Africa.
(African systems of thought)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index,
I. Philosophy, African, 2o Knowledge, Theory of.
L Title. IL Series.
B5310.M8ti 1988 199'.6 87-45324
ISBN 0-253-33126-9
ISB:N 0-25 3-20468-2. (pbk.)
2 3 4 5 6 94 93 92 91 90
British Library Cataloguing in Pub1icatiol!1 Data
Mudimbe, 'V. Y., 1941-
The invention of Africa : gnosis, philosophy, and the order of
knowledge. - (African systems of thought).
L African philosophy
L Title H. Series
199'.6
ISBN 0-35255-203-.J (paper)
To the memory of James S. Coleman
Mors ipsa beatior inde est, quod per
cruciamina leti via panditur ardua iustis, et ad
astra doloribus itur.
-Prudentius, Hymnus Circa Exequias
Defuncti
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I. Discourse of Power and Knowledge of Otherness
II. Questions of Method
III. The Power of Speech
IV. E. W. Blyden's Legacy and Questions
V. The Patience of Philosophy
Conclusion: The Geography of a Discourse
APPENDIX. ETHIOPIAN SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ix
I
201
205
233
INTRODUCTION
This book evolved accidentally; as a result of an invitation to prepare a survey
of African philosophy. Strictly speaking, the notion of African philosophy
refers to contributions of Africans practicing philosophy within the defined
framework of the discipline and its historical tradition (Horton, 1976;
Hountondji, 1977). h is only metaphorically, or, at best, from a historicist
perspective, that one wnuld extend the notion of philosophy to AJrican
traditional systems of thought, considering then1. as dynamic processes in
which concrete experiences are integrated into an order of concepts and
discourses (Ladri,ere, 1979:14-15). I have thus preferred to speak of African
gnosis. J. Fabi,rn used the notion of gnosis in his analysis of a charismatic
movement ( r 969 ), In this book, the wider frame seems better suited to the
range of problems addressed, aH of which are based on a preliminary question:
to what extent can one speak of an African knowledge, and in what
sense? Etymologically, gnosis is related to gnosko, which in the acricient
Greek means "to know."
Specifically, gnosis means seeking to know, inquiry, n:1ethods of knowing,
investigation, and even acquaintance with someone, Often the word is used
im a more specialized sense, that of higher and esoteric knowledge, and thus
it refers to a structured, common, and conventional knowledge, but one
strictly under the control of specific procedures for its use as well as transmission.
Gnosis is, consequently, different from doxa or opinion, and, on the
other hand, cannot be confused with episteme, understood as both science
and general intellectual configuration.
The title is thus a methodological tool: it embraces the question of what is
and what is not African philosophy and also orients the debate in another
direction by focusing on conditions of possibility of philosophy as part of the
larger body of knowledge on Africa called "Africanism." I use this central
notion of conditions of possibility in accordance with a recent tradition in
which Michel Foucault could, for example, define his own intellectual ambition
in terms of its dependence on alterations that Jean Hyppolite introduced
into Hegelian philosophy (Foucault, 1982:235-37). What the notion of
conditions of possibilii:y indicates is that discourses have not only sociohistorical
origins but also epistemological contexts. h is the latter which
make them possible and which can also account for them in an essential way,
I shall be dealing with discourses on African societies, cultures, and
peoples as signs of something else, li v.~ould like to interrogate their
modalities, significance, or strntegies as a means of understanding the type of
knowledge which is being proposed. 1n fact, I do not address the classical
issues of African anthropology or history, the results of which might or might
1X
X Introduction
not mirror an objective .African reality. Rather I am looking upstream of the
results, precisely at vvhat makes them possible, before accepting them as
commentary on revelation, or restitution, of an African experience,
The book attempts, therefore, a sort of archaeology of A.frican gnosis as a
system of know·ledge in which major philosophical questions recently have
arisen: first, concerning the form, the content, and the style of "Africanizing"
knowkdge; second, concerning the status of traditional systems of thought
and their possible rdation to the normative genre of kno-wledge. From the
first chapters, which interrogate W/estern images of Africa, through the
chapters analyzin.g the power of anthropologists, missionaries, and ideologists,
to the last, on philosophy, I am directly concerned with the processes
or transformation of t"ypes or knmNledge,
This orientation has two cons,:::quences: on the one hand, an apparent
attenuation of the originality of Africzx1 contributions and, on the other, an
overemphasis upon external procedures, such as anthropological or religious
influences, The fact of the matter is that, until novv, 1Western interpreters as
well as African analysts have been using categories and conceptual systems
which depend on a Western epistemological order. Evea in the most explicitly
"Afrocentric" descriptions, models of analysis explicitly or implicitly,
knovvingly or unknowingly, refer to the same order. Does this mean that
A..frican Weltanschauungen and African traditional systems of thought are
unthinkable and cannot be made explicit within the framework of their own
rationality? My ow:1 daim is that thus far the ways in w-hich they have been
evaluated and the means used to explain them relate to theories and methods
whose constrain:s, mles, and systems of operation suppose a n::m-African
episternological iocus. From this viewpoint the claim of some African philosophers
such as 0, Bimwenyi (198ra) and E Eboussi-.Boulaga (1981) that
they represent an epistemological hiai:us should be taken seriously. What
does this mean for the field of African studies? To what extent can their
perspectives ~11odify the fact of a silent dependence on a ·\Western episteme?
Would it then be possible to n:new the 11otion of tradition from, let es say, a
r.adical dispersion of African cultures?
These are the most important issues in the debate on African philosophy,
They oblige 1ne to clarify imrnediately my positien about represen~atives of
African gnosis. Who i.s speaking about it? 1J;!ho has the right and the
credentials to produce it, describe it, comment upon it, or ar least present
opinions about it? No one takes offonse if an anthropologist is quesi:ioned,
But strangely enough, Africanists-and among them anthropologists-have
decided to separate the "real" African from the westernized African and to
rel.y strictly upon. the first. Rejecting this myth of the "m2.n in ch.e bush," }c
Jahn chose to "turn to those Africans vvho h,we their own opinion and who
will determine the future of Africa: those, in other words, of vvhom h is said
that they are trying to revive the African tradition" (Jahn, 1961:16). Yet,
Jahn's decision seems exaggerated. l would prefer a wider authority: intellectuals'
discourses as a critical library and, if I could, the experience of rejected
Introduction xi
forms of wisdom which are not part of the structures of political power and
scientific knowledge.
In sum, rather than simply accept the authority of qualified representatives
of African cultures, I would like to study the theme of the foundations of
discourse about Africa. It is obvious that in such a subjective work I cannot
claim to offer an exhaustive report analyzing all present tendencies or encompassing
all within its frame. This book is only a critical synthesis of the
complex questions about knowledge and power in and on Africa.
The presuppositions and hypotheses outlined above indicate a range of
theoretical alternatives that I have been working on for the last fifteen years.
It from L'Autre face du royaume (1973) to L'Odeur du pere (19826) and
this contribution, my general view has somewhat changed, I believe that my
major thesis has remained the same with respect to the analogical form of the
social sciences and the history of Africanist discourse. These disciplines do
not provide a real comprehension of the Weltanschauungen studied. Yet one
can also say that it is in these very discourses that African .worlds have been
established as realities for knowledge. And today Africans themselves read,
challenge, rewrite these discourses as a way of explicating and defining their
culture, history, and being. It is obvious that since its inception Africanism
has been producing its own motives as well as its objects, and fundamentally
commenting upon its own being, while systematically promoting a gnosis.
From this gnosis ultimately arose both African discourses on otherness and
ideologies of alterity of which negritude, black personality, and African
philosophy might be considered to be the best established in the present-day
intellectual history of Africa.
Some of my critics (e.g., Mpoyi-Bwatu, 1983; N'Zembele, 1983; Willame,
1976) have aggressively urged me to draw political implications from my
conclusions. Others, such as Mouralis (1981, 1984a), have instead thought
my project, that of dealing with taboo themes, overly ambitious. I only hope
that some people would agree that the task of bringing philosophy to some of
its own limits and metaphors in social science, and that of questioning
philosophy's ambiguous contacts with unphilosophical discourses, justify
my commitment not to philosophy, nor to an invented Africa, but to what it
essentially means to be an African and a philosopher today. I am grateful to
L. Kaumba whose phenomenological study of the significance of identity in
my literary work (Kaumba, 1986) forced me to reevaluate the implications of
my theses about the Same and the Other in philosophical anthropology. Yet
his critique meets my fundamental beliefs: identity and alterity are always
given to others, assumed by an I- or a We-subject, structured in multiple
individual histories, and, at any rate, expressed or silenced according to
personal desires vis-a-vis an episteme.
This also implies that from a methodological viewpoint I think, as
Foucault put it, that "discourse in general and scientific discourse in particular,
is so complex a reality that we not only can but should approach it at
different levels and with different methods" (1973: xiv). For this essay I have
xn Introduction
chosen an archaeological perspective that allows me to address the issue of
the progressive constitution of an African order of knowledge. However, for
reasons having to do with the bizan-e nature of some of the sources usedmainly
the anthropological ones-I have preferred not to distinguish the
epistemological level of knowledge from the archaeological levd of knowledge,
I am deeply indebted to the Joint Committee on African Studies of the
Social Science Research Council i.n conjunction with the American Council
of Learned Societies. They invited me to write this study and gave me the
necessary facilities. A briefer and slightly different form of chapters three and
five was published by the African Studies Review in I 9 8 5.
The bibliography at the end reveals rny intellectual debt to many works
and scholars. Kn this bibliography li present books I have indeed used. I did
not think it important to include such authors as Aristotle, Descartes,
Diderot, Rousseau, or Voltaire to \IVhom I sometimes refer, in the same
manner, it did not seem useful to include a number of narratives and texts by
explorers, colonial theorists, and popes. They generally express a normative
doxa and its submission to an episteme. As such, they reveal the development
of anthropological and philosophical theories, As to non-English books I
quote, ]. have often-but not always-consulted the originals, even when the
existing translations were excellent" Yet apart from stated exceptions, I
generally make reference to English versions when available, H an English
edition is not mentioned in the bibliography, the translation is my own.
I must express explicidy my gratitude to some friends and colleagues
without whom this book would, perhaps, not have been vvritten, or certainly
not yet finished: Elizabeth Boyi for her encouragement; Christie Agav,u for
her editorial ,Issistance; Kofi Agawu, Paul Riesman, and Ivan Karp for their
critical evaluations. I am particularly grateful to Arnd lBohrn, Walter
Michener, David I'\Jewbury, and IV!ildred Mortimer, whose patient reading of
the entire manuscript and critical comments hdped me darify many points
and translate my Gallic style into the English language. li extend my gratitude
to Haverford College and in particular to Robert Stevens, Robert Gavin, Jr.,
Wyatt JVfacGaffeya, nd Judy Young for their support and generosity. Finally I
have to express my special thanks to Shirley Averill for her useful suggestions,
the typing of many drafts of the manuscript, and her unfailing· patience.
Roberta L. Diehl and Janet Rabinowitch, my editors, deserve grateful acknowledgment
for their advice, support, and efficiency, Needless to say, the
ideas, hypotheses, and interpretations put forth in this book are completely
my responsibility.
THE INVENTION
OF AFRICA
J
DISC()tJR.SE
i,~i,~C-)\1VI~EG,DE
OF P()\\;VER.,,.A J\TD
L1r) ,:f. () , 1T, .1LH -. -EC,UJr.\.1'1 . ~'~ ---,-£CS 1 d .
Co~orni:dng Stn,cture and Marginality
Lord have pity on usl ... "The human race?"
Phyllis exclaimed, stressing the second word
in her astonishment. "That's what it says
here," Jinn assured her. "Don't start off by
interrupting me."
P. BomLE, Planet of the Apes.
The scrarn1ble for .Africa, and the most active period of colonization, lasted
less than a century. These events, which involved the greater part of the
African contin,ent, occurred between the !late nineteenth and the mid-twentieth
centuries. Although ln African history the colonial experience repm·
sous but a brief n1oment from the perspective of today, this moment is still
charged and controversial, s.ince, to say the least, it signified a new historical
form and the possibility of radically new types of discourses on African
traditions :md cultures. One might think that this new historical form has
meant, from its origins, the negation of rwo contradictory myths; namely, the
"Hobbesian picture of a pre-European Africa, in which there was no account
of Tin1e; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and vvhich is worst of aH, continu,ed
fear, and danger of violent death''; and "the Rousseaui.an picture of an
African golden age of perfect liberi:y; equalhy and fraternity" (Hodgkin,
19 57: 174-75 ).
Although generalizations are of course dangerous, colonialism and colonization
basically mean organization, arrangement. The two words derive
from the latin vvard colere, meaning to cultivate or to design, Indeed the
historical colonial experience does not and obviously cannot reflect the
peaceful connotations of these words. But it can be admitted that the colonists
(those settling a. region), as well as the colonialists (those exploiting a
territort by dominating a local majority) have all tended to organize and
transform non-European areas into fundamentally European constructs.
I
2 The Invention of Africa
1 -...,vouldsu ggest that in looking at this process, it is possible ro use rhree
main keys to account for the modulations and methods representative of
colonial organization: the procedures of acquiring, distributing, and exploiting
lands in colonies; the policies of domesticating natives; and the manner
of managing ancient organizations and implementing new modes of prcducfion.
Thus, three complementary hypotheses and actions emerge: the domination
of physical space, th~ reformation of natives' minds, and the
integration of local economic histories into the 'Western perspective. These
complementary projects constitute what might be caUed the colonizing
structure, vvhich completely embraces the physical, human, and spiritual
aspects of the colonizing experience (see, e.g., Christopher, 1984: 27-87).
This structure dearly also indicates the projected me,:amorphosis envisioned,
at great intellectual cost, by ideological and theoretical texts, which from the
last quarter of the nineteenth century to the 1950s have proposed programs
for "regenerating" the African space and its inhabitants.
A. Cesaire thinks that
the great historical trngedy of Africa has been not so much that it ',vas too late
in making contact with the rest of the world, as the manner in which that
contact vvas brought about; that Europe began to propagate at a time when it
had fallen into the hands of the most unscrupulous financiers and captains of
industry. (Cesaire, 1972:2.3)
He refers to the second part of the nineteenth century, emphasizing the
coexistence of "imperialist" ideology, economic and political processes for
extending control over African space, and capitalist institutions which uJtimately
led to dependence and underdevelopment (see also Mazrui, 197 4).
In a recent book, D. K Fieldhouse writes that "only a dogrnatist would
attempt to stat,e categorically that colonialiGm was either totally inc::msistent
Vlith economic development in the dependencies or, alternatively, that i.t was
the best possible medium for stimulating their growth. Colonialism was not
sufficiently consistent over time to justify any such sweeping assertions, nor
were its objeccives sufficiently coherent to achieve ,my particular result"
(1981:103). Thus colonialism has been some kind of historical accident, a
"largely unplanned and, as it turned out, transient phase in the evolving
relationship between more and less deVeloped parts of the vvorld" (1981:49).
This accident, on the whole, according to this view, was not the worst thing
that could have happened to the black continent.
Essentially, the argument is not new. It has a history that goes back to the
debate of the early decades of this century. In his book, Imperialism: A
Study, J. A. Hobson linked the scramble for Africa to capitalism and
capitalist search for higher profits from coionial conquests. For J, A. Schumpei:
er, in 1919, colonialism as well as its cause, imperialism, did not obey
logic. It was "non-rational and irrational purely instinctual inclinations
tovvard war and conquest" that guided "objectless tendencies toward forcible
Powe;" and Otherness 3
expansion, without definite, utilitarian limits" (Schum peter, I 9 5 I: 8 3 ).
Against the Leninist theme of Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
(1917), he stated that "a purely capitalist world offers no fertile soil to
hnperiaHst impulses ... capitalism is by nature anti-imperialist" (1951:96),
And i.n a voluminous document full of statistics, The Balance Sheets of
Imperialism ( I 9 3 6), Grover Clark demonstrated that colonialism was not
only economicaHy irrational but also ruinous for the colonial powers,
On the opposite side, at i:he risk of being labeled dogmatists, !v1arxist
interpreters accept the essentials of Lenin's thesis. The contention of neol
½arxists such ;;s Samir Amin, Paul Baran, Andre Gunder-Frank, and Immarmd
·1~'Vallerstein is that if colonialism vvas inconsistent with economic
development, it was at least, since its inception, quite consistent with its ovvn
economic interests and objectives.
Accordingly, colonialism should have produced a body of knowledge on
the means of exploiting dependencies (Rodney, 1981). h should also have
produced a kind of empirical technique for implementing structural distortions
by positing fom main political propositions: first, priority given to the
industrial revolution over the agricultural revolution; second, the simultaneous
promotion of all branches of indusuy with a preferential approach to
heavy industry; third, emphasis 011 tertiary and service activities; fourth,
preference for exports to the detriment of the total economic system (Amin,
1973). The outcome of these policies was the process of underdevelopment
initiated everywhere colonialism occurred. This process can be summed up in
t~'lree points: First, the capitalist world system is such that parts of the system
alvvays devdop at the expense of other parts, either by trade or by the transfer
of surpiuses, Second, the uJt1derdevelopment of dependencies is not only an
absence of development, but also an organizational structure created under
colonialism by bringing non- '\;i/estern territory into the capitalist world.
Third, despite 'cheir economic potential, dependencies lack the structural
capacity for autonomy and sustained grovvth, since their economic fate is
fargely determined by the developed countries (Arnin, 1974; Gunder-Frank,
1969; 1X1aHerstein, 1979). From this last contention, some theorists have
quickly hypothesized that if Japan has escaped the predicament of under ..
development, it is because it is the only non- 'iJf/estern country to have escaped
colonialism (Bigo, 1974:32, 60).
It seems impossible to make any statement about colonialism withom
being a dogmatist, particular! y ,Nhere economic organization and growth are
concerned. Different as they are in form and intention, the Ivfa,rxist z,nd
peripher,d theories have nevertheless the same focus: overseas territory, totally
reorganized and submitted to a \Jvestern model (Mommsen, 19 8 3 ). The
first theory considers colonial imperialism as a calculated and inevitable
culffJination of capitalism. If the fatter discounts the planned aspect of
colonialism, it still assumfcs the phenomenon to be a consequence of European
industrializatian and development, somehow· bound to expand overseas.
'v;"lhateverth eory one accepts, the application remains the same, leading
4 The Invention of Africa
inevitably ::o what I have called the coionizing structure responsible for
producing m2,rgi.aal societies, cuhcures, and human beings (~~mmanuel,
1969; Bairoch, 1971). Therefore, for the purpose of darity further on, let me
make dear the dichotomy that this stmcture creates and ,.vhich is a sign ol
,1vhat L Sachs c:?.lls "euroi:;eocentrism." It is a model which
dominates our thought and given irn projection on the -world scale by the
expansion of capitalism and the colonial phenomeno,1, it marks contemporary
cuh2re imposing itself as 8. strongly conditioning model foe some and
forced d"cu!turatioa for others. (Sachs, 1971:22; quoted by Bigo, 1974:23,
n.3)
Because of the colonializing structure, a dichotomizing system has
emerged, and 1.vith it ;;, great number of current paradigmatic oppositions
have developed: traditional versus modern; oral versus written and printed;
agrafian and customary conmmnities -,ersus urban and industrialized civilization;
subsistence economies versus highly productive economies. In Africa
a gr.eat deal of attention is generaUy given to the evolution implied and
promised by the passage frona the former paradigms to the latter (Iv'iudimbe,
1980). This presupposed jump frmn one extremity (underdevelopment) to
the other (devdopment) is in fact misleading. By emphasizing the formulation
oli 1techniques of economic change, the model tends to neglect a structural
mode inherited from ,colonialism, Between the t'wo extremes there is an
intennediat::, 2. diffosed sp.1ce in -which social and econornic events define 1:he
extent of marginality (Bigo, 1974::w; Shaw, 1985:?,3-36). At 1:he economi.c
level, for examplf::, if the relatively ]m,v producfrvity of traditional proces,es of
praductioa (formerly adapted to the then-existing mzrkets and range of
trade and exchanges) has been dismpted by a new division of labor which
depends upon international markets, then transformation has meant 2. progressive
destruction of traditional realms of agriculture and crafts
(t,/[eillassoux, 1975:u5)a As a second examp!ie, one could reg21rd the social
disintegration of African societies and the growing urban proletariat as
results of a destabilization of customary organizations by an incoherent
establishment of new social arrangemtnts and institutions (Turnbull, 1962;
Memmi, 1966; I\fair, 1975). Finally, if at the cultural and religious levels,
through schools, churches, press, and audio-visual media the colonializing
enterprise diffused new attitudes which were contradictonJ and richly complex
models in tt~rms of culture, spiritual values, and their transmission, it
also broke the rnltur2Jly unified and rehgiously integrated schema of most
African tr:0-ditions (Bimwenyi, 198ra), From that rnomeni: on the forms and
fornmiations of the colonial culture and its aims were somehow the means of
trivializing the 'Whole traditional n:mde of lifo and its spiritual frannework.
The polfenti?1l and necessary transformations meant that the mere presence of
this new culture 'Nas a reasor1 for the rejection of unadapted persons and
confused minds.
Power and Otherness 5
Marginality designates the intermediate space bet"/, or from the genesis of this finality itseH. Thus,
according to Ebou:ssi-Boulaga, the recit is a reconsrrucdon cf history. By
necessity a negation of the present, and also a negation 0£ sdf, it is, at the
same time, the only critical way to self. hs internal dynamism will, eventually,
guarantee the reconciliation of the htstorical reason and a reasonable
freedom for the Muntu.
The historical reason and reasonable liberti; are rested from experienced
1-nadness and arbitrariness. They zxe the inversion and reversal of madness and
arbitrariness. The discourse v,hich is being constituted by the being for-itself
should describe in a concrete way the future of the for-itself in history, in a
regional history, whose reach is universal because of the being of the subject,
the subject of history. (Eboussi-Boulaga, 1977:223)
The notion of critical reading, as vvell as that of a riicit pour soi that might
produce a regional historical account of the global history of humankind,
bring us back to Levi-Strauss's and Foucault's annihiiation of the mythologies
of the Same.
from this perspective, R l'vfoore's classical mies on scientific strategies and
their metaphors-e.g., "in science, as in art, we are compelled to make
estimates about promising and unpromising lines of attack" (19 5 8)-seem
dreams of a questionable conjunction of science, knowledge, and power.
Levi-Strauss insists: 'Who is speaking about science? Do we know hov1 to live
·with others? "The formula 'hell is other people,' which has achieved such
vvidespread fame, is not so much a philosophical proposition as an ethnographical
statement about ['~Vestern] civilization. For, since childhood, we
have been accustomed to fear impurity as coming from without. When they
assert, on the contrary that 'hell is ourselves,' savage peoples give us a lesson
in humility which, it is to be hoped, vve may still be capz.ble of understanding"
(Levi-Strauss, 1979:507). This ethical lesson stems from an anthropological
context. Eboussi-Boufaga's discourse deploys itself in rhe order of an
amplification conceived from an African perspective. Foucault, in the conclusion
of his survey of the history of insanity in the Age of Reason, notes that
"Nietzsche's last cry, proclaiming himself both Christ and Dionysos, is not
on the border of reason and unreascn, ... but the point where [art] becomes
impossible and where it n1ust fall silent" (1965:287). l think a number of
African thinkers would identify with Nietzsche's claim, in a figurative way.
The amplification is obvious. fa it pure accident that a great number of
leading African intellectuals have, between I 9 5 5 and 1970, worked strenuously
publishing works on some really "compromising" European
Questions of Method 43
thinkers? To note just a few: Elungu specialized in Nlalebranche's philosophy;
Hountondji chose Husserl and Comte; Senghor commented upon
Teilhard de Charclin's theses; Towa was then working on Hegel, Ngindu
beginning his book on Laberthonniere, and Ugirashebuja completing his
research on Heidegger. In these enterprises one notes a remarkable media,·
tion between the rigor of a phik,sophica1 exercise and the fantasies of a
political insurrection: the text commented upon is a mirror which reveals the
self to the reader or commentator. From an idealist epistemology come
questions and propositions which, on the one hand, seem dose to Sartre's
political aesthetics for the liberation of the Third World and, Ofi the other,
transpose into African geography Foucault's and Levi-Strauss's critiques of
such notions as history, culture, human space, and conventions.
This clear amplification is sufficient reason for me to state that despite
their violence against the rule of the Same and the history of its conquests
over all regionalisms, specificities, and differences, Levi-Strauss and l'bucault,
as well as a number of African thinkers, belong to the signs of the same
power, W,nat the11 represent could be considered an expression of the "intelligence"
of the Same. As Foucault himself stated, referring to his own intellectual
filiation: "Cam one still philosophize where Hegel i.s no longer possible?
Can any philosophy continue to exist that is no longer Hegelian?" And more
precisely: "truly to escape Hegel involves an exact appreciation of the price
vve have to pay to detach ourselves from him. It assumes that we are mvare of
the extent to which Hegd, insidiously perhaps, is dose to us; it implies a
knowledge in that which permits us to think against Hegel, of that which
rem.aims Hegelian" (1982:235). One could also relate Levi-Strauss's view to
this same origin, or, more convincingly, to Kant's dream about metaphysics
and anthropology (see Levi-Strauss, 1968).
The apparent profanation represented by these projects might simply be an
optical iHusion, Levi-Strauss and Foucault are engulfed in the history of the
Same and its contradictions. l would not say that African irnteHectuals are
engulfed in the same vvay. The passion that in Levi-Strauss's and Foucault's
works presents theories about norm, rule, and system only uncovers and
seeks strictly to define this complex history of an identity~ In the name of the
same methodological principles, Africans tend-despite differences of fanguage
and education-to doubt the ethical value of these estimations (see
e,g., Hountondji, I977; Wiredu, 1980),
Seen from the frontiers of the 'flestem power-knowledge system, all these
choices seem stimulating, Still, one can meditate on their projects as possible
symbols of a failed will to transcendence, now expressing its desire towards
an ambiguous new beginning, However, it is important to note that African
ideology, as a body of reflexions and questions, springs from the same lines of
dissolution that, in the kingdom of the Same, allowed Levi-Strauss's and
Foucault's crises. Metaphorically speaking, in Nietzsche's confusion there is
not only the silence of an art and a power-knowledge, but also, insistently,
there are all the promises of Kant's old question on the possibility of an
anthropology: how pertinent is it to speak about humans?
I1f,]
rfHE PO'\X7E1Ol F SPl~ECI-I
The EviissfoiJlary'sD iscourse mnd Africa's GDnversion
In fact, I am novv so accustomed to the
paradoxes of this planet that I wrote the
preceding sentence without thinking of the
absurdity it represents.
P. BouLLE, Planet of the Jtpes.
It takes little imagination to realize that missionary discourses on Africans
were powerful. They were both signs and symbols of a cultural modeL For
quite a long time, along with travelers' accounts and anthropologists' interpretations,
they constituted a ki.nd of knowledge. In the first quarter of this
century, it was dear that the travder had. become a colonizer and the
anthropologist, his scientific advisor, while the missionary, more vigorously
than ever, continued, in them-y as well as in practice, to expound the model of
African spiritual and cultural metamorphosis.
The missionary's particular position in the process of Africa's conversion
has led to very peculiar results (Bureau, 1962:248-62). These results, intersecting
with ideological perspectives, have, on the one hand, fostered African
theories of otherness and, on the other, brought about serious doubt concerning
the pertinence of Western discourses on African societies. Thus, we
have two magnifio~nt actors: the missionary and his African successor, both
of them presenting their views on policies of conversion, basing thert'l on
what African culture is supposed to be, and utilizing anthropology as a
means of dominating or liberating African people (Hastings, r97rII9-2o)o
The theme to investigate is the articulation betwr:'.en missionary language
and its African echo or negation, and the ultimate consequences of this
relationship for anthropology. The investigation is appropriate in view of
questionable hypotheses about missionaries' positive or negative contributions
to African ideology, and, in general, of the controversial interpretations
of this relationship in the crisis of African Studies.
For the sake of clarity, I shall address first the subject of missionary
discourse; second, the African response; third, how they mingle historically
and ideologically in an anthropological locus and have ad valorern responsibility
in the building of an African ideology of otherness.
44
The Power of Speech 45
The more carefully one studies the history of missions in Africa, the more
difficult it becomes not to identify it with cultural propaganda, patriotic
motivations, and cmnmercial interests, since the missions' program is indeed
more complex than the simple transmission of the Christian faith. From the
sixteenth century to the eighteenth, missionaries were, through aH the "new
worlds," part of the political process of creating and extending the right of
European sovereignty over "newly discovered" lands (Keller, Lissitzyn, and
Mann, 1938). In doing so, they obeyed the "sacred instructions" of Pope
Alexander VI in his bull Inter Caetera (1493): to overthrO\V paganism and
establish the Christian faith in all barbarous nations. The bulls of Nicholas
V-Dum Diversas (q.52) and Romanus Pontifex (1455)-had indeed already
given the kings of Portugal the right to dispossess and eternally enslave
Mahometans, pagans, and black peoples in general (Deschamps, 1971).
Dum Diversas dearly stipulates this right to invade, conquer, expell, and
fight (invadendi, conquirendi, expugnandi, clebellandi) Muslims, pagans,
and other enemies of Christ (saracenos ac paganos, aliosque Christi inimicos)
wherever they may be. Christian kings, following the Pope's decisions,
could occupy pagan kingdoms, principalities, lordships, possessions (regna,
principatus, Dominia, possessiones) and dispossess them of their personal
properry, lane\, and whatever they might have (et mobilia et immobilia bona
quaecurnque per eos detenta ac possessa). The king and his successors have
the power and right to put these peoples into perpetual slavery (subjugandi
illorumque personas in perpetuam servitutem). (See Bimwenyi, r98rn:621•-
22).
The missionaries, preceding or foHowing a European flag, not only helped
thei.r home country to acquire new lands but also accomplished a "divine"
mission ordered. by the Holy Father, Dominator Dominus. It was in God's
name that the Pope considered the planet his franchise and established the
basic principles of terra nullius (nobody's land), which denies non-Christian
natives the right to an autonomous political existence and the right to own or
to transfer ownership (Witte, 19 5 8).
H the Reformation challenged the Holy Father's power "to give, grant and
assign forever" lands to European monarchs, the new axiom, cuius regio,
illius religio, enforced the complementariry between colonial activity and
religious conversion, For instance, the Christian kingdom of Congo, was
officially recognized by the Holy See and the major European seapowers in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However, it lost its special status in
the mercantilist and Protestant eighteenth century. The prevalent economic
ideal of a "balance of trade" was inseparable from the need to increase the
nation's wealth and its strength, hence the great utility of colonial trade and
possess10ns,
The Church's involvement in establishing Western sovereign'CIw/ as important
both before and after the Reformation, The mass celebrated on the
Guinea Coast in I 4 8 I, under a big tree displaying the royal arms of Portugal,
symbolized the possession of a new territory. Among a multitude of other
similar acts, Vasco Da Gama erected a pillar, engraved with the Portuguese
The Invention of Africa
royal arms, on the easit coast in the kingdom of Melinda, and Diego Caon
constmcted another in 149~. at the mouth of the Congo River. These symbols
v,ere part of a formal and elaborate cerernony of appropriation of a term
nullius. Generally, such a ceremony presented three major characteristics
(Keller et aL, 1938): (a) the constn.mtion of a physical sign bearing the royal
arms, such as a pillar (Portuguese), a landmark or even a simple pile of stones
(Spanish), or a cross (English and French); (b) a solemn declaration, perhaps
presenting the letters patent received from the king, announcing the new
srnrereignty and indicating that the possession is taken in the name of, or for,
th,~ king; and (c) a symbolization of the new jurisdiction. Explorers from
Roman Catholic nations, generally, performed a mass; whereas Anglo-Saxons
symbolized their control over the land with a sacred formula or legal
decree. For example, on August 5, 1583, as part of the ceremony of taking
possession of Newfoundland, Sir Humphrey Gilbert promulgated a code of
three laws; namely, the establishment of the Chmch of England in the
colony; the punishment as high treason of any act prejudicial to the Queen's
right of possessing the necw land; and, for "those uttering words to the
Queen's dishonour, the penalty to be having their ears removed and their
ship and goods confiscated" (see, e.g., Keller et al., 1938).
The missionary played an essential role in the general process of ex;;,ropriation
and, subsequently, exploitation of aH the "new found lands" upon the
earth. As G. Williams puts it, if in many areas his presence "helped t~ soften
the harshness of European impact on the indigenous peoples w110se lands
were invaded and exploited," hif "fervour v,ras allied, rather than opposed to
commercial motive" (Williams, 1967:2.9).
The scramble for Africa in the nineteenth century took place in an atmosphere
of Christian revival: the age of Enllghtenment and its critidsm of
religion had ended. Coleridge's phrase, "the Bible finds you," was an apt one
for all Christians. In Catholic Europe, the First Vatican Council firmly
reorganized Catholicism, A group of distinguished prelates even reevaluated
the meaning of the so-called curse of Ham, hoping that "the interior of
Africa may participate in the solemn con1ing joy of the Church's triumph"
(Interior Africa solemnis gaudii proximi Ecde.siae triumphi particeps fiat)
(Bimwenyi, 1981:625-26). There was, besides, a general spirit of adventure
in the air (Rotberg, 1970; Betts, 1975). The European political and economic
rivalries were an incentive to action overseas. The success of men like
Cecil Rhodes reinforced the myth of an African treasure hm:se and appeaied
to young and ambitious potential colonists. Above all, scientific curiosity and
philamhropic objectives combined and confused the struggle against the
slav-e trade, geographic explorations, and mythologies about "poor savage
Africans" (H2mmond and Jablow, 1977).
Three major figures, from the fifteenth century to the end of the nineteenth,
determined modalities and the pace of maste:ring, colonizing, and
transforming the "Dark Continent": the explorer, the soldier, and the missionary
(Christopher, 1984). The explorer, at the end oithc fifteenth century,
The Power of Speech 47
was looking for a sea-route to India. Later on, he concerned himself with
mapping out the cominent and, in the nineteenth centu.ry, compiling information
and organizing complex bodies of knowledge, including medicine,
geography, and anthropology. The soldier constituted the most visible figure
of the expansion of European jurisdiction" He built castles and forts on the
coasts, was in charge of trading posts, participated in the slave-trade, and, in
rhe nineteenth century, implemented colonial power" Finally, there was the
missionary, whose objective has been, throughout the centuries, the most
consistent: to expand "the absoluteness of Christianity" and its virtues.
Of aH "these bearers of the African burden," the missionary was also,
paradoxicaHy, the best symbol of the colonial enterprise (see Kalu, 1977)" He
devoted himself sincerdy to the ideals of colonialism: the expansion of
Civilization, the dissemination of Christianity, and the advance of Progress.
Pringle's 1820 vision sums it up nicely:
Let us enter upon a new and nobler career of conquest. Let us subdue Savage
Africa by justice, by kindness, by the talisman of Christian truth. Let us thus
go forth, in the name and under the blessing of Goel, gradually to e-.A:tentdh e
moral influence ... the territorial boundary also of our colony, until it shall
become an Empire" (Hammond and Jablow, 1977:44)
Obviously, the missionary's objectives had to be co-extensive with his country's
political and cultural perspectives on colonization, as vvell as with the
Christian view of his mission" '¾.X/itehq ual enthusiasm, he served as an agent
of a political empire, a representative of a civilization, and an envoy of God"
There is no essential contradiction betvveen these roles. AH of them implied
the same purpose: the conversion of African minds and space. A. J"
Christopher rightly observes that "missionaries, possibly more than members
of other branches of the colonial establishment, aimed at the radical
transformation of indigenous society . " , They therefore sought, whether
consciously or unconsciously, the desuuction of pre-colonial societies and
their replacement by new Christian societies in the image of Europe"
(1984:83)0
One might consider that missionary speech is always predetermined, preregulated,
let us say colonized. It depends upon a normative discourse
already given, definitely fixed, dearly meant in "a vital connection between
Christianity and Western culture as a whole" (Dickson, 1984:33). Missionary
orthodox speech, even when imaginative or fanciful, evolved within the
framework of what, from now on, I shall call the authority of the truth. Thi.s
is God's desire for the conversinn of the world in terms of cultural and sociopolitical
regeneration, economic progress and spiritual salvation" This
means, at least, that the missionary does not enter into dialogue with pagans
and "savages" but must impose the law of God that he incarnates, AH of the
non-Christian cultures have to undergo a process of reduction to, or-in
missionary language-01 regeneration in, the norms that the missionary
The fovention of Africa
represents. This undertaking is perfectly logical: a person whose ideas and
mission come from and are sustained by God is rightly entitled to the use of
all possible means, even violence, to achieve his objectives. Consequently,
"African conversion," rather than being a positive outcome of a dialogueunthinkable
per se--,came to be the sole position i:he African could take in
order to s:urvive as a human being.
lin dealing v1ith this kind of general theory, we need models to refer to. I
propose to use three men: the seventeenth-century Italian Giovanni Francesco
Romano; the nineteenth-century African Samuel Ajayi. Crowi:her; and
the twentieth-century Belgian Placide Frans Tempels. These individuals were
neither the best of all missionaries, nor necessarily the most remarkable. Yet
one easily recognizes that each one, in his time, was an excellent example of
sound commitment to religious interests and imperial policy.
Giovanni E Romano, a missionar1 in the Congo from 1645 to 1654,
published in 1648 a report of fewer than one hundred pages on his voyage to,
and his sojourn in, that central African kingdom (Romano, 1648). He really
presents no reasons for supposing that the Congolese cannot understand the
Gospel's message. His conception of mission coincides with traditional
practice. It struck me that, as a missionary, he could have accomplished the
same t-Jpe of work with St. Boniface in Germany. He boasts of the number of
people converted, masses celebrated, sacraments given, churches erected, but
he cannot stand the presence of Dutch Protestants, those "enemies of the
Catholic faith," nemici delta Santa Fede Cattolica, who undermine the
impression of European grandeur and unity, Romano defines his own mission
as working "God's field" la Vigna del Signore, and "preaching God's
news" predicare la parola di Dia, to the "poor and pagan" Congolese, questi
gentili, quei poveri, etc. For a soldier of God, this does not e.xdude concern
for the privileges of rank and for the continuation of this friendly Christian
kingdom of Congo. Romano and his colleagues intervene in the conflict
between the Congolese monarch and one 0£ his rebel vassals, since a Christi.
an monarch is a treasure that must be preserved at any cost. About the
Catholic Congolese monarch Garcia H he wrote: "The devotion that His
Majesty has showed for our religion, convent and school is a praiseworthy
thing for eternitlj'' (Romano, 1648:37).
Romano's language is a language of orthodoxy, the expression of the Holy
Faith. Few derogatory words occur in his report. In his ethnographic description
of the kingdom, the African customs are neither curious nor bizarre
(Mudimbe-Boyi, 1977\ Except for the king and his courtiers, all the inhabitants
are poor and pagan people. This is not a paradox. Romano describes
an African version of a Christian European kingdom with its dukes, earls
and barons. With such a model, it is perfectly normal to observe a rigid
hierarchy determined by social status and position or, in terms of the
interpretation current in Romano's time, by God's will. The only major
difference between the model and its African expression appears in a metaphor
of colors-white versus black: "The natives of Congo are all of them
The Power of Speech 49
black, some more, some less. At birth, they are not black but white and then
gradually they become black" (Mudimbe-Boyi, 1977:375-83). At the heai"t
of Romano's conviction lies the desire for the universality of God's law. At the
same time he hopes to overcome Satan's presence in the African vigna delta
Christianita (field of Christianity) and promote the essenza della verita
(essence of truth).
The second model is Samuel Ajayi Crowther. Born about 1806, this
former slave and native of Yorubaland in Nigeria was educated at Fourah Bay
College (Sierra Leone) and in England. Ordained a minister in 1843 within
the Church Miss10nary Society, he became in 1864 the first Anglican bishop
of "the territories of Western Equatorial Africa beyond the Queen's Dominions."
An untiring missionary, he participated in several explorations, among
them the voyage that he related in his Journal of an Expedition Up the
Tshadda Rivers, published in I 8 5 5.
Crowther believed that Africa could regenerate herself without the help of
others (Meester, 19806:72; Sanneh, 1983:60-83). However, in presenting
his own experience, he tends to refer to contemporary classification of
"savages" and from this perspective builds his own project of converting his
African brethren to civilization and Christianity. About his r 8 5 4- Niger
expedition, for instance, Crowther recalls:
I asked whether the inhabitants of Gomkoi were Pagans or Mohammedans;
and was informed that they were all Pagans; that the males wore some sort of
cloth around their loins, but the females only a fow green leaves. On asking
whether they were cannibals, I was answered in the negative. (In Hammond
and Jablow, 1977:36)
What i.s interesting i.n this brief quotation is its classificatory implications, in
particular the characteristics selected: paganism, nakedness, and cannibalism.
Western-assimilated, Crowther intends to relate an ethnographic
case objectively, but he is very dearly describing the syndrome of savagery. As
D. Hammond and A. Jablow rightly put it:
The basic attitudes which arbitrarily relate these essentially unrelated
qualities-paganism, nakedness, cannibalism-are those which assign all
cultural differences to the single category of savagery; and one trait as it
distinguishes a savage from a European becomes an index to the existence of
the other traits which are part of the syndrome. (Hammond and Jablow,
1977:36-37)
In fact, far from making Crowther responsible for this syndrome, I am
inclined to look at him as expressing the signs of an episteme. He simply
shares a pervasive evoRutionary assumption, a tendency to see in Africans
only these indexed features and thus subsequently to indicate the necessity of
a regeneration through both a cultural and spiritual conversion (see figure 2).
The Invention of Africa
Figure 1 •• Ideological 1\fodd of Conversion: Colonial Rufo
Premises
Status Prl\mitiveness
Symbols Pagan (evil)
or
signs
Naked (child)
Cannibal (beast)
Method Anthropological
presuppositions
Mediators Aims
Conversion Civilization
Christianity Christian (good)
Education Civilized (adults)
Evolution "Evolue" (human being)
Missiology, Colonial
applied sciences
anthropology,
pedagogy
My third model is the Belgian Placide F. Tempels, a missionary in Central
Africa from 1933 to 1962 and author of Bantu Philosophy. Placide Tempds
was a very serious and careful student of Bantu culture, despite allegations to
the contrary made n-1.ainlyb y professional anthropologists and philosophers,
who are inclined to emphasize formal training as the sine qua non condition
of sound work Tempels had lived more than ten years among the Luba
Katanga people, sharing their language and culture when he decided to
publish his experiences (1979:3-25), Rather than as a philosophical treatise,
his Bantu Philosophy could be understood simultaneously as an indication
of religious insight, the expression of a cultural doubt about the supposed
backwardness of Africans, and a political manifesto for a new policy for
promoting "civilization" and Christianity, But this complexity is not what is
commonly discussed when specialists speak of Tempels's philosophy.
It must be remembered that Bantu Philosophy is based on very simple
ideas, They go like this. First, in all cultures, life and death determine human
behavior; or, presented differently, all human behavior depends upon a
system of general principles, Second, if the Bantu are human beings, there is
reason to seek the fundamentals of their beliefs and behavior, or thc;ir basic
philosophical system. From this position, Ternpds attempts "a tme estimate
of i.ndi.genous peoples," rejecting "the misunderstanding and fanaticism of
the ethnology of the past and of the former attitude of aversion entertained
Twith regard to them" (Possoz's preface in Tempels, 1959:13-15). This meant
questioning the classical doctrines about evangelization, civilization and
coloniz:1tion (Tempels, I 9 5 9: I 67-8 9 ).
These three models-Giovanni Francesco Romano, Samuel Ajayi
Crowther, and Placide Frans Tempels--signi.fy the authority of the truth, its
signs and discourse, 'vile can perceive in them an expression of a common
ideology. They are, all of them, people for whom commitment to God is
central. Concretely, they believe that they are the ones in charge of saving
The Power of Speech
Africa. This, for them, means the promotion of the ideals of Christian
civilization. Finally, they are secure in their knowledge of the correct means
for Africa's conversion. In brie~ they prove right M. de Certeau's observation
that "the credibility of a discourse is what first makes believers act in accord
with it. It produces practitioners" (Certeau, 1984:148).
In his evaluation of Christianity from an African point of view, EboussiBoulaga,
the philosopher from Cameroon, holds that in general missionary
discourse has always been presented as a discourse of philosophical reduction
and ideological intolerance:
Christianity is the inheritor of Greek reason and it is the continuation and the
achievement of the Judaic revelation. By these two traits it is the critic of the
falsehood of other religions and denounces their mythological character. Its
proper element is language and history, but not the obscure regions of the
cosmos nor of the imaginary. That is why it agrees with modernity and resists
better than other systems the corrosion of modernity, the disillusion of the
world in which it exists. (Eboussi-Boulaga, 19 8 r: 3 5)
Sharing this belief in the superiority of Christianity, expressed in its essential
qualifications, that is, its identification with reason, history, and power,
the missionary's discourse has, according to Eboussi-Boulaga, always presented
five major features. First of all, it is a language of derision, insofar as it
fundamentally ridicules the pagan's Gods. And one must not forget that
since its birth Christianity has appropriated for itself both the only way to
true communication with the divine and the only correct image of God and
God's magnificence. Second, it is a language of refutation or systematic
reduction: all pagan religions constitute the black side of a white transcendental
Christianity, and this metaphoric opposition of colors means the
opposition of evil and good, Satan and God. The third feature illuminates the
missionary's pragmatic objectives: his action is supported by a language of
demonstration, which reflects God's truth. In order to sustain his derision for
and refutation of non-Christian beliefs and practices, the missionary emphasizes
the Christian faith in terms of its historical coherence and transforming
virtues. Religious and biblical categories enter into the logic of his civilization,
thus making sacred a cultural model and giving it a divine seal.
Consequently, there is a fourth characteristic: the rule of Christian orthodoxy
which relates Faith to knowledge of the only Truth. This is the cornerstone
of the belief in the supremacy of the European experience, the
support of a fantastic set of principles. It accounts for the following major
principles: first, that the Christian characteristic resides in the quality of Faith
and not in moral grandeur; second, that it is Faith which promotes and gives
sense to ethics and not the contrary. The last trait of missionary discourse
relates to these two axioms and their theological significance: it is a language
that conforms to these vigorous axioms. Missionary speech and praxis prove
that no human enterprise can succeed as long as the true God is not
The Invention of Africa
acknovvledged. The Christian God's spirit appears, therefore, as history's
only force.
1 vvould prefer to simplify this analytical perspective of Eboussi-Boulaga's
into a simpler scheme, The missionar1 language of defision is basically a
cuhurni posjtion, the expression of an ethnocentric outlook. The aspects of
refutadon and demonstration rationalize the initial ethnocentric moment
and are aimed explicitly towards an intellectual reduction that v,rould complement
the mles of orthodoxy and conformity. Thus we have three moments,
rather than types, of violence in missionary language. Theoretically,
they are expressed in the concepts of derision, refutation-demonstration, and
orthodoxy-conformity.
Taking into account the missionary theology of salvation, and more precisely
the general policies of conversio gentium, it becomes dear that the
same violence is linked to the spiritual and cultural process of-conversion in
a hypostatic uni.on (see figure 3). AU missionaries, whatever their denominations,
operate according to the same canon of conversion.
Their language depends on three major types of data always considered a
given and taken for granted: premises, mediators, and objectives. All of them
tend to integrate cultural and religious aims, the mission being altogether
oriemed towards the culturd promotion and spiritual salvation of "savages."
Thus, for instance, C F. Romano's preaching of the Holy Faith to "these
needy" also implied involvement in political affairs to perpetuace a 'Western
Christian dependent polity iI'. Africa. Bishop Crowther was preoccu.pied with
both Christianization and 'JVesternization of "naked, cannibal, and pagan
primitives." Tempds stated his philosophy of civihzing Bantu people in this
way: "H the Bamu cannot be raised by a Christian civilization, they will not
be by any other" (1959:186).
The pertinent categories arise from a stru.ctural combination. On the one
hand, ethnographic commentaries on African peoples are arranged according
to tbe prm;pect of their possible conversion.; on the other hand, specific
socio-cultural symbols designate the passage from primitiveness to civilization,
An evolutionary thesis expresses the conversion from savagery and Satan's
dark1.1ess to the light of civilization and God's kingdom. The transformation
is sometimes described as the introduction or restoration of health in a sick
universe, the establishment of order in a world of disorder, madness, corruption,
and diabolical illusions (see Pirntte, 1973; Fernandez, 1979 ). In its
standard form, the process of conversion which is the path tc a "civitlized
liie" is presented as a gradual one: at the lowest level one finds primitives or
pagans; these, infected by the "will to become \~'esternized" become catechumens;
the zenith of their development is achieved when they become
Christians or "evolues," that is, V/estemized individuals. Accordingly, the
missionary's language presents rhree major approaches: derision of so-called
primitive religions and their gods, refutation and demonstration to convince
The Power of Speech 53
Figure 3. "fhe Missionary Theology of S;cihration
Premises
Status Primitiveness
Symbols Illness
Disorder
(madness, satanic
iliusions, and corrnption)
Darkness
Method Derision
Mediators
Conversion
to introduce
to restore
to establish
to promote
.Aims
Western Civilization and
Christianity
I-!ea!th
Order
(Christian models of faith
and behavior)
The Light of God and
Civilization
Demonstration Conformity
the evolving Africans, and imposition of rules of orthodoxy and conformity
for converts.
Quite inevitably the Christian faith has for many years ... been inextricably
bound up with this Western aggression . .But it has also to be admitted quite
frankly that during these cer.turies the missionaries of the Christian Church
have commonly assumed that 'iJVestern civilization and Christianity \Vere two
aspects of the same gift which they were commissioned to offer to the rest or
mankind. This assumption was sometimes quite conscious and was explicitly
stated. More often it was quite unconscious and would have been indignantly
denied. But in neither case are we called upon to judge our fathers. Their
sincerity can hardly be disputed. (Taylor, I 96 3: 5-6)
Fundamentally, an evoludonary assumption vvas expressed on the basis of
a dualistic anthropology (see J,Jgimbi-Nseka, 1979:10 and 18-19), As Benedict
XV put it in his encydic, Mctxir11umI llud (1919), missionaries must be
determined to oppose Satan and to bring salvation to the "poor people of
Africa victimized by evil forces." -Yei: one notes that Romano focused on
mediators and aims rather than on premises. And Tempels absolutely
doubted the classical process of conversion: he was not sure in the least that
assimilation constituted the best way, and he hated the "(;:volues," whom he
considered to be bad copies of Europeans. Moreover, he did not believe that
to Christianize meant to impose a "\;;Vesternp hilosophical anthropology
(Tempels, 1962). However, Tempels's position did not imply a complete
negation of the essential dualism but only indicated another type of guidance
for the promotion o.f orthodoxy and conformity. The emphasis he gave to
l\antu ontology, for example, means th:u he had faith in the possibility of
bringing about a "new Christian civilization" without destroying Bantu
values or their underlying major principles, the concept and reality of "vital
54 The Invention of i\frica
force" (set, e,g,, 1Viataczynski, 19 84 and Donders, 19 8 5 ), This outlook i.s
Siimply a new mmrmer of demonstrating and promoting the essence of orthodoxy,
the aim remaining dearly the same: "Christianity is the only possible
conslu11mation of the B:mtu ideal" (Tempels, 1959:186).
lempels is not alone in looking for nevv policies for integrating Christianity
into African cultures, and Ethiopian Christianity, .African Islam and
syncretic churches all over the continent witness to the vitaliiy of a process of
indigenization (Monteil, 1980; Sundkler, 1964; Barrett, 1968; Brenner,
1984). Kn the 1960s, Taylor detected three main ingredients in the African
challenge to Christianity: (a) Christian religion is "inherently ';ii/estern" and
"fails to correspond to the felt needs of Asia and Africa"; (b) This challenge
poses a radical question: "can the Christian faith nol: only prove its ability to
meet the deep human needs of our time but also make peoples of different
backgrounds feel at home in the new world?"; (c) "The Christian Church has
not yet faced the theological problem of 'co-existence' with other religions"
(Taylor 1963:6-8).
At any rate, the apparent success of Christianity is startling. After one
century of evangelizarion, the Christian community represents today some
forty-five percent of the population of the continent, Let us not,: that, according
to the World Bank (1984), the total population of sub-Saharan Africa,
which "rose from 270 :nillion in 1970 to 359 million in 1980, seems set to
double by the turn of the century and significantly more than triple by the
year 2020" (World Bank, 1984:26). \lVithin this frame, the Catholic church
has today some seventy-si1; minion members, Protestam denominations acknowledge
fifty million followers; the Ethiopian Coptic church, thirty million
members, 2nd some thousand autonomous local churches bring the
total Christian membership to roughly 200 miHion. When one keeps in mind
that, thrcugh conversion, and especially disproportionate population growth
(see \l.'/orld Bank, 1984:82-83), the Christian community gains between five
and s:x million new members each year, it becomes obvious that by the year
2000 Africa could have the largest concentration of Christians in the world
(Barrett, 1970; 1V1eester de Ravenstein, 198oa::u5; Donders, 1985:1, 30).
The trend is identical with the increase :n the number of ministers. A 198 5
Vatican statistical report shows that in Catholicism "the number of Diocesan
clergy is increasing in Africa, South America and Oceania," fa Central
America, the fig,~1rerse main "almost the sam::." In North America,, the rep01t
notes a "modest drop," and "the most notable reduction [is] found in
Europe." But the most significant shift is in the percentage of the world's
major seminarians produced by different parts or the world. In Africa it
jumped from 6.7 percent in 1973 to 10.7 percent in 1983, while in North
America it ciropped to 10.9 percent from 19.2 percent in the same period. In
Europe, the percent2.ge went down to 34.4 percent from 41.1 percent.
If European Catholicism seems to be aging dangerously, the dyrn:unism of
its African cmmterpart belongs either to a holy nightmare or, if one prefers,
to an incredible miracle: monasteries are being built; new religious moveThe
PovJer of Speech 55
ments, both activist and charisrnatic, are appearing and organizing themselves
successfully; there are not enough schools for potential catechists, nor
2re there sufficient convents for nuns. There is not enough room in seminaries
for candidates to the priesthood, yet despite the increase in vocation,
particularly in the cmmtries with the highest fertility rates--Kenya, Nigeria,
Tanzania, Za1re-the nmnber of priests is considered to be iow. According to
the Vatican statistical document menti.oned above, in 1983 Europe had 58.2
percent of the world's priests for 3 3. 3 percent orth e ,.;;rorld'sC atholics; l'forth
America had I 7" I percent of the world's priests for 7. 7 percerri: of its
Catholic:s; South Americ.1 had 8.4 percent of the world's priests for 28.1
percent of the world's Catholics; and Africa lhad 4.3 percern: of priests for
eight percent of the world's Catholics (see also Laurentin, 1977; Meester de
Ravenstein, 198oa:214). As to other Christian denominations, one notes
that, for example, the most populous Quaker community in the world lives
in the northern part of Kenya, and that it is in Uganda that one finds the most
statiscically important Anglican church in the world.
The question becomes: how really Christian is this converted Africa?
A. Hastings proposes a vague, prudent answer:
As regards Catholics and Anglicans, [the Christian] advance could probably
be charted in a mugh but not unreliable way by the decline in ecclesiastical
marriage rates. Its vast, amorphous mass of devotion, cult, beiie~ superstition,
new bonds of fellowship so often structured in ways that hardly accord with
the rules of Rome, Geneva or Canterbmy, may prove the most enduring
ecdesiastical legacy of this quarl:er century. (Hastings, 1979:27 4)
This evduation does not ansvFer the question, nor does it explain why
Christianirt seems so attractive. 1n his book on a Non-Bourgeois Theology,
(1985), Donders emphasizes the appeal of the mirade of God in Jesus and
the desire to be a memb":r of a new communitas or communion (see also
Oduyoye 1986:97-108). He also refers to a cultural reason: the necessity of
an anthropological conl!'ersion.
David Barret believes that one of the main reasons Africans are so attracted to
Christianity (and to Islam) is the community it offers" his his opinion that the
conversion movemen~ 2.t the grassroots level is due to the fact that Africans are
turning away from their local tribal religions because they see no "salvation" in
those organizations anymore. They want to belong to a larger human and
religious communit'j. (Donders, 1985:32)
fo, fact, this seems like Baeta's dassi.cal explanation: "the mission station was
no: merely a base for teaching the Christian d.iscipl.ine ... and for propagating
the Faith: it was also the pocket of [a] new invading civilization"
(1968:15).
In a critical analysis of African Christianity, de Meester de Ravenstein
nzmes three antinomies: the complexity of the African critique of ';J{?:estern
The Invention of Africa
Christianity, which implies the possibility of 21 zero degree of Christianiiy; the
diffic;,dty of bringing together African "traditional" values and the absolute
gratuity of God':s gifr; and the fondamental opposition ben-veen Christ's
religion :md the African's religious heritage (198oa:43-50). These evaluations
from knowledgeable observers dearly show the confusing reality of
African Christianity. Let us foHow its recent history.
Fro111t he 19 50s onward, new orientations appeared for the indigeni.zation
of the Church (Nyamliti, 1978; Hastings, 1979). Gradually; official policies
shifted from the initial step of adaptation, one that insisted on the Africani.zatio:
i of some e.xternal aspects (music, hymns, etc.), t0 an examination of the
content of Christianity ln an African setting. New premises established a
completel.y different perspective: the "pagan culture" is considered and analyzed
as an. abandoned field in 'Nhich Gcd's signs already exist (figure 4),
Thus, if there can be only one aim-Christianity-methods are arbitrary and
should be modified and adapted to circumstances and cultures (Taylor,
1963: 124). African intellectuals appealed "ta the Church to 'come to grips'
with traditional practices, and with the world view that these beliefs and
pracrices imply" (Hastings, 1979:119; see also Kalu, 1977).
The best illustrations of this carrent are Gravrand's Visage africain de
l'eglise (1962), Mulago's Un visage africain du christianisme (1965),
Bahoken's Clairieres metaphysiques africaines (1967), and Mbiti's New
Testament Eschatology in an African Bachground (1971). In these contributions,
the authors explicitly favor the search for Christianity's essential
message, one which would penetrate African ways of thinking and living. A
new vocabuLuy arises and, in principle, covers nevv forms of evangelization:
Africanization, indigenization, naturalization, ad2,ptation of Christianity,
Some theorists even speak of "indigenizing the Gospel" and "the Message"
CBimwenyi, 198rn:23:r). In Roman Catholic circles, the norms of the ne..v
policy are relatively wdl spelled out in two official documents of Plus XH;
Ev12ngelii Praecones (1951) and Fidei Donurn (1957).
VJhai: this ambivalem: vc,cabulary introduces and means is a progn:ssive
displacement of responsibili1y insofar as the future of Christianity is concerned
(see, e,g,, Chipenda, 1977 and Setiloane, 1977). Hitstorically; one can
refer to Des Pretres noirs s'interrogent (1956), a collection of black priests'
articles and a solidly nationalist reflection on Christianity, as the first explicit
manifestation of a new radical current. Ironically, it was during this period
that positive and sympathetic •contributions on African religions were produced
in anthropology. They include Deschamps's Les Religions d'A;frique
noire ( I 9 5 4 ), Parrinder's African Traditional Religion ( 1 9 5 4 ), and Witchcraft
(1558), Lienhardt's Divinity and Experience (1961), Van Caeneghein's
La Notion de Dieu chez les Ba!ubas du Kasai· (1956), Schebesta's Le Sens
religieu:c des primitifs (1963), Damann's Les religions de l'Alrique (1964, a
translation of his 1963 Die Religionen Afrilzas), and Africa,: Systems of
Thought edited by Fones and Dieterlen ( 196 5 ), }1.frican clergymen read these
books looking for ways of transforming traditional religion or, at least, of
The Power ol Speech 57
figure 4. The The Rligenization both at the durability of the founding arguments and at processes
purifying controversial assumptions in the field. I have read three rewarding
and ambitious contributions: 0. Nduka's brief essay on the implications of
African traditional systems of thought, which is based on a "critique of
principles of causation and the quality of the understanding of mechanical
and organic processes" (Nduka, 1974:97); Gyekye's note on the philosophical
relevance of Akan proverbs and the paradigm of the African proverb as
situational (Gyekye, 1975); and l\Tkombe's impressive work on paremiologic
symbols (1979). Using the logic of classes in order to des;cribe metaphors
and metonyms in Tetela proverbs, l'~kombe succeeds in two ways: first, he
makes an original contribution by demonstrating that it is possible to
reformulate the logic of classes in terms of the logic of propositions; second,
through this highly abstract exercise, he ana1yzes the originality of an African
culture in i.ts dual dimension----internal plenitude and aspiration towards
universality. A final example taken from a quite different source is
Horton's schema of common and contrasting features existing bet 0wee11 African
traditional thought and v(/estem science. At the end of his demonstration,
he writes: "Though K largely disagree with the way in v1hich the
'I'-Tegritude' theorists have characterized the differences betvvee.n traditional
Africaa and modern Westen-i. thought, when it gets to this point I see dearly
what they are after" (1981:170).
To sum up my position more theoretically, 1 would say that there i.s a
mutation which took place in the 1920s and vvhich explains both the
possibility and the pertinence of an African discourse on otherness, This
mutation signifies a new foundation for organizing a plurality of historical
memories within the frame of the same episteme. Thus, fundamentally, it
does not seem to m.atter whether Herskovits\, propositions on African
cultures, Vansina's methodological proposal on oral history, or Davidson's
contributions to }',frican history and Balandier's to African sociology created
or determined the emergence of a nevv spirit against a reigning trndition. It
does not mean either that, before the 1930s, no one thought of questioning
the grids through 'Which rhe Same displayed its kingship. R Blyden's thought,
)
The Power of Speech 81
which I shall look at carefully below, is, for instance, an annunciating sign of
the rupture. On the other hand, the very fact that in the 1930s and 1940s a
Collingwood could concern himself with the theme of reenacting the glory of
the Same by focusing on the documentary virtues of historical thought and
its means does not invalidate my thesis. On the contrary, it rather shows the
intellectual audacity of Herskovits or of Vansina, and its specificity as a
question about both philosophical and historical imagination. The articulation
of this mutation was already visible in the 1920s, and one of its most
apparent signs is the fragmentation of the notion of civilization (see, e.g.,
Braudel 1980:177-217). In the first quarter of this century, critical thinkers
like Blyden and Frobenius seemed to be simply transferring doxological
modalities from their own rationalizations of African experiences; the first
hypothesizing a black personality culture on the basis of the most controversial
racist recommendations, the second anxious to grant African social
formations the practicality of a classification of its culturally distinct features.
However, it seems clear that Blyden and Frobenius, however unknowingly,
participated in a larger epistemological shift. In the 1920s, this shift would,
among other things, reveal its presence through the appearance of ideologies
of existence, subjectivity, otherness, and interest in "oral philosophies" and
histories. Picasso and Cendrars's celebration of primitive imagination and
works, and Schmidt's description of the universal extension of an Urmonotheismus
were predicated upon this epistemological shift, which makes
them comprehensible.
The specific question of African culture is probably the best conceivable
illustration of this epistemological mutation. Within the framework of the
early twentieth-century epistemology, all discourses on alterity could only, as
Foucault suggested, be commentaries or exegeses on excluded areas: primitive
experience, pathological societies, or non-normal functionality, subsumed
by the Same defined and understood in terms of a biological model
from which determining terms-function, conflict, signification--emerge as
classifiers with the power of measuring the social, individual, or psychological
distance vis-a-vis the model (see Foucault, 1973:360). Anthropology, as
well as missionary studies of primitive philosophies, are then concerned with
the study of the distance from the Same to the Other. A reversal of categories
is more obvious in Schmidt's enterprise than in Malinowski's postulations.
The former, by the extension of diffusionist gradients and thus the universalization
of properties of the Same, was, despite his preconceptions, marking
the very possibility of a grid which, using new criteria-rule, norm, and
system-could eventually account for the universality and the particularity of
each cultural organization according to its own rationality and historical
strategies. And we have seen that the outcome of this problem in the 1950s
depends on a new manner of speaking about theodicies and cosmogonies,
which in their differences grant a regional coherence and at the same time
witness to properties of human mind and its universal potentialities. On the
other hand, the so-called relativist principles of Malinowski seem to be just
The Invention of Africa
sophisticated postulates which, coecretely, in the particularity of social formations
as radically autonomous bodies with respect to their fo11ctional
organization, negated cross-cultural influences, or at any rate the validity of
any comparative schema, i\/Lore important, 1v1alinowski enclosed the alterit\J
of social formations in their 0wn strictly limited otherness and dms very
clearly :mderlined the regional virtues of such paradigms as function, coniqict,
and signification. Thus it is no -.vond,~r that Malinowski's best creation
was applied anthropology, a technique for supposedly avoiding aberrant
mixtures of the Sanrne and the Other. The monstrosity is represented by a
mixture "symptomatic and symbolic of rnhure change: the shokian, the
famous concoction brev,red, retailed, and consumed in the notori.rn1s slum
yards of native South African locations . . . Anything vvhich quickly incn::
ased the alcoholic content 'I/Vasa dded; calciurn carbide, methylated spiiits,
tobacco, molasses and sugar, blue stone, are only a few examples" (.M:alinovvski,
1938:xxi). Independently from the significance of this violent symbol--
how can anyone, even an African., survive after drinking such a
poison?-•if we carefully look at the paradigms which produce Malinawski's
method and vvhich, essentially, are the same that guided applied anthropology,
we can state th2.t there is no epistemological rupture between
Levy-Bruhl's co!'mnents on prelogism and Malinowski's functionalism. All of
them, s,s wdl as Durkheim (one of the guiding stars of functionalism) work
at describing the reversed image of the Same through the models that impose
the notions of function, conflict, and signification. The real change, that is, a
reversal of grids, came later,
Yet we have to note a major difference between Levy-Bmhl and Malinov,
rski. The French philosopher is strictly concerned with the notion of
deviation ( ecart) and, timmgh a:1 exegesis of merits of the Same's function
and signification, he challenges the identity of human nature through time
and space. As everym1e knovl/s, Levy-Bmhl was haunted by Tylor's theory
about animism and Comte's Loi des trois hats. He used "primitives" as an
opportunity for distinguishing both tbe logical and the historical distance
that separates the homogeneous experience of the Same from the heterogeneity
and prelogicaJ character of the Other. Malinowski, in contrast, was
more imaginative, despite the fact that he belie-ved, as Levy-Bruhl did, that
hEmans can be mere objects of science. He substituted the concept of an
organic function of a social system for the determinis:m of the passage from
prdogic to logical knovvledge, In doing so, MaHnowski was promoting a
radical possibility, that of u.sing and referring to such conceptual tools as
autonomous rule, social norm, and the epistemology and singularity of
regional cultural systems.
It becorn.es dearer that the voices which, from the 1920s to the r95os
spoke against the historicity of the Same and its scientism do indeed repudiate
anthropological policies and researches that are "anti-historical" insofar
as Afri.can communities are concerned. Particularly, they oppose the political
processes of acculturation (see V-/allerstein, :t983), Jn order to escape thes,c
The Power of Speech
ideological limits, some of the participants prudently or boldiy chose w
claim that everything in human experience was simultaneously both culture
and history. They were just inferring lessons of an epistemological mutation
from the margins of Malinovvski's outlook. In effect, this rupture has led
from an indecent curiosity about the mysteriousness of rhe Orher to
P. Veyne's statement (to which Herskovits, Levi-Strauss, Vansina, Ajayi, or
Cheikh Anta Diop could have subscribed): "the Romans existed in a manner
just as exotic and just as ordinary as the Tibetans or the Nambibvara, for
example, neither more nor less; so that it becomes impossible to continue to
consider them as a sort of value-standard" (in Ricoeur, 1984:4.3).
The Panacea of Otherm:ss
J.-P. Sartre as an African Philosopher
Apes ... descend from men? Some of us
thought so; but it is not exactly that. Apes and
men are two separate branches that have
evolved from a point in common but in
different directions ...
P. BoULLE, Planet of the Apes.
Up to the 1920s, the entire framework of African social studies was
consistent with the rntionale of an epistemological field and its sociopoHtical
expressions of conquest. Even those social realities, such as art, languages, or
oral literature, which might have constituted an introduction to otherness,
were repressed in support of theories of sameness. Socially, they were tools
strengthening a new organization of power and its political methods of
reduction, namely, assimilation or indirect rule. V'/ithin this context,
negritude, a student movement that emerged in the 1930s in Paris, is a
literary coterie despite i.ts political implications. Besides, these young menAime
Cesaire, Leon Damas, Leopold Senghor--mostly used poetry to explore
and speak about their difference as blacks (Blair, I 976: 14 3-51; Kesteloot,
19 6 5 ),
his Sartre who in 1948 with his essay, Blac.k Orpheus, an introduction to
. Senghor's Anthology of New Negro and Malagasy Poetry, transformed
negritude into a major political event and a philosophical criticism of
colonialism, However, everyone would agree that the Indian criticism of
colonialism, beginning in the 1920s, and the growing influence of Marxism
from the 1930s onwards opened a new era and made way for the possibility
of ne,v i-ypes of discourses, v,-hich from the coloniai perspective v,ere both
absurd and abhorrent. The most original include the negritude movement,
the fifth Pan-African Conference and the creation of Presence Africaine.
Eventually, these signs of an African vvill for power led to political ZJ.nd
The fovention of ltfrica
intellectual confrontations (Conferences of Bandung, P:His, and Rome). !n
the 19 5 os, one also witnessed a radical criticism of anthropology and its
inherenc preoorn:epti.ons of non-Western cultures. Since then, a stimulating
debate about the African significance of social sciences and humanities has
taken place,
In his foreword to Senghor's anthology, J.-P. Sartre made the voices of
negritude widely known. But what an ambiguity in raising the French
existentialist to the rank of philosopher of negritude! The resources and
promise of a young ideology devoting itself to the needs of a self-rediscovery
were to be cast into a very critical but somehow stultifying mold. In Black
Orpheus, Sartre presents n1eans for a struggle against the dominant ideology
and affirms the right of Africans to fashion a new mode of thought, of
speech, and of life. ~/hat he proposes is much more than a brilliant game of
opposites (with which Senghor might have been satisfied). "Today, these
black n1en have fixed their gaze upon us and our gaze is thrown back in our
eyes; black torches, in their turn, light the world and our white heads are
only sma.11 lanterns balanced in the wind" (1976:7-8). Sartre goes further,
With passion, he sets up paradigms that would allow the colonized black to
assume control of a self (see Jeanson, 1949). "It is the efficiency alone which
counts." "The oppressed class must first take conscience of itself." "This
taking of conscience is exactly the opposite of a redescent into one's sdf; it
has to do here with a recognition in and action of the objective situation of
the proletariat." "A Jew, white among white men, can deny that he is a Jew,
can declare himself a man among men. The Negro cannot deay that he is
Negro nor claim for himself this abstract uncolored humaniiy." Sartre even
specifies the exact significance of the Negro's revolt:
The Negro who vindicates his negritude in a revolutionary movement places
himself, then and there, upon the terrain of Reflection, whether he wishes to
rediscover in himself certain objective traits growing out of African civilization,
or hopes to find the black Essence in the wells of his souL (Sartre,
1976:17)
The negritude which he thus affirms and celebrates is simultaneously the
"triumph of J',Tarcissism and suicide of Narcissus, tension of the sou1 outside
of its culture, words and every psychic fact, luminous night of non-knowledge."
Immediately after this celebration, he warns that negritude can neither
be sufficient nor must it live forever. It is made to be negated, to be exceeded.
Among the ruins of the colonial era, its singers must again rework songs,
reformulate their myths, and submit them to the service and to the need of
the revolution of the proletariat.
It could be said of Black Orpheus that while correcting the potential
theoretical excesses of the ideology of negritude, it did so in a high-handed
manner, thwarting other possible orientations cf the movement. At the same
time, it subjugated. the militants' genercsity of heart and mind to the fervour
of a political philosophy. Sartre, in the 1940s and early 1950s, was promotThe
Power of S;/Jeech
ing, in the name of commitment, the moral demand of choosing political
sides. A substantial part of Being and Nothingness is devoted to the tension
between the for itself (pour-soi) and for others (potu--autrui). 1',Jow Sartre
dedicated himself to the analysis of the concrete consequences of this dialecric
as iHustrated by colonial syst,ems (Sartre, 1956). It was i:o the credit of
Senghor that he was not stifled by the peremptory arguments and the vision
of this first theoretician of negrimde whom he had aroused: he had asked
Sartre for a doak to celebrate negritude; he was given a shroud.
Nevertheless, Blade Orpheus is a major ideological moment, perhaps one
of the most important. h displays both the potentialities of Marxist revolution
and the negation of colonialism and racism: "The Negro," states Sartre,
"creates an anti-racist racism. He does not at all 'Nish to dominate the world;
he wishes the abolition of racial privileges wherever they are found; he
affirms his solidarity with the oppressed of aU colorn. At a blow the subjective,
existential, ethnic notion of Negritude passes as Hegel would say, into
the objective, positive, exact notion of the proletariat" ( r 976: 5 9 ). What
Sartre did was to impose philosophically the political dimension of a negativity
in the colonial history. This was a compeUing task for Africans. By
emphasizing the relativity and the sins of \Y/estern expansionism, he gave
meaning and credibility to all signs of opposition to colonialism and called
for a new understanding of the significance of violence in the colonies. Thus,
Pan-African Conferences, Gandhi's noncooperation movement, and the NeoDestur
party emerging in Tunisia would appear to have a dialectical and
positive portent for the future: they could influence the lives of the colonized
and, also fundamentally, provide the possibility of new societies.
The change from colonized to independent, from rule by divine right to
liberation, may not seem to have any relation to anthropology in particular
or African social studies in general. In fact, it does. First, Black Orpheus was
in large measure responsibl.e for the blossoming in Francophone Africa of the
negritu.de literature of the 1950s (Blair, 1976; Wauthier, 1964). A litterature
engagee, a highly political literature, put forward Sartre's basic positions
concerning African spiritual and political autonomy. This new generation of
writers born bet\:11een 1910 and 19:w includes Cheikh Anta Diop, Bernard
Dadi,~, Rene Depestre, Frantz Fanon, Keita Fodeba, Camara Laye, and Ferdinand
Oyono, among others. Second, black intellectuals, particularly Francophones,
read Sartre, discussed his anticolonialist positions and, generally
speaking, upheld them. Fanon disagrees with Sartre yet offers a good example
of his impact. In his Peau noire, masques blancs, fanon accuses Sartre of
treason, for fanon does not believe that "Negritude is dedicated to its own
destruction." Some years later, in Les Damnes de la terre, the 'Xlest Indian
theorist firmly applies Sartre's dialectical principle and bluntly states: "there
wiH not be a Black culture," "the Black problem is a political one."
On the other hand, there is a connection between this black litterature
engagee and the African ideology of otherness. In Black Orpheus Sartre
proposes a Marxist paradigm. The founders of negritude do not disagree
86 The fovention of Afri,ca
with him on this point, Some 'V/est Indians, for instance Aime Cesaire,
Etienne Lem, JuLes Monnerot, and Jacques f{omnain, have been at one tin1.e
or another E1embers of the Communist Party. 1Vfamadou Dia, Alioune Diop,
Birago Diop, Jacques Rabemananjara, and Senghor are rather critical of
communism, eve~1 when, as in the case oi Senghor, they are socialists. For
them communism is merely (as Sartre defined it) a t.ravding companion,
They question the overemphasis on the fate of rhe international proletariat
and wish to determine a strategy for promoting the individuality of 1':..frican
culture. As opposed to Marx's rigid interpretation of the relations berween
values and peoples' aspirations in society, they look: for ways of reinventing a
sociohistoric foundation for independent African societies (Senghor, 1962).
Thus the basic premise of the African ideology of otherness: history is myth.
lis Sartre really the inspired guide of this revolution? Let us say that Sartre,
philosopher in partibus of negritude--or, figuratively, Sartre as "Negro philos:
opher"-is a symboL Since the 192.os, writers like R.1v1aran, A. Gide, or
M. Sauvage had criticized the colonial enterprise. In anthropology, scholars
such as Maurice Delafosse, Leo Frobenius, J\ilarcel Griaule, and Theodore
Monod had offered positive views of Africa!" social regimes. And in 19,1,7, we
found grouped around the press and journal, "Presence Africaine" and its
founder, Alioune Diop, a significant number of French intellectuals. Georges
BaLmdier, Albert Camus, Emmanuel Mounier, Paul Rivet, Gide, and
Monod, for example, affirm the polii:i.cal and cuh:urali implications of the
mythical character of colonial history (Rabemananjara, s.d.:24). But Sartre
established a cardinal synthesis. By rejecting both che colonial rationale and
the set of culturally eternal. values as bases for society, his brief treatise posited
philosophically 2 relativist perspective for African social studies.
Sartre did not necessarily influence George Balandier or Joseph Ki-Zerbo
nor does he guide all Africa~1 thinkers. Nevertheless, his i.nsight5 illuminated
the trends and preoccupations of African scholarship" His path to liberation
meant a new epistemological configuration under the sovereignty of dialectical
reason (Jean.son, I 949 ). It is from his interpretation, rather than from
communism, that the two characteristics of present-day African social studies
presented by Copans (x97ra) make sense: on the one hand, a radical
criticism of imperialism and, on the other, a "Marxist revival" which, in
effect, has taken hold of the whole theoretical domain of African studies.
Despite the importance of the negritude rnovement, very little attention has
been given to the relationships between its textual organization, its sources,
and its expressions (Melone, 1962). •We have known, for instance, ;:hat
negritTt1de was a French invention but not how essentially French it vvas
(Adotevi, 1972). We have been told that the negritude literature appears
unified, but its structure and spirit are more in keeping with European
sources than with immediately visible African themes (Gerard, 1964; Bastide,
1961). Hauser's voluminous book (1982) deals with these issues and is
probably the n1ost complete study to date on the negritude movement. The
value of this work does not lie in any new discovery but in the manner in
The .Power of Speech
which it addresses the issues of negritude's significance and objectives,
According to Sartre, negritude signifies, fundamentally, tension between the
black man's past and future. Thus ii: must always be ready to redefine itself.
As Hauser says, it clothes itself in mythical forms offering its meaning as a
mot de passe and its philosophy as an inversion and a reversal of '\JVestern
theses. The result is a paradox: "Poets for the Blacks, the men of the
Negritude movement vvere read by '\Whites; Poets of the present, they are
perceived in Africa as poets of the past" (Hauser, 1982.::2,1;.1). While a literary
language., negritude's content reveals an ideological system and even, according
to Sartre, "a revollltionary project." It comments upon a
Weltanschauung, interprets a given world, unveils the universe (dire le
monde), and gives a significance w it (signifier le monde) (Melone, 1562;
Diakhate, 1965), JBut at the same time, because it is an ideological discourse,
negritude daims to be a key to a nevv understanding of history, And thus the
problen1 of the political and cultural responsibility of the negritude movement
(Senghor, 1964) appears as a responsibility ·which Hauser considers
ambiguous, Insofar as negritude's political position is concerned, Hauser
states that negritude has not been a revolutionary movement nor even, with
the exception of Cesaire, a movement of revolt (Hauser, 1982:4-4-3). Moreover,
in relation to its conditions of possibiHti;; negritude stands as the result
of multiple influences: the Bible, anthropologists' books, and French intdlectual
schools (symbolism, romanticism, surreal.ism, etc.), literary legacies, and
literary models (Baudelaire, Lautreamont, Rimbaud, Mallarme, Valery,
Claude!, St, John Perse, ApoHinaire, etc.), Hauser presents multiple proofs of
the \Y/estern souc:oes of negritude and seriously doubts its African authenticity
(Hauser, 1982:533),
It becomes imm.ediately apparent from these internal contradicti.ons of
negritude chat Sartre's proposition on the deadlock of the movement makes
tremendous sense, Unless understood as metaphors, the signs of otherness
that negritude might have promoted in literature, philosophy, history, or
social science, seem to refer to techniques of ideological manipulation.
R Depestre forcefully points this out,
The original 5in of negritude-and the adventures that destroyed its initial
project--come from the spirit rhat made it possible: anthropology, The crisis
that destroyed negritude coincides with the winds that blow across the fields in
vvhich anthropology-be it cultural, social, applied, structural-with black or
white masks, is used to carqing out its learned inquiries. (Depestre, 1980:83)
ldeologies fur Otherness
In the wake of negritude, but also running paraHel to it or even against it,
is the affirmation of African political thought. It aimed initialJy ,1t recognizing
the black personality (la personalite negre) and obtaining certain sociopolitical
rights (W/authier, 1964). Only later, in the 1950s, did it really
88 The invention of Africa
serre projects for African independence (Coquery-Vidrovitch, 1974). It is
commonplace to see in it one of the important elements of African na 0
tionalis0. The orher is resistance co colonialism, whether passive or violent.
It is notevvmthy that its most distinguished promoters are drawn from among
those first and best assimilated to Western culture and thoughto Further, one
almost senses that i:hese 'l;xlesternized Africans resented the need to retura to
rheir own sources and to state the right to be different ( see Kesteloot, 19 6 5;
Wauthier, 1964; Dieng, 1983\
To consider this awakening as a special turning point in the history of the
\Vest is nof, in any case, to disqualify it. In I 9 5 7, Nkrumah published his
autobiography, in which h,c: explained to what extent he had been influenced
by communist and socialist v1ritings, Black American political theories
(particularly 11/farcus Garvey's Philosophy c;nd Opinions), and Padmore's
vievv on Pan-Africanismo He also wrote that he learned much from Hannibal,
Cromwell, Napoleon, Mazzini, Gandhi, Mussolini, and Hitler. Senghor
(1962) aRso presented his own orientation, writing in first-person plural to
indude his friends, the co-founders of the negritude movement. If they
believed in affirming their difference, it was, according to him, because of
;mthropologists and Black Americans. Also, in the period between the two
wars they were privileged witnesses of the crisis of Western values. lvforeover,
their recent discovery of 1V1arx gave them reasons for utopian dreams.
Senghor's explanation is plausible. Up to the 1960s, anthropology, Black
American ideology, and Marxism had a significant impact on the African
intelligentsia. For the sake of brevity, let us mention as important points of
reference rhree major types of contributions which gradually changed colomial
thinking and practice. First, there were anthropological ano missionary
commitments to African values: for instance, Schmidt's enterprise in the
r93os, and Tempels's, Griaule's, and Danquah's studies in the 1940s. In
addition, contributions from African scholars such as Mulago ( I 9 5 5 ), and
Kagame (1956), promoted the concept of African theodicy or of signs of a
natural religion. They all established African religions as particular and
original experi,ences of a universal wisdom or philosophy. Second, there was
intervention by some "Western sociologists and historians. Raymond
Michelet in his African Empires and Civilizations ( 194 5) and :Basil Davidson
and Georges Bdandier in their numerous publications opposed widely accepted
conceptions of "living fossils" or "frozen societies," Third, there was
the '\rwakening" of African intellectuals who began to speak abou,t their past
and their culture and attacked, or at least interrogated, colonialism and its
basic principles (Dieng, 1979; Guisse, 1979).
This ideological rupture sounds sincere and quite probably was in the
mi!1ds of scholars who participated in it. Yet, it is a magnificent paradox, an
almost iUusory sacrifice of applied anthropologyo It is based on two fragile
principles: a methodological reversal and an inteHectual discontinuinJ in
African social studies. In their application, rather than opening up a new
realm, these principles helped to confuse prospects for otherness and the
The Power of Speech
significance of this concept. The significance belongs to the studied Other
and is re,realed to perception and given to understanding through the reality
of a concrete experience. As to the discourse on this significance, it is always
a project and a transcendenr idea which cannot be reduced to a mental
apprehension, To teach, as did Danquah, Davidson, Michelet, or l\Aulago,
that there are, in Africa, organized social stmctures, sophisticated systems of
rdati.ons of production, 2nd highly complex universes of belief, is to express
pmpositions 'which can be tested. To add commentaries or exegeses on black
cultures which are essentially mystical, religious, and sensuous, is to decipher
a possibly controversial myth and, at any rate, to elaborate on v.rhat is
not the immanent significance of the object studied,
The anthropologist did not seem to respect the irnmanence of human
experience and went on to organize, at scientific expense, methods and ways
of ideological reduction: concrete social experiences were looked at and
interpreted from the normativity of a political discourse and its initiatives.
With a Michelet and a Herskovits, the forming of new ideological perspectives
in the field produced a reversal: African experiences, attitudes, and
mentalities became mirrors of a spiritual and cultural richness. There is no
mystery, nor scandal in this, if we agree that we are dealing with discourses
bearing upon human experience and accounted for by an episteme. K should
also make it dear again that we are not concerned with evaluating the ethical
value of discourses, but only with designating a genealogy of knowledge,
1\1ichelet's, Davidson's, Balandier's or Mulago's studies do not transform the
heart of the object matter, but rather reverse, as Sartre did philosophicaHy, a
method of narrntion and the techniques of describing the object. A shift has
occurred. A nevv anthropology has, silently but powerfully, put in place its
basic norms, namely respectability and internal coherence for African systems
and experience, as well as rules for their progressive integration into
modernity.
One may observe this gradual. change in some representative domains:
anthropology, history, and political thinking. In anthropology, studies of
traditional laws were carried out by A. Ajisafe, The Laws and Customs of
the Yoruba People (1924-), and J. B, Danquah, Akan Laws and Customs
(1928). Analyses of African customs were published; for example, D. Delobson's,
Les secrets des sorciers noirs (1934), I\/L Quenum's, .Au Pays des Fons:
us et coutumes du Dahomey (1938), J, Kenyatta's, Facing Mount Kenya
(1938), J.B. Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of Goel ([1944] 1968), and the
exce!Jent researches of :IC A. Eusia and P. Hazoume, respectively, The Position
of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti ( r 9 5 r) a:nd Le
pacte du sang au Dahomey ( [ r 9 3 7] r 9 5 6). In the field of history, the most
prominent contributions to African nationalism were J. C. de GraftJohnson's
African Glory: The Story of Vanished Negro Civilizations (1954)
and Cheikh Anta Diop's, Nations negres et culture (1954), in vvhich he
analyses the notion of Hamites and the connections between Egyptian and
African languages and civilizations.
The Invention of Jl,.frica
h vlas i.n the poliii:ic2.le ssays drnt a clearly progressive awakening gradually
affirmed the principles of African nationalism and international integration.
Kn Towards Nationhood in West Af·rica (1928), J. W. de Graft-Johnson still
envisz.ged the future af West Africa in terms of the British Empire. But nine
years later, 'YI. Azikiwe, in Renascent Africa (1937), was more critical of
\'!Vestem colonial programs. He emphasized the fact that the "renascent
African'' must know that his ancestors "made definite contributions to
history" and he condemned im.perialism and militarism. lvfajor essays too~(
into account the resolution of the Fifth Pan-African Congress of Manchester
(1945) which stated: "we demand for Blade Africa autonomy and independence,"
a central theme i.n Nkrumah's Towards Colonial Freedom (1947),
Cesaire's Discours sur le colonialisme (1950), and fanon's Peau noire,
masques blancs (1952). For a rnunber of African intellectuals, i:hese v,orks
have been, and probably stiH are, major sources for their cultural autonomy.
fo her doctoral dissertation (1965), L Kesteloot provided a brief history of
the contacts w:ith Black Americans that contributed to the awakening of the
consciousness of Africans (see also Shepperson, 1960). L G. Damas, just
before his death in 1978, strongly confirmed this thesis vvith reference to the
contributions of Y/J. E. B, DuBois, Langston Hughes, Carter Woodson,
Countee Cullen, and, in particular, J\1ercer Cook, all of whom he considered
links between Black Americans and Africans (Damas, 1979:2,p-54). To
these names, Senghor adds Claude MacKay and Richard \Vright (Senghor,
r962).
It i.s difficult to say with certainty to i.vhat extent the ideological commitment
of Black Americans made an impact on the African intelligentsia. It
converged with the influence of the llviarxist movement and particularly with
that of the French Communist Party which, before World War H, was the
force best organized to fight openly for the black man's cause. A number or
Francophone black inteHectuals became communists, including Cesai.re, J.
Romnain, E. Lero, and J. S. Alexis. Others, like Nkrumah, Nyerere, and
Senghor, allied themselves with socialist ideological principles. In any case,
the association ''Nith Black Ameri.cms strongly influenced the critical views of
bfack Africans v1ith respect to the crisis of Western values. h also revealed
differences in the sociohistorical conditions of both. Opposition had already
appeared at i:he Second Pan-African Congress, in 1921, held successively in
London (August 28), Brussels (August 2,9-September 2), and Paris (September
3 and 5 ). Surveying the history of the black race, DuBois had, to Blaise
Diagne's great surprise, pleaded for the principle of the separation of races
and of separate evolution. But Diagne imposed on the assembly the ethnological
point of view that "the Black and the colored people were capable
of progressive development which would aHow [ them 1 to reach the advanced
state ot otiher races" (Bontinck, 1980:604-605).
Nevertheless, the greatest influence on African thought from the 1930s to
the 1950s was lVfarxism. Significant examples of its impact are the 1warm
support that Sartre gave to the negritude movement in 1948 with his essay,
The Power of S;tJeech 91
Biack Orpheus, the publication by Aim§ Cesaire of Dfrcours sur le coloniaiisrne
in 1950, and the meeting at the Sorbonne, in 1956, of the Flrst
International Congress of Black 1JVriter:sa rid Artists,
That same year some black intellectuals stated publicly that they wished
that Marxism could promote their cause, and not only the reverse. In frustration,
Cesaire ( 19 5 6) left the French Communist Party. During the Sorbonne
meeting, lVlarxism was at the center of the debate. A critical distance was
therefore suggested, without entailing total rejection. A.s A. Ly ,ivould say,
"the blind refusal of Marxism would be as cibsurd as a total alienation ~o the
Iviarxist system would be fatal for the evolution of humankind" ( I 9 5 6),
Though expressed differendy, it is this spirit that dominated the debates
during the first meeting of nonaligned nationaHsts in Bandung. Ultimately,
the principle of nonalignment would be projected in politics.
En literature (see Jahn, 1968), this position is expressed in three msjor
wsys: first, in terms of domestication of political pov,er (E. Mphahlele,
Mongo Beti, and Sembene Ousmane); second, in a criticism of colonial life
(Chinua Achebe, D. Chra:ibi, E Oyono); and third, in the celebration of the
African sources of Hfe (A, Loba, A Sefrioui, Cheikh Hamidou Kane).
h is noteworthy that a number of political leaders who came to power in
independent l'l.frica declared themselves pro-Marxist or socialist or, in some
cases, defined ways of indigenizing socialisr11. Socialists or not, the African
heads of state, :attempting to link thought to action, have published r111Tch,
perhaps too much. hi the late I 9 50s, one o1 the most prestigious leaders,
Ahmed Sekou Toure, dared to refuse the progressive route to political autonomy
proposed by France. In 19 5 9, he published n10re tha.11 a thousand pages
on his socialist prcjects for the devdopment of Guinea ,md the promotion of
Africa (1959a, 19596, 1959c). Aime Cesaire celebrated this "courageous"
and "dynamic" thought (1959-1960). lin its inspiration, as in. its perspectives,
it is dose to that of Nkruniah. 'With the translation 0£ his autobiography,
Nkrumah's influence, alread1y immense in Anglophone Africa, can'le to
French-speaking countries in 1960. His work met increasing favor, whose
highest point was the welcome given to his Consciencism. In thi.s work, as in
others, Nkrumah incorporated! fidelity to Marxism into the cause of decolonization
and the struggle aga_inst imperialism. His friend Patrice
Lumumba had neither the time to clarify his thought nor to refine his essays
(1963) which appeared after his death. Sartre again put his talent to the
service of }_frican nationalism by introducing J. Van Lierde's book on
Lmnumba's political philosophy (Van U.erde, 1963).
NPmerous other leaders expounded their points of vievv on the complex
problems of independent Africa. The major issues concern the management
of the State as vveH as the means for economic liberation. Such leaders include
Ahidjo in Cameroon (196.4, 1969), Badian in Mali (1964), 1Vfamadou Dia in
Senegal (1957, 1960), and Kanza in the Belgian Congo (1959a, 1959b).
Nyerere in Tanzania has promoted ujamaa (communalism) (1968a) and
11.1:t." ,Tgouabi (Congo) insisted on the necessity of applying scientific soThe
Invention of Africa
cialism (1975). But the paths taken in politics, yrhen they have not Led to
bitter failure, have often caused serious problems. \Vhen permitted., political
reaction surfaced. In any case, diHeren-:: scho:.,ls 0£ thought have arisen;
hence, for exa.mple, the satire and the polemics found in D. Evvande's
rr:.ockery of the Negro State (1968). These schools of thought were asserted in
cathartic terms, especially in fiction in the I 970s, through attacks on the
incompetence anc'. the abuses of the ne1N African administrators. The thene
of ruthless colonial exploitation is replaced by an 0riginal sociopoHtical
subject: "we are, in the main, to blame for our misfortunes" (Casteran and
LangeHier, 1978; Pomonti, 1979). There is a proliferation of examples in the
literary works of Kwei Armah, Kofi Awoonor, Cameron Duodu, Ahrnadou
Kouromrna, Tierno j\fonenembo, Ngugi wa Thiongo, and Tati-Loutard.
l\farx Africanized
The political image of Africa after I 96 5 is indeed distressing. Authoritarian
regimes ha¥e multiplied, rules and norms of democracy have been
flouted or rejected (see Gutkind and 'JC!allerstein1,9 76; O'Meara and Carter,
1986). Political dictatorships have been imposed. Some charismatic leaders
have vanished into obscurity. Toure was isolated in his dictatorship and
Nkrumah, challenged and insulted, died in exile (Powell, 1984). Senghor
remained a model. Yet he chose to remove IVfamadou Dia, his opponent,
whose economic ideas were considered in the 1960s to be a necessary
complement to Senghor's metaphysics of negritudeo He did this to guar;mtee
security for the African path to socialism (Kacha1na-Nk:oy, 1963). Covered
with honors, but criticized ;more and more by the new generation, Senghor
struggled to make aU his v,orks accessible (1964, 1971, 1977, 1983). At the
same time he continued, against aH opposition, to define negritude as a value
of dialogue and of openness andi to clarify his humanist choices for socialist
politics and for aa economy based on an African reading of Marx (1976a).
Nyerere, in these years, also appears as one of the more credible political
thinkers.
Despite the crucial problems of its adaptation to the African context,
socialism seemed the most fashionable docrrine. Its best known proponents
are Fanon, Senghor and Nyerere. The VVest In.dian Frantz fanon, a solid
lVfarxist, but also a good student of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and
Sartre, expressed his commitment to the African revolution in Peau noire,
masques bianc.s (1952), Les Damnes de la terre (1962), and Pour la revolution
Africaine (1969). His cmnmitment is based on a concrete understanding
of the Hegelian dialectic. The alienation caused by colonialism constitutes
the thesis, the African ideologies of otherness (black personality and
negritude), the antithesis, and political liberation should be the synthesis.
The similarity with Sartre's analysis in Black Orpheus is striking. But Fanon,
who was probably more concerned with detaiis and practical contradictions
because he knew them better, had come from a "colony," was hin1self black,
The Power of Speech 93
and participated actively in the Aigerian revolution, fo contrast to Sartre, he
could address a vvider range of problems.
The alienation of colonialism entails both the objective fact of total dependeP..
ce (economic, political, cultural, and religious) and the subjective process
of the sel!i-victirnizati.on of the dominated. The colonized in:::ernalizes the
imposed racial stereotypes, particularly in attitudes towards technology~
culture, znd language. Black personality and negritude appear as the only
means of negating this thesis, and Fanon expounds the antithesis in terms of
antiracist symbols. Negritude becomes the intellectual and emotional sign of
opposition to the ideology of white superioriv;. At the same time, it asserts
an authenticity which eventually expresses itself as a radical negation: rejection
of racial humiliation, rebellion against the rationality of domination,
and revolt against the whole colonialist system. This symbolic violence
ultimately turns into nationalism and subsequently leads to a political struggle
for liberation, The synthesis is the conjunction of, on the one side,
"national consciousness" and "political praxis," and, on the other, the
contradictions created by existing social dasses: national bourgeoisie, proletariat,
underproletariat, and peasantry.
'7/hereas Fanon distinguishes the analysis of a struggle for liberation (first
phase) from the promotion of socialism (second phase) Senghor tends to
define African socialism as just a stage in a complex process beginning with
negritude and oriented towards a universal civilization. He emphasizes ::hree
major moments: negritude, 11/farxism, and universal civilization.
(a) Negritude is "the warmth" of being, living, and participating in a
natural, social, and spiritual harmony. h also means assuming some basic
political positions: that colonialism has depersonalized Africans and that
therefore the end of colonialism should promote the seH-fulfillment of Afric:
ms. Thus, negritude is simultaneously an existential thesis (l am what I
have decided to be) and a political enterprise. fr also signifies a political
choice: among European n1cthods, socialism seems the most useful for both
cultural reassessment and sociopolitical promorion.
(b) l'vfarxism is, for Senghor, a method. In order to use it adequately, the
Senegalese thinker dissociates Marxism_ as humanism from lVfarxism as a
theory of knov,ledge. The first offers a convincing explanation of the notion
of alienation in its theory of capital and value and exposes the scandal of
human beings under capitalism becoming mere means of production and
strangers vis-a-vis the product of their work For this reason, Senghor readily
accepts Marxism's conclusions insofar as they indicate a recognition of the
natural rights of humans, who are and must remain free agents and creators
of cu.lture. "We are socialist," writes Senghor, "because we accept 1'/farx and
Engels and believe in the usefulness of their analysis of societies. Yet we add
to 1VIarx and Engels' works the contributions of their successors." For
Senghor, .Marxism as a theory of kncnvledge nevertheless constitutes a problem.
It is one thing to use its schemas for analyzing and understanding the
94 The Invention of Africa
complexity of social formations, and another ta accept the idea that social
complexiries uni.versaHy fit into the concept of the class struggle and express
the need to deny religion.
( c) Neg£itvde and M,uxi.st humanism are, according to Senghor, only
stages in a dynamic dialectic process towards a universal civilization. Interpreting
hypot:,eses of Piem: TeHhard de Chardin, Senghor bases his ideas of a
universal civil!ization upon laws of evolution. He beHeves that the movement
from. rnicmentities: to more complex ones and finally consciousness expresses
a natural law. This would in1ply at least three major theses: che principle cl
development of aH human beings, the principle of harmony in development,
and God's existence as a natural necessity. Senghor thinks that some basic
African values are well expressed in this perspective: namely the idea of
community, the principle of harmony bet,;veen evolving humans and changing
nature, and, finally, the vision or a unitary universe.
Senghor's influence on contemporary African thought, particularly in
Francophone countries, is cc,nsiderable. The Senegalese writer, like the
Ghanaian Nkrumah, does not allow himself to be neutral. Of the African
thinkers of this century, he will probably have been the most honored and the
n10st complimented, yet probably also the most disparaged and the most
insulted, particularly by the present generation of African intellectuals. Jt fa
significant that S. Azombo-Menda and M. Anobo, in their manual of
African philosophy, believe they are obliged to explain the presence of
Senghor in their text. "His thought has exerted on black intellectuals such
influence that it would be regrettable were his principal theses to be ignored
or passed in silence by sectarianism or because people felt incapable to
discuss them" (Azombo-Menda and Anobo, 1978). Does including Senghor
in a textbook of African philosophy reaHy require excuses?
It is fitting to note that Senghor has become a myth that is endlessly
discussed. It is true that criticism, especially African, has mainly seen in
Senghor the promoter of some famous oppositions which, out of context,
could appear to embrace perspectives proper to certain racist theoreticians:
Negro emotion confronting hellenistic reason; intuitive Negro reasoning
through participation facing European analytical thinking through utilization;
or the Negro-African, person of rhythm and sensitivity, assimilated. to
the Other through sympathy, who can say "I am the other ... therefore I
am." On this basis, Senghor has been accused of seeking to promote a
dei0estable model for a di.vision of vocations between Africa and Europe,
between African and European (e.g., Towa, 1971a; Soyinka, 1976). This
seems quite vvrong. Senghor's philosophy can be simply linderstood through
a challenging proposition he offered to the Senagalese Socialist Party in July
1963: "Finally, what too imany Africans lack, is the awareness of our povert'f
and creative imagination, I mean the spirit of resourcefulness" (1983:152).
:Nyerere's socialism is probably the most pragmatic of all African socialisms
(Duggan and Civile, 1976:181). Its basic assumption has been
The Power of Speech 95
spelled out in simple terms. ][n the expression "African soci2.Jism" the most
important word is not socialism but A/rican. In other words, according to
Nyerere, an African does not need to convert to socialism or to democracy,
since his own traditional experience is socialist and democratic:
The true African socialist does not look on one class of men as his brethren
and another as his nat,1ral enemies. He does not form an alliance with the
'brethren' for the extermination of the 'non-brethren.' He regards all men as
his brethren----2,s members of his ever-extending family. Ujamaa, then, or
'fami!ihood,' describes our socialism. (Nyerere, 1968a:27)
Ujamaa, or comn:mnalism, rejects both capitalism (which "seeks to bu.ild a
happy society on the basis of exploitatton of man by man") 8od doctrinaire
socialism (which "seeks to build its happy society on a philosophy of
inevitable conflict between man and man"). For Nyerere, ujamaa means first
of all the creation of a new society, a nation, based on the traditional model of
family. Second, moving beyond the nation, the socialist project would imply
a constant development of communalism for all peoples (Duggan and Civile,
1976:188-96).
The Arusha Declaration, issued by Nyerere's party in 1967, made
Nyerere's program more explicit. It presented the party's creed, its socialist
charter, the policy of self-reliance, the philosophy of membership, and an
official statement about socialist leaders. The creed presents the rationale of
ujamaa. Kn the first part, it describes the major values (sharing, equality,
rejection of alienation and exploitation of man by man, etc.). In the second
part, i,t offers as ideological deductions its main political objectives. These
are: first, the independence of the nation, but a socialist nation governed by a
socialist government; second, cooperation with African countries and commitment
to the liberation of Africa and her unity; and third, improvement of
the conditions of equality and life in the nation and, therefore, nationalization
of the means of production and political control of the fields oif production.
The search fur the construction of a nevv African society has also led in
other directions. Both J\,t Azikiwe's interpretation of political unity and the
pragmatic federalism advocated by n Awolowo in Path to Nigerian Freedom
(1947) have followers. Nkrumah's political philosophy is still popular all
over the continent, especially his concept of social revolution described in I
Speak of Freedom (1961) and the materialism of Consoiencisrn (1970),
which exposes a sociopolitical system implying dialogue and the possibility
of reconciling antagonistic forces and orienting them towards positive social
change. Unfortunately, looking back at Nkrumah's regime in Ghana, one
might think that all was just rhetoric. Though a good 1\/Iarxist theorist,
Nkrumah, once in power, became a bad politician and" rapidly turned into a
dictator. The best that can be said is that he simply failed to put his theory
into practice. Yet his theoretical legacy remains, challenging and stimulating
The Invention of Afric2.
for the nevv generndon of African Marxists looking for paradigms of revolutionary
change and cultural dynamism. On 2 quite general levei, one may
still admire his critical evalu.ati.on of G. Padmore's Panafri::anism or Communism,
his 7ilews on the unity of th,~ continent, and the pertinence of hi.s
analyses of neocolonialism (t,~krurnah, 1962, 1965).
It is my feefo,,g that in general the nevv African trend concentrates on the
idedogical significance of the failure of contemporary African society. !n
French-speaking countries, the criticism is carried out in the context of
present-day sociopolitical contradictions rooted in both the precolonial a"1d
coioniaTI experience, as for example, by Pathe Diagne in Pouvoir polii-ique
traditionnel en Afrique occidentale (1967) and G. L Hazoume with his
book Ideologies t,ibalistes et nation en Afrique: le cas Dahomeen (1972).
Under the circums'.:ances, many thinkers tend to reevaluate African socialism
and insist on the usefulness of applying the Marxist lesson in a more
systematic manner. Ivlajhemout Diop suggested this in his Contribution a
l'etude des problemes politiques en Afrique noire (1958). Osende Afana
briHiantly applied Marxist perspectives to the economic situation of '0Vest
Africa irc L'Economie ouest-africaine. Perspectives de developpement (1967,
1976). The Marxist trend seems still to be dynamic, as shown by the writings
of authors such as Diagne, Hountondji, and M. Ngouabi, as well as by the
official ideological choices of the regimes of Angola, Benin, Congo, Ethiopia,
and Mozambique. The newly created Journal of African Marxists is also an
indication of the Marxist revival in Africa. It has succeeded in bringing
together intellectuals from all over the continent and states its task in terms of
"providing a platform for Marxist thought to provide that element most
needed now to enable Africa to throw off imperialist domination and capitalist
e..xploitation" (1983, no. 4:3; see also Dieng:1979).
In contrast, and mainly in V'/est Africa, other scholars continue to give
priority to questions that have been asked again and again about tradition.
M. Dia, for instance, vvith his works on Islamic humanism (1977, 1979),
joins lL Hampate Ba and Boubou Hama, prestigious survivors of an old
team which, from the 1930s onward, has continued to invoke traditionalism
and Islam as effective sources of regeneration (see also Brenner, 1984).
Present trends give the impression that the Africa of the 1980s is reliving
the crises of the 1950s, To create myths which would give a meaning to its
hopes for improvemeat, Africa seems to hesitate between two principal
sources, 1v1ar1dst and traditionalist, and to vvorry endlessly about the evidence
abou';: the superiority of the Sarne over the Other and the possible
virtues of the inverse relatjonship. But a discrete an.cl controverted current has
quietly developed since 19 5 4, the date of the publication of Cheikh Anta
Diop':;; Nations negres et culture. To rnany, this current appears as the only
reasonable alternative co the present disorder, Using JVLarxism as a foil, it
intends to study African tradition in depth, affirming the cultural unity of
precoloni.al Africa, linguistic kinship, and common historic past (Diop,
The Power of Speech 97
1954, 1960a, 1967, 1931). Diop\; [earned investigations-assisted by the
Congolese T, Obenga (1973) and the Cameroonio,n Mveng (1972)-seek to
give Africa the moral benefit of being the cradle of humankind and of having
influenced th;~ history of ancient Egypt as well as Mediterra1.1ean ci.viHzations,
But could these potentially mobilizing myths provide, as Diop hoped
(1960c), the possibility of a new political crder in Africa?
E,
111 fl
'\V,vTv .
()UES1'IC)J\TS , . ..,,
The Ambiguitie§ of an Ideokigical All:ernati.v,e
Toute ma vie, politiquemerrt, je me suis fair de
la bile. }'en induis que le seul Pere que j'ai
connu (que je me suis donn~) a ete le Pere
politique.
Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes.
In hi.s fore,.vord to Selected Letters of Edward Wilmat Blyden (1978) coilected
by Hollis R. Lynch, L S. Senghor celebrates Blyden as the "foremost
precu.rsor both of Negriiude and of the African Personality" (Lynch
1978:xv-xxii). The father of negritude thinks that a century before the
emergence of modem African ideology, Blyden prcmoted its spirit. Fi.rst,
because Blyden. treated "both the virtues of Negritude and and proper modes
of illustrating these virtues: through scholarly studies, life styles a:rid cultural
creaton." Second, because "through the stimulus of a 'revolution of mentalities',"
Blyden tried "1:0 lead 1'-Jegro-Americans to rnlitivate what is 'authentically'
theirs: their 'African Personality' ... and advocated already 'i:he
:nethod which is ours today: to find one's roots in the values of Negritude,
while remaining open to those of non-African civilizations." Third, because
as a "true universal man," Blyden ";;Jready believed, as vve do today, that all
progress in a civilization can only come from a mixing of cultures"" Lynch,
author of a biography of Blyden, agrees with Senghor and writes that "the
modern concept of Negritude . , . can find respectable historical roots in the
writings of Blyden" (1967:252). He also stresses the influence of Blyden on
such ideologues as the Nigeri,m Nnamdi Azikiwe and the Ghan.aian Kwame
Nkrumah and states that "Blyden 'Nas rhe ideological father of the idea of
'\Xfest African unity": "he inspired nationalism in the individual territories,"
and his "pan-1~egro ideology was undoubtedly the most important prD··
genitor of Pan-Afr.icariism" (1967:24.9-50).
A native of the Danish island of SL Thomas, E. Y//. Blyden (1832-1912)
settled In '\X~esAt frica i.n I 8 5 1 and rapid1y became one of the most careful
/
E W. Biyden's Legacy 99
students of African affairs. A permanent resident of Liberia and Sierra Leone,
he saw the beginning of the scramble for Africa, studied the arrival of
European settlas on the 1X!est Coast, and observed the progressive establishment
of colonial n:ile, He was the author of several vt1orks,
h is not my intention to present an exegetic interpreration of myden's
work, 1:.or to offer a nevv understanding of his life and achievements, K am
concerned 'With a practical question in che precise field of the history oif
African ideologies: in ,what sense car we accept Senghor's and Lynch\;
st8tements about Blyden as the precursor of aegritude and "Afric.m Personality"?
Thus, I will not "interpret" Blydw's theses from the point of vievv of
historical data nov, available, b111: instead will focus on their significance and
limitations, and will v,hen necessary, situa~e them in their "i_deological
atmosphere." I shall, therefore, describe the signs and symbols of Blyden's
ideology as expressed by such texts as Vindication of the Negro Race ( I 8 5 7 ),
Liberia's Offering (1862.), The Negro in Ancient History (1869), Liberia:
Past, Present and Future (1869), Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race
(1888), and Africa and the Africans (1903). I use the themes of Christianity,
Islam and the Negro Race as an organizing frame, This book, a miscellaneous
collection of various 1:exts-artides, speeches, reviews--is
Blyden's major work (see Lynch, 1967:73--78). Quotations from his letters
add subjectivity to some of Blyden's more formal theses.
h1 this first section, I vviH present .Blyden's thesis on. colonization and his
interpretation of the "Negro's condition"; in the next, I will shovv hlY.v he sees
the African and defines his own political philosophy. My conduslon on his
leg:1cy attempts a critical synthesis and stl'dies Blydlen's racial attitudes and
"prophetism" and proposes 2. critical interpretatiori. of Sen.ghor's and Lynch's
statements. The method used is simple. Blyden'~ work is not anaJyzed as sign
or symbol of something else, but only in terms of its ovvn density and
spiritual limits, as it reveals its o,;m irrediucibility and specificity. At the same
time, because this work ws,s produced within a given historical period and a
specific inteHectual dimate, I thought it valid to rewrite its "passion" in the
manner of Foucault, as a simple discourse-object.
Given Blyden's personal situation-a West Indian Black who, denied
education in the United States, emigrated to Liberia (Blyden, L0:8; Lynch,
1967:73)-one can understand that his ideas concerning colonization express
both racial and nationali:;tic positions aimed at achieving a particular
type of social revolution, On April :w, 1860, he wrote to 'William Gladstone,
then British Chancellor of the Exchequer about Liberia: "this little Republic,
planted here in great weakness, is no doubt destined, in the providence of
God, to revolutionize for good the whoie of that portion of Africa" (Blyden,
LET:30). But i.n a letter written on June 9 of the same year to the Rev~ John L
'IX/ilson, Corresponding Secretary of the Board of Foreign l\11issions of the
American Presbyterian Church, Blyden speaks of being "instrumental in
doing anything towards establishing the respectability of my race," Significantly;
he wis:1es that his efforts for the promotion of the "Alexander High
100 The Invendon of Africa
School" in IVIonrovia wiH contribute 1:0 "a partial solution" to questions
ab'.:lut the J',,iegro'csa pabilities:
'The great problem to be solved is v1hether black men, under favornble
circu!'instances, can manage their own affairs ... wit1.-ie fficiency.' 'Will the
efforts now put fo'"th in the Alex High School, if eificiem and successful,
contribute to a partial solutioH of the problem? And, on the other hand, if
those efforts fail, will the impression be deepened tha, the prcblern is insolvable
[sic], anci W'iHth e gloom vmich has so long rested upon the race increase in
density? H so, then let me be forever discarded by the black race, and let me be
ccndernned by the white, if I strive not with all my powers, if! put not forth al~
my energies to contribute to so import,mt a solut1ion. (Blyden, LET:31)
One might focus on this sign: an explicit need for over-compensation
il:r:mdormed into a ~will-for-power. But this will for "the progress of the race"
is l2,rgely determined by an apologetic objective. For, as Blyden put it at the
end of his treatise on The Negro in Ancient History, "we believe that as
descendants of Ham had share ... in the founding of cities and in the
organization of go,rernment, so members of the san1e farnHy~ developed under
differenc circumstances, vviH have an important part in the dosing of the
great d,:ama" (NAH:28). In this regard, he denies to whites any positive
cuh:ural presence in Africa and frequently insists on the fact that only black
peoples can transform the continent. Yet he seriously advocates colonization
a5 one of the possible means of metamorphosis.
Blyden's understanding of the process of Africa's opening up to a white
presence is ambiguous:
The modem desire for more accurate know-ledge of Afoica is not a mere
senti1nent; it is the philanthropic impulse to lift up the millions of that
continent to their proper position among the intellectual and moral forces of
the world; but it is also che commercial desire to open that vast country to the
enterprises of trade. (Blyden, CINR, 9 5)
There remains the "civilizing mission." He even refers to the first years of
slavery as being positive: "The slave trade was regarded as 2 great means of
oivilizing the blacks-a kind of missionarl institution." Africans were at that
time "not only indoctrinated into the principles of Christianity, but they were
taught the arts and sciences." "The relation of the European to the African in
those unsophisticated times, was that of guardism and protege" (LPPF:7-8).
Despite the fact that Blyden certainly had knowledge of Belgian atrocities
in the Congo, his stated opinion of King Leopold's enterprise in Africa 'Nas
that "everyone has confidence in the philanthropic aims and the practical and
commercial eHorts of the King of Belgians in the arduous and expensive
enterprise he has undertaken in the Congo" (Lynch, 1967:208). In his Africa
and Africans, written in 1903, he cdebrated Leopold and the Belgians as
"providential" agents for the regeneration of the continent and added that,
"retribution for their misdeed:; vvill come from God" (Blyden, AA: 4 5;
\
E, 1770B lyden's Legacy IOI
Lynch, 1967:2.09). But the same yea::, in a letter to John Holt, he was quilbe
angry about "the horrible proceedings in the Congo," Identif1ing Leopold
with a mythical 2.nd monstrous Pharaoh, he noted that the lf
social cultures and progress. This practice of 2,rguing by means of sociological
corucepts, or, as he defines it, "the science of Race" (CINR:94),
leads hirn to "the poetry" of politics:
It is the feeling of race-the aspiration after the development on its own line oif
the type of humanit)' to which we belong. Italians and Germans long yearned
after such development. The Slavonic tribes are feelig after it, Now, nothing
tends more to discourage these feelings and check these aspirations, than the
idea rhat the people with vvhorn we are connected, and after whose improvement
we sigh, have never had a past, or only an ignoble past-antecedents
w-hich vvere 'blank and hopeless,' to be ignored and forgotten. (CIN'R:197)
Blyden tends to avoid both the easy antislavery propaganda, with its myths
about the "noble savage," and also the technical debates 011 the hierarchy of
races. R,tther than defining the African as a "special" counterpart of the
Europe,m-a "noble savage" or a "beastly primitive"-Blyden used his
literary background i.:o describe the African as a victim of a European
ethnocentrism. For instance, he considered contempt of Africa11s and
Neg"oes to be a modem invention. He referred to Homer's and Herodotus's
descriptions of blacks, insisied on the frequency of kalos kagathos (handsome
and good) Ethiopian in classical literature, and discussed the aesthetic
value of the color black: in the Bible (NAB: L,j; see also Bomgeois, 1971;
kv1veng, r972). h1 Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, he affirmed that
"In Greek and Latin languages and their literature, there is not, as far as I
know, a sentence, a word, or a syllable disparaging to the Negro"
(CINR:84). Commenting on a poem atributed to Virgil and quoting Homer's
celebration of the :Negro Eurybates at the siege of Troy, he states that "the
disparagement began with European travellers, partly 'from a desire to be
unfair' or 'from preconceived notions of the ]\Tegro,' 'and partly, also, on the
principle that i.t is easier to pull down than to build up'" (CINR:263), These
explanations do not constitute a convincing historical description. Yet, in
very genernl terms, they situate the ideological justifications used first by
travders and then by exp1orers and missionaries to establish a new order in
the "dark continent" (see Arendt, 1968:87). This meant opening Africa to
trade, European education, and Christianity, and thus setting up and enforcing
a psychological domination:
E. WI. B!yden's Legacy III
In all EngHsl:Mpeaking countries the mind of the intelligent Negro child
revolts against the descriptions given in elementary books-geographies,
travels, histories-of the Negrn; but, though he experiences an instinctive
revulsion from the~e caricatures and misrepresentations, he is obliged to
continue, as he grows in years, to study such pemiicious teachings. After
leaving school he finds the same things in newspapers, in reviev.1si,n r,ovels, in
quasi-scientific works; and after a while-saepe cadendo--they begin to seem
to him the proper things to say and to feel about his race. (BlydeG, CINR:76)
Thinking of the condition of Black Americans in particular, Blyden generalized
his analysis:
Those who have lived in civilized communities, where there are different races,
know the disparaging views which are entertained of the blacks by their
neighbours-and often, alas! by themselves. The standard of all physical and
intellectual excellencies in the present civilization being the white complexion,
whatever deviates from that favoured colour is proportionally depreciated, until
the black, which is the opposite, becomes not only the most unpopular but the
most unprofitable colour. (CINR:77)
Blyden dealt courageously with this difficult aspect of psychological dependence,
He thought that the Negro was weak because he accepted the image
imposed on him and that this complex of dependence could account for the
"hesitancy," the "modesty growing out of a sense of inferiority" found in the
Black Arcr1.ericampu pil (CINR:q .8), as well as for the self-depreciation seen in
the adult, "It is painful in America to see the efforts which are made by
Negroes to secure outward conformi!'J to the appearance of the dominant
race" (CINR:77),
As for the Negro in general, Blyden pointed out that derogatory perspec·
tives provide the inteUectual framework of this psychological waro An opposition
of colors, black versus white, becomes the paranmumt symbol of the
distance in quality and virtue beitween Europeans and i\fricans, and justifies
the white man's duty toward "despised races" (CINR:138). But this dut'y
seems a myth and its 'Norks will not last:
Victor Hugo exhorts ":he European nations to 'occupy this land offered to
them by God.' He has forgotten the prudent advice of Caesar to the ancestors
of those nations against i1wading Africa. The Europeans can hold the domain
'offered to them' by only a precarious tenure. (ClNR:145-46)
Rejecting the theme of the barbarous Negro, Blyden focused on the
co:1nec1:ion between degener2.tion and Westernization. ln his view, not aH
European accomplishments are splendid and useful. On the contrary, "things
which have been of great advantage to Europe m2y work ruin to us; and there
is often such a striking resemblance, or such a close connection between the
hurtful and the beneficial that we are not always able to discriminate"
I Lt The Invention of Africa
(CKNR:79). Furtherrnore, he observed that ithe most visible consequence for
the Kingciom of Congo, 1JVestemized and Christianized under Portuguese
influence during the seventeenth cent1.uy, was its disappearance ( CINR: I 5 9 ).
One could even think that Blyden-although he was a Christian minister-
did not believe in conversion, lnsofar as it is an expression of \1Vestemization:
"Pagans of discernment know that the black man among them who
'calls himself a Christian and dresses himself in dothes' adheres to Et1ropean
habits an.cl customs with a reserved povver of disengagement" (CINR: 5 9 ). He
strongly ridiculed the confusion of sodornltural customs and Christian
values andl pessimistically noted that "the Gospel has failed to have free
course in this land" (LET: I I 5 ). However, he believed that the "inconsistencies
of Christians" (LET:99) might account for this relative failure, In
actuality, what he rejected was the "thin varnish of European civilization"
that a young and inexperienced missionar1 propagates. "With the earnest
vigour and sanguine temper which belong to youth he preaches a crusade
against the harmless customs and prejudices of the people-superseding
many customs and habits necessary and useful in the climate 2.nd for the
people by practices which, however useful they might be in Europe, become,
when introduced indiscriminately into Africa, artificial, ineffective and absurd"
(CINR:64), Hmvever, Blyden seems to believe that the confusing of
religious values and cultural customs is not an accident: "The Anglo-Saxon
mind and the African mind trained under Anglo-Saxon influence, seem to be
intolerant of all customs and practices which do not conform to the standard
of European tastes and habits" (LET: I 14.). This instance of cultural misunderstanding
is neither extraordinary nor unusuaL Of at least equal significance
is the supposed African response to Europeans and their culture,
There are those of other races vvho also sneer and scorn and 'despise! Some of
the proceedings of Baker and Stanley in Africa must frequently have impressed
the natives with the feeling that those energetic travellers can1e from much
'darker continents' than any of their unsophisticated imaginations had ever
before suggested to them, (Cil',TR:138-9)
Mungo Park recorded his impressions as follows: Although the Negro(;s, in
general, have a great idea of the wealth and power of Europeans, I am afraid
that the Mohammedan converts among them think but very little of our
superior attainments in religious knowledge ... The poor Africans, whom we
affect to consider as barbarians, look upon us, I fear, as tittle better than a r:?.ce
of formidable but ignorant Heathen. (Cil'-IR:343)
For Blyden, these incongruities revealed the general tone of a distorted
contact as it existed under slavery and colonial imperialism. Moreover, to the
degree that the European presence and self-proclaimed political supremacy
affect the African's culture and confidence (LO: 57), Blyden felt it necessary to
overemphasize certain ideological issues w-hich would eventually foster the
African's silent resistance and would bring about a new climate of ideas, The
E. VV. Blyden's Legacy
logic of this comm.itment led Blyden to formulate strong intellectual criticisms
of \Ylestem ideology, principally through a critical evaluation of the
European tradition, a new interpretation of history, and, finally, a positive
evaluation of African oral tradition.
Blyden's criticism of the European tradition is based on a relativist philosophy
of cultures (AA:60). He believed that even though, in religious terms,
the concept of humankind is the same throughout the world, "the native
capacities of mankind differ, and their work and destiny differ, so that the
road by which one man may attain to the highest efficiency, is not that which
would conduce to the success of another" (AA:5-8; CH•TR:83). Fanciful
excursions in the field of comparative history provided some comparisons to
support his relativism.
The ancestors of these people [Africans] understood the use of the cottonplant,
and the manufacture of cotton, when Julius Caesar found the Britons
clothing themselves in the skins of wild beasts. Visitors to the British Museum
may see, in the Egyptian department, doth of the very same material and
texture wrapped around the mummies. This cloth vvas made by those who
understood the lost art of embalming, but who, when they retired by successive
revolutions, into the interior ... lost that valuable art, but never forgot
the manufacture of the doth used in the process, (CINR: 196)
This is only one of many fragile comparisons. Hi.s comments on Leo Africanus's
reports about the kingdom of Mali ( CINR: r 9 5 ), Egyptian physical
characteristics (NAH: r o ), Ethiopian psychology (NAH: 2 5-26), and destiny
(CINR: I 52-3 ), or the civilitzadon of the "Mohammedans of Negritia"
(CINR: 300) make explicit and uphold his ideas on the diversity of historical
processes, This premise allowed him to state that:
The special road which has led to the success and elevation of the Anglo-Saxon
is not that which would lead to the success and elevation of the Negro, though
we shall resort to the same means of general culture which has enabled the
Anglo-Saxon to find out for himself the way in which he ought to go.
(CINR:83)
This critical position, in fact, also required a new understanding of history.
Since the kind of political and cultural domination that was taking place in
Africa served the particular historical perspective on which it was based and
was, in return, justified by its own success, Blyden chose to revise the concept
of history altogether.
Referring to E Harrison's classification, vvhich distinguished "six leading
epochs in the history of civilization" (Theocratic Society, Greek Age, Roman
Period, Medieval Civilization, Modem Age, and the Age since the French
Revolution), Blyden proposed to exclude the study of the last two ages from
the African curriculum. His reasons were quite simple. He observed that it
was during these periods, especially the last, that "the trans-Adantic slave
The lnvention of Afri:::a
trade arose, and those the•ories--theological, social, ;1n:d political-were
invented for the degradation and proscription of the Negro." On the other
hand, he considered the first periods, particularly the Greek, the Itiornan, an::l
the lvkdieval to be exemplary: "There has been no period of hist01y more fuU
of suggestive en,ergy, both physical and intellectual, than those epochs .. ,
.l\To modem writers will ever influence the destiny of the race to the sarne
extent that the Greeks and Romans have done" (CINR:82), Thus a philosophical
principle of cultural relativism accompanied an ideological rejection
of a part of European history ;;ind permitted Blyden to justify his daim for
authenticity, and, therefore, the relevance of the African past and its proper
i:radition. Following Volney (NAH: 5) and Hartmann, he had no doubts
about "the strictly Africar:: extraction" of the pharaonic civilization
(CINR: I 54n). But it w2,s through an evaluation of Africa's oral traditions
th2.t he savv the basis for inspiration:
Now, if we ;ire to make an independent nation-a strong nation--we must
listen to che songs of our unsophisticated brethren as they sing of their history,
as they tell of their tr:c,,ditions, of the wonderful and mysteriot 1s events of their
tribal or national life, of the achievements of what we call their superstitions.
(CINR:91)
in sum, -what Blyden put forward is a general criticism of \XTestern ideology,
not because it was wrong, but because it seemed to him irrelevant for African
authenticity. This criticism, however, arose as a negation, and to some degree
as a consequence, 0£ the most intolerant "race-,thinking" interpretations.
Thus, it is a warping reworking of the most negative theories of the century.
In a long letter to the British traveler Mary Kingsley in 1900, Blyden could
2cg:ee with her: "'The Negro rnust have ~• summit to himself'-a remark
vvhi.ch is not the result, as has been alleged by some, of prejlidice to the
African, nor, as it has been hdd by others, af latitudenarian indifference to
religious truth~" (LET:461). Playing upon the ambiguous significance oJt
Swedenborg's expression that the African is a celestial man, he could also, in
a most rdativist fashion, conclude that "such a man among terrestrials m_ust
have a separate place-not a hole into which some would thrust him, nor a
dead flat where others would fix him, but a summit." Therefore, "for obvious
reaso1:1s the conventional morality of Europe cannot be the conventional
morality of Africa, so far as social or doraestic mauers are concerned"
(LET:46I).
Three major considerationf; were central to Blyden's political philosophy:
the basic organized community under Muslim leadership, the concept of the
African nation, and, finally, the idea of the unity of the continent.
The basic Isfamk comnmnit1; appears to be his model of political organization.
"There are no caste distinctions among them" nor "tribal barriers"
(CINR:175) nor racial prejud.ices (CINR:15-17); "slavery and the slavetrade
are laudable, provided the slaves are KaHirs," but the "slave -who
erabraces Islam is free, and no office is closed against him on account of his
E. VV. Blyden's Legacy
servile blood" (ONR:176). Did Blyden approve of this institutional slavery?
h is not dear. One could perhaps argue that he 'Was just presenting one case.
1w'e must keep in mind thal: throughout his publications he opposed slavery
(e.g., L0:67-91; L0:153-67). At any rate, -what he admired in the system
was that for Muslims the social relations of production are not determined by
racial factors but by their faith: "'Paradise is under the show of swords,' is
one of their stimulating proverbs" (CINR:9). "They gather under the beams
of the Crescent not only for religious, but for patriotic reasons; till they are
only swayed with one idez, but act as one individual. The faith becomes a
part of their nationality, and is entwined with their affections" ( CINR: 2 3 r ),
The dynamism of these Muslim communities, their subtle and intelligent
ways of proselytizing, and thei.r trade assured Islam a brilliant future in
Africa. "AH careful and candid observers agree that the influence of Islam in
Central and West Africa has been, upon the whole, of a mos,~ salutary
character. As an eliminatory and subversive agency, it has displaced or
unsettled nothing as good as itself" (CINR:174).
None of the Nigritian tribes have ever abdicated their race individuality or
parted with their idiosyncrasies in embracing the faith of Islam. But, whenever
and wherever it has been necessary, great Negro warriors have risen from the
ranks of Islam, and, inspired by the teachings of .:he new faith ... have driven
them, if at anytime they affected superiorit'/ based upon race, from their
artificial ascendancy. (CINR:122)
According to Blyden, Islam is politically an excellent means of promoting an
African consciousness and of organiziing communities. Unfortunatdy,
though the ideological assumptions can be accepted in principle, the historical
facts badly contradict Blyden's belief in the positive capabilities of Islam.
Throughout the nineteemh centur1 in Central Africa, Islamk factions represented
an objective evil and practiced a shameful slave-trade. And here,
again, we face an unbelievable inconsistency in Blyden's thought: his naive
admiration for Islam led him. to accept the enslavement of non-.!vfoslim
peoples!
The concept of the African nation is perhaps the most puzzling, but also
the most original one, in Blyden's writings. It impli.es the classkal conception
of "democracy" (LPPF::i:6) but with a special focus on the rejection
of racial distinction, and at the same time, the paradoxlcal daim for the
retention of racial individuality. In actuality, as a m::m of his time, Blyden used
the romantic premises, which in the nineteenth century allowed some European
theorists to rediscover their historical roots and then celebrate the
authenticity of their own culture and civilization, in terms of their identity
with their origins. The most conspicuous t<..xample of this process is the
debate which took place among German scholars on the "Inda-European"
or "Inda-Germanic" cultme, in which a most remarkable confusion existed
about the notions of "race," "language," "tradition," and "history" (see,
e.g., Arendt, 1968:45-64). Nevertheless, European nationalisms arose, m
II6 The In'!ention of Africa
part, from theoretical combinations of these cornplex and comroversid no-tions
and accounted for what Blyden called "the period of rnce organizacion
and race consolidation" (CINR: I 22). Like his European counterparts,
Blyden did not doubt th~11a: racial phenomenon must be the b2sis o:f nationalism
and the foundation of the Nation:
On this q'iestion of race, no argument is necessa.cy in discussing the methods
or course d procedure for the }'reservation of r2.ce int•egrity, and for the
development of race efficiency, but no argument is needed as to the necessity of
such preservation and development. ff a man does not feel it-if it does not rise
up with spcr;taneous and inspiring power in his heart-then he has neither
part ocr lot in it. (CINR:122-23)
Thus, r,;taining the concept of racial individuality became the cornerstone in
the construction of a nation. ParadoxicaHy, Blyden wrote that he did 11ot
consider Haiti and Liberia, the tv,o major black nations, 2,s possible models
for the African nation, because "there is a perpetual struggle between the
very few who are aiming w forward the interests of the many, :md the
profanum vulgus, largely in majorit'f'' (CINR:273). Moreover, as he grew·
older, Blyden accepted the partition of Africa by European powers (see
Lynch in LET:409), collaborated with them (LET:502), and in 1909,
·worked very hard for the "reconstructing [of] Liberia by tbe Uni.Led States";
and indei::d for a process of administrative "coionizationo"
Let the Rep11blic .retain her Executive, Legislative and Judicial Departments.
But let America take the Republic under her 'Protection' for the time being.
Let the British officers, as they are doing now supervise the Customs and
Treasury Departments. Let the French manage the Froncier Force under Liberian
financial respo::isfoiliry, Let America 3ppoint a High Commissioner for
Liberia-an experienced Southern man, if possible, surround him with the
necessary white American officials to help. Abolish the Am::rican Legation at
.Monrovia or put a 7vhite man at the head. The High -Commissioner shot1Ed
review the Executive, Legislative and Judicial decisions before they are s2nctioned.
(LET:496)
How-ever, it is in his descriptions of Liberia and Sierra Leone that heof fered
hits dearest view 0£ an African nation, which inust be independent, liberal,
and self-reliant but must trade with other foreign countries, a "good democrncy"
in which racial self-elevation would be 1:he guiding principle.
Blyden·'s Pan-Africanism is a sort of prophetisrn .. I-Ie envisioned, first, a
collaboration and 2, fusion of African Christianity and the sonquering force
of Islam:
-,\X!herteh e light from the Cross ceases to stream upon the gloom, there the
beams of the Cres-::ent will give illumination; and, as the glorious orb of
ChriGtianity rises, the tv,ilight of Mam will be lost in the greater light of the
Sun of Righteousness. Then Isaac and Ishmael will be m!ited. (CINR:233)
E. W. Blyden's Legacy II7
Second, he emphasized the cultural unity that Islam represents. It has placed
African peoples "under the same inspiration" (CINR:229), giving them, by
means of the same "language, letters, and books" (CINR:229), both a
political unity and a cultural community (CINR:6). Finally, Africa will unite
when it pays due attention to its experiences with Europe and America. He
thus maintained the thesis that "the political history of the United States is
the history of the Negro. The commercial and agricultural history of nearly
the whole of America is the history of the Negro" (CINR:119; LET:476-
77).
In sum, there would be unity and growth in Africa if black peoples all over
the world would reflect upon their own condition. Blyden, the ideologue,
became a visionary:
In visions of the future, I behold those beautiful hills-the banks of those
charming streams, the verdant plains and flowery fields . . . I see them all
taken possession of by the returning exiles from the West, trained for the work
of re-building waste places under severe discipline and hard bondage. I see,
too, their brethren hastening to welcome them from the slopes of the Niger,
and from its lovely valleys ... Mohammedans and Pagans, chiefs and people,
all coming to catch something of the inspiration the exiles have brought-to
share ... and to march back ... towards the sunrise for the regeneration of a
continent. (CINR:129)
A modern cultural and political organization would be achieved with the
help of Americans of African descent.
The interpenetration of religious and political "nationalisms" expresses in
Blyden's thought what we must call a policy of racial authenticity, oriented
towards a cultural and political transformation of the continent. The instrumental
role that he accorded Black Americans and West Indians by selecting
them as "colonists" indicates his belief in "racial identity" and illustrates his
peculiar philosophy about the salvation of Africa.
The restoration of the Negro to the land of his fathers will be the restoration of
a race to its original integrity, to itself; and working by itself, for itself and
from itself, it will discover the methods of its own development, and they will
not be the same as the Anglo-Saxon methods. (CINR:IIo)
Black people from America and West Indies have "served" and "suffered,"
and Blyden did not hesitate to compare them to the Hebrews (CINR:120).
The possibility of their return to Africa becomes the hope for the promised
land.
Blyden has been called the founder of African nationalism and PanAfricanism.
Surely he is, insofar as he described the burden of dependence
and the drawbacks of exploitation. He put forward "theses" for liberation,
insistiQ.g on the necessity of both the indigenization of Christianity and the
support of Islam. Despite its romanticism and inconsistencies, Blyden's
The Invention of PJrica
political vision is probably c:he first proposal by a black m;;m to elaborate the
benefits of an independeat, m.odem political structure for the continent,
"ll3Jack Persm1ality" as Co:mnmn Locm
Acccrding to Biydei:, the "Negro" that the ·w/es\:d eals with in its literature
as well as in its imperial enterprise is just a myth (Blyden, LO: 52-54; 67-
68 ). The 1JVest has produced this myth and maintains it by projecting it as a
standard image, Missionaries, travelers, and colonial settlers are equally
wrong in the v-1ayth ey portray the African personality:
The Negro of the ordinal:y traveller or mis5ionary-and perhaps, of two-thirds
of the Christian world-is a purely fictitious being, constructed out of the
traditions of slave-traders and slave-holders, who ha·,e circulated all sorts d
absurd stories, and also out of prejudices inherited from ancestors, who were
taught to regard the Negro as a legitimate object of traffic (CINR: 5 8)
1\/Iore generally, Blyden saw this false image as both the product and the
consequence of a long process v;foch accompanied the European exploration
of the world from the fifteenth century on, A prevailing ethnocentrism and a
lack of sincere curiosity produced a totally absurd framework, in which
African cultures and peoples constituted merely an inversion of European
traditions and human types. This premise was used to justiiJ "the indictment
agai!lst a whole race" (NAH:2 7). For example, Sir Samuel Baker states:
"\"Vithout foreign assistance, the Negro a thousand years hence will be no
better than the Negro of today,, as the r,Jegro of today is in no superior
position to that of his ancestors some thousand years ago" (C!NR:269),
Blyden attacked this ideological positon, first by indicating the weakness
of its vitW, stemming from an erroneous deduction; and then by criticizing
the asmmption that the Negro could be compiet,::ly integrated into "\:Vestern
culture. Concerning the deduction, he vvrote that the major mistake lies in a
theoretical misinterpretation of the racial phenomenon and its cultural manifestations:
There is no absolute or essential superiority on the one side, nor absolute or
essential inferiority on the other si,de. It is a question of diifference of endov\T··
memt and difference of destiny, No amount of training or culture wiU :nake the
Negro a European; on the other hand, no fa.ck of training or deficiency of
cuh:ure will make the European a Negro. The two races are not moving in the
same groove with an immeasurable distance between them, but on parallel
lines. They will never meet in rhe plane of their activities so as to coincide in
capacity or performance. They are not identical, as some think, but unequal;
they are distinct but equal. (CINR:22-7; ,ny emphasis)
The difficulty of thi3 position lies in the complexity oc the con;:ept of race,
and the various and extended connotations given to it by theorists and
E. W. Blyden's Legacy II9
ideologi.sts. One could ana!yze the relationship between Blyden's thesis and
the racial theories of his time (see, e.g., fanoudh-Siefor, 1968; Hanunond
andJablm1v, 1977; Hoffmann, 1973; Jordan, 1968; Lyons, 1975). Since these
theories are, generally speaking, mixtures of. poor philosophy, scientific
speculations, and heavy ethnocentrism, it is more pertinent to look at the
problem in a different ·way and to relate Blyden to rhe founders of anthropology.
First of all, there is a striking similarity between Blyden's conception
anci that of some of the eightee.i1th. .c entury anthropologists. His
understanding of "anthropology," the study of "practical features" of "a
system," and their influence on the natural man (CINR:232.), seems to echo
Rousseau. As H. R. Lynch rightly notes: "Blyden's 'natural African man' is
strikingly similar to Rousseau's 'noble savage' living in a 'perfect state of
nature'-a state which they both claimed was the necessary prerequisite for
the development of the spiritual resources of the mankind" (Lynch,
1967=62). Blyden's theory of race makes exceHent sense when it is related to
Arthur de Gobineau's Essai sur l'inegalite des races humaines (1853) and
other widespread racial conceptions. For instance, Voltaire, seeking a hierarchy
of races in both his Traite de metaphysique (1734) and Essai sur les
moeurs, affirmed that black peoples constitute a completely distinct brand of
humankind. In Voltaire's anthropology, thi.s distinction implied and explained
the Negro's inferiority (see Duchet, 1971:281-321), !n contrast,
Buffon, a sdentist, presented ia his ]'l[atural History (1749) the principle of
the distinctiveness of all human beings. To him, even "the most animal-like of
human beings" does not resemble "the most hmnan-like of animals." He
cc1.lledt his principle an organizztional identity, He also claimed 11:oh ave
evidence of racial distinctions, acknowledgbg within every race the possible
existence of "human varieties" dependent upon environment and climate (See
Duchet, 1971:229-80).
Believing in the distinctiveness of races, Blyden equated "purity" of race
and "purity" of personality or blood. This accounts for his "racist" position
about mulattoes. He wrote, for example, against "the introduction on a very
large scale of the blood of the oppressors among their victims" (LET:488),
denied even the possibility of a union between "the pure Negroes and!
mulattoes" (LET: 3 88), and, in a most questionable manner, disparaged.
"l'.Jegroes v?ho are as white as some white men" (LET: 3 8 8 ). His thesis
requiring the rejection of mulattoes from the "race" and from the African
experience was also politirnlly motivated: "H this difference between the
Negro and the mulatto is understood hereafter, it 'NiH much simplify the
Negro problem, and the race will be called upon to bear i.ts own si:ns only,
and not the sins also of a 'mixed multitude'" (in Lynch, 1967:59).
Blyden seems to agree also with the principle of human variety within the
race but added to it the fact of ethnic difference and social influence:
The cruel accidems of slavery and the slave-trnde drove all Africans together,
and no discrimination vvas made in ,he shambles between the Foulah and the
Timneh, the 11.dandingo and the IVIendi, the Ashan!ee and the Fantee, the Eboe
I1.0 The Invention of Africa
and the Gongo-berween the descendams of Nobles and the offsprings of
sbves, between kings and their subjects--aH were placed on the same level, aU
oc black skin and 'Noolly hair were 'niggers,' ch,rcteh ... And when, by any
cotuse of events, these people 2.ttempt to exercise independent government,
they st2,rt in the eyes of the world as Africans, without the fact being taken into
consideration that they belong to tribes 2.nd fainilie~ differing wideiy in
degrees of intelligence and capacity, in original bent and S'.lsceptibiiity.
(CINR:274)
The last sen~ence implies the concept of variety by establishing a relationship
between "intelHgence" or "capacity" ar:d ethnic groups. This is a dangerous
hypothesis, which during the last t7vo centuries has been co-opted to legitimate
every rac:s~n and has supported the foundation of the controversial
science of racial differences. In Blyden's ideological perspective, this concept
i.s a powerful claim for regional identity: Africans are not identical, their
social organizatior:s are not equal, nor necessarily similar, and, finally, their
traditions do not merely reflect each other and are not the same.
Nevertheless, Blyden claimed a general distinctiveness of Africa and her
people and defined it by listing some particular characteristics of the continent
and its inhabitants in a dearly Rousseauist and ethaocentrist vvay.
Africa "has been called the cradle of civilization, and so it is," Thinking of
the Egyptian past, Blyden wrote: "The germs of all sciences and of the tvm
great religions nml\/ professed by the most enlightened races were £01,tered in
Africa" (CINR:II6; :NAH:5--9). In his view, it was a bi:illiant world, a
continent of "contentmem and happine&s" vvhere people feared and loved
God and showed ~·emarkabie hospitality (L0:82).
lf the belie£ in a Common Creator and Father of mankind is illustrnted in the
bearing we mainta.in towards our neighbour, if our faith is seen in our v,orks,
if we prove that we love God, whorn we have not seen, by loving our neighbour
whom we have seen, by respecting his rights, even though he 1112:y 1-::obt elong
to our clan, tribe, or race, then I must s.ay, and it will not be generally
disputed, that more proofs are fun1ished 2111ongth e natives of interior Africa of
their belief in the common Fatherhood of a personal God by their hospitable
and considerate treatment of foreignecs and strnngers than are to be _seen in
rriany a civilized aed Christian community. (CINR:n5)
To illustrate his statement on African religiosity, Blyden recalled Ho,mer's and
Herodotuds eulogies of the "blameless Black peoples" CNAH: rn ). Concerning
ho:,pirality, besides some ethnographic analyses on Mandingo
customs ( CINR: I 8 5) and Ivfongo Park's experience in the vicinity of Sego
(CINR::w6), he brought in explorers' testimoflies, and among them, the
amazing "long sojourn of Livingstone in that Lmd , .. wi-d1out money to pay
his way, .. , another proof of the excellent qualities of the peopies"
( 1:=II:.{[2I, .I :5 )..
1\vo other characteristics of Africans, according to Blyden, are their love of
music ((::INR:276) and their "teachableness" (CINR:163). He focused on
E. W. Blyden's Legacy 121
this last capability because of its potential for Africa's future. It seemed to
him all the more important since he was convinced of a general state of
"degeneration," at least among "Pagans." But "Moslems," generally, constitute.
an exception: "Wherever the Moslem is found on this coast ... he
looks upon himself as a separate and distinct being from his Pagan neighbour,
and immeasurably his superior in intellectual and moral respects"
(CINR:175).
A century has made no change for better. Mr. Joseph Thompson [who) visited
the Nigritian countries last year [says]: There is absolutely not a single place
where the natives are left to their own free will, in which there is the slightest
evidence of a desire for better things. The worst vices and diseases of Europe
have found a congenial soil, and the taste for spirits has risen out of all
proportion to their desire for clothes. (CINR:342)
Thus, general degeneration exists mainly due to intemperance (CINR:67),
the climatic influences (CINR:54), and the European presence (CINR:46-
47; LET:399-400). In order to stop this deadly process, Blyden proposed a
course of action consisting of three principal methods for the African's
conversion, all of them based on the capacity for learning.
First, there was to be an emphasis on "our past" and the objectivity of
reality. For as Blyden remarked, "our teachers have of necessity been Europeans,
and they have taught us books too much, and things too little."
Consequently, "the notion, still common among Negroes ... is that the
most important part of knowledge consists in knowing what other menforeigners-
have said about things, and even about Africa and about themselves.
They aspire to be familiar, not with what really is, but with what is
printed" (CINR:220). In daily existence the expression of this failure to
distinguish between "reality" and subjective "interpretation" leads Africans
into absurd situations.
The songs that live in our ears and are often on our lips are the songs which we
heard sung by those who shouted while we groaned and lamented. They sang
of their history, which was the history of our degradation. They recited their
triumphs, which contained the records of our humiliation. To our great
misfortune, we learned their prejudices and their passions, and thought we
had their aspirations and their power. (CINR:91)
According to Blyden, it is likely that this cultural trend will simply lead to
the Negro's destruction. One means of conversion would be the development
of "black consciousness," since it is clear that "in spite of all, the "Negro
race" has its part to play still-a distinct part-in the history of humanity,
and the continent of Africa will be the principal scene of its activity"
(CINR:276). Yet he claims that we must place the Western perception of "us"
and of "our past" in perspective and look for "what we are," live it and write
it according to "our own" experience.
122 The Invention cf Africa
We have neglected to study matters at home because we ·were trained in books
wTitten by foreigners, and for a foreign race, not for us-or for us only so far
as ir1-the general characteristics of humanit'j we resemble that race , .. There-·
fore, we turned our backs upon our breathren of the interior as those from
vrhom vve could learn nothing to elevate, to enlighten, or to refine . , . We have
had history written for us, and ',Ve hmre endeavoured to act up to it; where as,
the true c;rder is, that histo1y should be first acted, then ·written. (CINR:221;
my emphasis)
In other words, Africans have to create their own schemes for understanding
and mastering social and historical data, "especially in this large and interesting
country of theirs, 2.bout which the truth is yet to be found out-people
and systems about which correct ideas are to be formed" (CUs.JR:220--u).
'What Blyden refers to is, li suspect, the necessity to implement an African
social interpretation, which should be undertaken as an African responsibility,
since, as he expressed it in his address at the inauguration of Liberia
College, "\'ve have no pleasing antecedents-nothing in the past to inspire us
... Ail our agreeable associations are connected with the future. Let us then
strive to achieve a glorious future" (LO: I 20 ).
On a second level, Blyden struggled against the theme of mimicry of social
behavior: "Fascinated by the present, [the :t'Jegro] harasses himself with the
ever-recurring and ever-unsatisfying and unsatisfactory i:ask of im.itating imitators"
(CKNR: 147). As a sign of psychological domination, imitation of the
white man or the secret desire to become white expresses a dependence. 1n
any case, research and discussion about this must take place in the determination
of African culture and proposals for its _foture ( CliNR: 277--7 8 ).
In addition, new and vigorous canons should be initiated immediately for
young Blacks. The aim would be "to assist their povver of forgetfulness-an
achievement of extreme difficulty" (CINR:79) by increasing "the amount of
purely disciplinary agencies" and reducing "to its minimum the amolilnt of
dic.tracting influences" (CINR:80). The aim of these canons vvould also be
"to study the causes of Negro inefficiency in civilized lands; and, so far as it
has resulted from the training they have received, to endeavour to avoid what
we conceive to be the sinister elements in that training" (CINR:80), Emphasizing
the special nature of the Liberian experience, he insisted on the fact
that "no country in the world needs n10re than Liberia to have mind properly
directed" (lD:98). First, because the country is "isolated from the civilized
world, and surrounded by a benighted people." Second, the e:x:perience itself
seems exceptional for it means "establishing and maintaining a popular
government with a population, for the most part, of emancipated slaves"
(L0:98). Referring to the first settlers, he insists on the necessity of "a
practical education" (LO: 101).
This project leads directly to the third major step: a new policy for formal
education, ,Nhich ultimately would help the transformation of the continent.
Using his ov,m experience as a professional, he proposed very precise outlines
for a program, Above all, he put forward thls major thesis: "Lord Bacon says
E. 'JV. Blyden's Legacy
that 'reading makes a full man'; but the indiscriminate reading by the J',Jegro
of European literature has made him, in many instances, too full, or has
rather destroyed his balance" (CINR:81). From this position it is easier to
understand the complementarity between his "classical perspective" and his
"nationalist outlook" with respect to the curriculum. Kn addition to the
critical presentation of history from an African point of view, he insisted on
the study of classics-the Greek and Latin 'languages and their H:teraturesmathematics,
and the Bible. The study of classi,ss----"the key to a thorough
knowledge of all the languages of the enlightened part of mankind"
(LO: r 08 )--,Nas necessary for tvvo main reasons. First, "what is gained by the
study of the ancient languages is that strengthening and disciplining of the
mind which enables the student in after life to lay hold of, and, vvi.th
comparatively fade difficulty, to master any business to which he may turn
his attention" (CINR:87). Second "the study of the Classics also lays the
foundation for the successful pursuit of scientific knowledge. It so stimulates
the mind that it arouses the student's interest in all problems of science"
(C!NR:87; LO:no). (Let us note that these are the two main reasons
Senghor put forward some ninety years later to promote the teaching of
Greek, Latin, and classical literature in Senegal.) Blyden also advocated the
study of physics, and mathemati.cs (LO: 100), because "as instmments of
culture, they are everyw·here applicable" (CJNR:87). Finally, the study of the
Bible is essential. Hmvever, it must be ,1 Bible "vlithout note or comment,"
since "the teachings of Christianity are of 1..miversal application . , . and the
g:ceat truths of the Sermon on the
fear of God; and this sentiment-which is the condition ot all other progressit
is not only diffusing, but transmitting to posterity. This is the element which
has given stability and upward impulse to the social and political forces of
advanced countries; and it wiH have the same effect in the dark corners of this
continent. (ONR:332)
Blyden wrote elsewhere that Arabic, the language of Islam, is in Africa a
good preparation for Christianity (CINR:187) and an important means for
an 2u.tonomou.s and regional policy of auto-regeneration (LET: r 34-3 8 ). He
firmly believed that Islam could have an excellent fotu.re throughout the
continent. And as far as African interests are concerned, Blyden had faith in
the practical superiority of Islam over Christianity:
Mohammedanism, in Africa, has left the native master of himself and of his
home; but wherever Christianity has been able to establish itself, with the
exception of Liberia, foreigners have taken possession of the countri;, and, in
some places, rule the natives with oppressive rigour. (CINR:309)
This does not imply that Blyden could not or did not want to envisage the
possibility of an African Christianity. He was a Christian Elinister, but
refused to forget that he vvas black (see, e.g., LET:462). From his other views,
one can see that he was bound to be skeptical about European Christianity
and its processes of evangeli.zation: "There is no evidence that Christianity,
or, rather professing Christians [ ... ] would have been less unscrupulous in
their dealings with natives or Africa, than they have been with the natives of
America, of Australia, of Nev.r Zealand" (CXNR:309). His position must be
understood against the background of racism and its consequences, which
iliuminates his reasons for stressing the generaHy negative influence of Christianity
on Black people and "the innumerable woes which have attended the
African race for the last three hundred years in Christian lands" (CINR:27).
As he expressed it in his letter to N[ary Kingsley in 1900: "Very few among
races alien to the European believe in the genuineness of the Christianity of
the white man. For neither in the teaching nor the practice of the lay white
man do they see manifested, as a rule, anything of the spirit of Christianity"
(LET:462).
Although he rejoiced in the apparent failure of Roman Catholicism in
Liberi2. (LET:388), he seemed to admire this church, 1111hicihn his opinion
presented remarkable characteristics: It is "an uncompromising front in the
warfare against infidelity in all its forms" and "has alwa-ys been and is now a
protesting power ... against those attacks upon constituted authority."
Further, it is set "against the freeness and facility of divorce," "respects the
integrity of the family," and "respects races." Finally, it holds to those words
of St. Paul that dedare that 'God hath made of one all nations of men to dwell
upon the face of the earth'" (CINR:2:q-25). Blacks could find "Negro
saints" in its calendar (CINR:39), could observe Negroes occupying imporE.
W. Blyden's Legacy 127
tant "civil, military and social positions" in Catholic countries (CINR:225),
and benefitting from political freedom (CINR:46). Thus, Negroes were able
to see the Chun;~ itself relying on indigenous elements and agencies for its
development (CINR:167).
This eulogy of the Church of Rome is fund;imentally a criticisrn of Protestant
policies. However, Blyden recognized the relatively positive effects of five
American denominations (Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians,
and Lutherans) established on the 'West African coast, where
"numerous churches have been organized and are under a native ministry,
and thousands of children are gathered into schools under Christian teachers"
(CINR:49). But on the whole, he judged the results to be very \Veak:
these churches are "in their largest measure ... confined almost exclusively
to the European settlements along the coast and to their immediate neighbourhood"
(CINR:49-50). At the end of his life, Blyden was quite pessimistic
about missionary activities. lln 1910, in a letter to R. L Antrobus,
assistant under-secretary at the British Colonial Office, he complained about
"teaching mistakes" that created "a gulf between aborigines and colonists"
(LET:499).
\What was to be done for the successfui promotion of Christianity in
Africa? "lin view of the serious obstacles which have so far confronted the
work of African evangdization and civilization through European agency, i.t
is a matter of serious concern among Christian workers as to how the work
should be done" (CINR:160). His answer was clear and simple and followed
from his racial views: only peoples of African descent could successfully
evangelize the continent: "The method, the shnple holding up of Jesu.s
Christ; the instrument, the African himsdf" (CJ.NR: 161). Thus, at the very
beginning of the second evangelization of Africa in the nineteenth century,
Blyden caUed for an African Christianity. The new faith 1;vould be propagated
by black missionaries and its significance would be transformed. He advocated
the translation of the Gospel into African tongues, which would "be far
rnore effective instruments of conveying to the native mind the truths of the
Gospd than any European language" (CINR:68), Bearing in mind Islam's
ideological impact on African peoples (CINR:231), he fervently envisioned
an authentic African Christiwity. His metaphor was the meeting of PhiHp
the aposde and the eunuch from Ethiopia: "Philip was not to accompany the
eunuch, to water the seed he had planted, to cherish and supervise this
incipient work. If he desired to do so-and perhaps he did-the Spir.it
suffered him not, for he 'caught him away'" (CINR:161). The eunuch being
the only messenger, he is the only one responsible for "a total revolution in
his country through the vvords he had heard."
T\!91-iiL.lyen ch writes that though Blyden showed "a distinct partiality for
Islam," "he himself never became a lviuslim" (1967:246), in spirit Blyden
was a Muslim. He T01as truly concerned, especially in his old age, about the
Muslim population and their educ2tion and commercial interests and even
identified himself with their fate (see LET:402 and 409). The Muslims caHed
128 The Invention of Africa
upon him to aid in their negotiations with the Liberian government
(LET:425-27). In a letter to the British Colonial Office, he recognized that
the Governor did not pay him "the courtesy due to his office because [he]
agree[d] with Mohammedans" (LET:479). In 1877, he stated that he had
"more faith in the ultimate usefulness in Africa of the pagan and Mohammedan
natives, through Christian influences, than in that of the AmericoLiberians,
demoralized by slavery and deceived by a bastard Christianity"
(LET:235). In 1889, he confided to F. J. Grimke his long-standing conviction
concerning "the superiority of the Soudan or Mohammedan Negroes to
others" (LET:406 and 138). He seems to have had a precise objective. In
1888 he wrote:
My idea is that Islam is to be reformed and can be reformed. I am now writing
... on 'the Koran in Africa,' discussing its theology and practical teachings in
their effect upon the Negro race, and showing how effectively, if Christians
understood the system, it might be utilized in the Christianization of Africa.
(LET:399)
His aim was ambiguous. What did he mean by "reforming" Islam? This is a
mystery. What is clear is his critical rejection of "missionary" Christianity. In
any case, in 1903 his foremost desire was "to visit the College of Living
Oriental Languages in Paris" and also to "visit the famous Mohammedan
University at Cairo, the Mosque Al-Azhar, and spend a month there studying
their methods" (LET:473).
Spiritually and politically, Blyden was, at least from 1900 on, a Muslim.
He opposed "the influence of so-called Christianity and civilization" and
tended to emphasize the American lesson as he saw it: "in all the long and
weary years of the Negro's bondage in America to White Christians-the
slaves clung to Christ-but they did not believe in the religion of their white
masters" (LET:462).
Did Blyden choose between Jesus and Mohammed? There is no answer.
Nevertheless, his texts give a clue. What we are dealing with is, without
doubt, what one would call nowadays a "theology of difference," simultaneously
supported by a racial consciousness and a pluralistic interpretation
of the Bible. Such a viewpoint, from Blyden's position, allows for an"original
contribution by black Christians:
There are stars, astronomers tell us, whose light has not yet reached the earth;
so there are stars in the moral universe yet to be disclosed by the unfettered
African, which he must discover before he will be able to progress without
wandering into perilous seas and suffering serious injury. (CINR: I 51)
Complementary to this mission, which only black Christians could successfully
carry out (CINR:194), is another one: the promotion of an African
nationalism and the unity of the continent.
Blyden presented as premises two relevant ideas. On the one hand, there is
E.W. Blyden's Legacy 129
the fact that Europe is an invader (CINR:338; L0:73-75). Blyden accepted
the truth of the following sentence, written by a European: "the eighteenth
century stole the black man from his country; the nineteenth century steals
his country from the black man" (CINR:337). On the other hand, there is
African opposition to the invasion. Blyden praised the resistance of the
Ashanti and the Zulus as an "indication of the suddenness of Africa's
regeneration" (CINR:121).
The "Economy" of a Discourse
It was not the aim of this analysis to describe the historical or sociological
climate in which Blyden's ideas evolved. These points have received sufficient
scholarly attention (Lynch, 1967; Holden, 1967; July, 1964; Shepperson,
1960). My objective was to present Blyden's "philosophy" from an "archaeologic"
viewpoint by uncovering the specificity of his discourse in "the play
of analyses and differences" of a nineteenth-century atmosphere, and by
looking for discrete relationships between his discourse and some nondiscursive
fields. What remains to be said?
First of all, Blyden was a strange and exceptional man, who devoted his
entire life to the cause he believed in. However, as C. H. Lyons rightly noted,
"in seeking to answer the racists in their own terms Blyden developed a
theory of race which, while vindicating the black man, derived an uncomfortably
large measure of inspiration from late nineteenth-century European
race-thinking" (Lyons, 1975:108). The frame of his thinking was a "traditional"
one and may be summed up in three oppositions: a racial opposition
(white vs. black), a cultural confrontation (civilized vs. savage) and a religious
distance (Christianity vs. paganism). His racial theory was simply a relativization
of the supposed superiority of the categories white, civilized, and
Christian. His discourse, like the racist discourse that he opposed, is purely
axiomatic. It is, in the modern sense, a discourse of intimidation; or, to put it
in Barthes's language, it is "a language intended to bring about a coincidence
between norms and facts, and to give a cynical reality the guarantee of a
noble morality." (Barthes, 1979:103). In this sense, it clearly distinguishes
itself from the language and the mythologies of the "noble savage." The
"noble savage" was a romantic tool, "an aid to self-scrutiny at home" in
Europe (Lyons, 1975:8). Even as an anti-slavery weapon, the "noble savage"
was an idealized African presenting the most un-African features, and could,
for example, "blush" and "turn pale" (Lyons, 1975:7). Blyden confronts
these languages and mythologies on "blackness." A. T. Vaughan presents an
accurate picture of the context:
Virtually all descriptions of the 'dark continent' portray its inhabitants as
unattractive, heathen, and grossly uncivil. In theory at least, the Africans'
culture could be ameliorated; their physical characteristics could not. And,
130 The lnvemion of Africa
although several aspects of African appearance-stature, facial features, and
hair texture, for example-displeased the English eye, most striking and
dism£bing was the darkness of African skir:. Descriptions of African people
invariably stress their biackness, always disapprovingiy. (Vailghan, 1982:919)
In this atnJosphere, Blyden simply opposed one racist view to another racist
viev,;; precisely by emphasizing anti-mythologies on Africans, their cultu10es,
and the necessity of unmixed Negro blood.
The ultimate objective of such an anti-racism becomes, almost naturally,
the negation of the then-existing povver relationships based on raciai &,tinctions.
This process might accourrt for Blyden's conviction about the
usefulness of American and '\X,lesItn dian Blacks in the transformation of the
African continent, vv-hich is the basis of the project for "racial growth" a11d its
myths about racial nationality', black cre2Jivity, and Pa:n-Africanism, In his
own terms, the reunion of the "civilized" Christians of the West Indies and
America wich their "benighted" brothers in Africa would lead to a positive
development from both a cultural and a religious point of view. Blyden's
objectives (racial growth, cultural regeneration, Christianization) are a neg2.tion
of what he considers African -weaknesses. Fundamentally, the theory is
both an argument against the European partition of the continent and a
foundation for the ideology that allO'.ved the creation of Llberi.a: "back to
Africa." As Blyden grew older, his theory conflicted. ·1vith his pessimistic
analysis of black leadership, He continued to think in terms of opposition
between "civilization" and "African degenerance," He accepted the efficiency
of white colonization. However, w promote more realistically his dream for
the transformation of the continent, he opposed the "American-Liberian
demoralized by slavery" to the "Mohammedan native" (LET:235). He evea
contrasted "bastard Christianity" and its culture with the Islamic faith and
its order. He also accepted the "reconstruction" of Liberia under Arnerican
protection (LET:496). He knew that "the would-be rulers of rhe land feel it
their duty to denounce [him] as a tr2.itor to d1e country" (LET:z35). He was
flattered to be considered "the prophet of Libe:-ia" (LET:496) and stated that
he had "faith in the ultimate usefulness in Africa of the pagan and Mohammedan
nativces, through Christian influence" (LET: z 3 5 ). It is striking that a
similar con?iction would later lead the British government to rely on "traditional
local authorities as agenci.es of local rnle" (see, e.g., Hailey, 1970:94)
for the irr.piementation of "the dogma that civilization vvas a blessing that its
possessors ought to spread" (Mair, r975:z52),
These theories go together in Biyden's work, contradicting each other and
accounting for philosophical inconsistencies, racist propositions, and poHtical
opportunisms. As I--L R. Lynch's Edward Wilmot Blyden: Pan-Negro
Patriot convincingly demonstrates, at the end of the last century Blyden "had
established an intellectual ascendancy in -vf/est Africa, and many \!Vest Africam:
vvere prepared w follov1w1h ere he led, but they looked to him in vain
for a firn1 and sustained lead, or for dear directives. :Many of them thought
his ideas sophistical or contradicted by his actions" (1967:2.46).
E. W. Blyden's Legacy 13 I
In vvhz:t sense should vve accept Senghor's statement that Blyden was the
precursor of negritude and African personality? Jn his forewarcl ,to Blyden's
Letters, Senghor himself recognizes that "we had, from time to time" come
upon the name of Blyden, but vve had not paid much attention to it ... We
had no knowledge of h1icc'io rrespondence, nor of his essays, nor of his weekly
nevvspaper with the so signlficant tide of Negro nor, finally, even of his major
Yvork, entitled Christianity, Islam, and the Black [sic] Race" (LET:xx). In his
intellectual biography, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin et la politique africaine
(1962), the name of Blyden is not even mentioned. Aixne Cesaire, Leon G.
Damas, and Jacques Rabemenanjara, other members of the negritude movement,
never refer to Blyden. h is only in Anglophone -west Africa that
Blydlen's real influence may be dearly seen, in Casely Hayford's ideas on '\)'/est
African unity, N. Azikiwe's "pan-Negro nationalism," and possibly in
Nkrumah's Pan-Africanism (Lynch, 1967:248-50).
Blyden vmrked on rnciial issues in the nineteenth centun;; In order ta
oppose racist mythologies, he focused on "the virtues of black civilization"
and promoted the concepts of "bladrness" and "Negro personality," thus
inventing positive nevJ myths about race and the black personality. He had
occasional disciples like C. I-fayford and stimulated the nationalism of
others, as in the case of 1i:heN igerian Azikiwe. On the whole, the premises
and even the essentials of his ideology Yvere already in the air before he
explicated his theses. They were present in the racist paradigms that his
theses negated and thus might, for example, account for Mary Kingsley's
relativist view on races (1965). They had already been used both politically
and ideologically by the founders of Liberia (Lynch, 1967: 10-3 r) and by
the Haitian revolutionaries, vvho at the beginning 0JI the nineteenth century
created the first black republic. At the time of Blyden's death in the first
quarter of this century, 1:heses ame premises were incorporated in VJVE. . B.
DuBois's Pafr-AfTicamist ideology, and in the 1930s they vvere important in
the genesis ,Jf the negritude movement in Pm:is (see '1X'authier, 1964).
Let us now take a different look at the ideological significance of Bliyden's
ideology. How can we analyze it, and, nmre important, how might it be
possible to understand it? Blyden's ideology of Afric::.n identity is a "strain
theory" in the sense that it should be understood against "the background of
a chronic effort to ,som::ct socio-psychological disequilibrium" (Geertz,
1973:201). This interpretation should explain his suggestion for the replacement
of potential European colonizers, coosidered as "invaders," by black
peopie:s from America and the \Vest fodies, vvho would become agents for
the modernization 21£ Africa. Thus, racial identity stands as an absolute
precondition for any sociopolitical transformation of Africa. This choice
seems to exclude the possibility of a methodology that, from "the background
of a univers2J struggle for 2dvantage," would define an "interest
theory." This theory cm present ideal relations: between the Afric2.n process
of production and the social rdations of prodw:rion (economic level); between
the economic organization and its political reflections and interp.reta132.
The Invention of Africa
tions (poHtical level); and b.etvveen the idcologic21l structure and frs concrete
practice:, with1,n the society (id,eological l,~vel). This theo,y also does so by
proposing a type of balance between the eccmomic le·,rel and the ideologjcal
superstructures. It is, in principle, capable of generating a new· African mode
of prod;1ction, and thus technical modernization, political democracy, and
cultural autonomy.
Blycilen's "strain r:1eory" remains far from the lAarxist perspective. Its roets
are in ithe c,.oci0logy of races and more precisely in the controven;ial pri,nciple
of irreconcilable diffen:rn:es between races, Thi~ brings Blyden's thoughl
doser to the rornantic philosophies of otherr1ess ,,vh~ch flourished in Europe
ckring the nineteenth century and whi.ch largely supported European nati::
malism-in Germany and Italy, for instance---or, a posteriori, ,explained
and jnsti.fied them. Neveri:heless, Blyden's perspective is particular. His political
ideology 81c:osaes a respons~ to racism and to some of the consequences
of imperialism. lt represems an eJTtGtional response m the European process
of denigrating Africa and an opposition to the exploitation that resulted from
the expansionism of E;ctrope fro.rn the fifteenth century. At the same time, in
order to prove its ov.rn significance, his ideology strongly asserts the thesi~ of
plurali5m in the hiscorical development of races, ethnic gmups, and nationalitii:;
s. Consequently, Blyden can rejecc the evolutionary assumpdcm of
"identical but unequal races" vvhkh provides grounds for the theme of the
" 1JQ'hitem an's mission" and thus justifi,':'.si mperiafoan and coloni:rntion. In its
place, he pUtt3 a different assertion: "distinct but equaL"
One canno( but be amazed when analy;dng this thesis, vvhich v,2s the first
articubxe nineteenth-cenmry the•ory of "blackness." \Xlhen compared ro
Senghor':, negri~ude, the relevance of Blyden'., commitment is still apparent,
even ,:hough the concept of race is now generd!y considered an ideological
trap. Even in his r•c:'7•:".renfcoer Greco-ftorn!an culture, Blyden announced
Senghor. Despite dis.crepanci es due to differences of sosiopolit1:cal contexts,
psychok,gi :al ~.ituations,, and phil••Jsophical ref:rences, Senghor, ::,n the
whole, pursued Bly::len's 21mbigaous thesis. His pronouncements emph8s.ize
th(; African cu1tural and historical identity in terms of race and consider this
concept m be essentiaL
Blydrn's ideology :s, hovvev:er, mostiy determined by a pmfou11d I.mtderscanding
of the burden of slavery~ h is as a negation of thi:, experience that
Blyd,~n reconr:mends a rolce for Black .Americans in the modernization of
Afr;ca. This important dimension seem2 a defense against the ,c..xperience of
domination, and the prospect of Africa's transfor:nation would appear to
institu,tienalize a negativity. Sartr-=: put forward a similar theorei.:icaI perspective
ir1B lack, Orpheus. Supporting negritude in I...!1egeH::tne1rm s he insisted on
its relevance but also c1oted the pertinence of the dialectical contradiction:
the racial moment is a1'11ays the promise 0£ another step, ,mother contradiction.
The struggle for liberty wodd be won i.n te£ms of a general .cransformatioa
of societies and negation of social dasses. This is in ke,eping With the
logic of an "imt;;:rest theory."
E. 1w". Blyden's Legacy 133
Ai: any rate, Blyden established the "black perscnaHty movernent" which
stands for "the sum of values of Afrirnn civilization, the body of qualities
\Vhich make up the distinctiveness of 1:hr:p: eople of Africa." This empirical
eq11ival,~nt of negritude has been instrumental in sustaining the scrnggle for
African independence by opposing colonization ,is a process of falsification
and depersonalization of Africans and by criticizing imperialism as a means
of exploita1.:io,.-1B. lyden foresaw the immediate future of Africa. As C Fyfe
puts it, in the introduction to Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race:
Looldng back from the 1960s we can see that in a period equivalent to the
span of Bly den's life (he lived to be nearly So) Europeans have: come and gone
from the greater part of Africa, les.ving Africans in political control. His
reasoning may have been faulty, but his prophecy has been ultimately fu:tilled.
Similarly his claim that hundreds of thousands of American Negroes '\!Vere
ready to emigrate to Africa seemed, at i:he time, erroneous. Yet the passionate
enthusiasm aroused in the United Stares, only a fo-i.;v years after his death, by
1\/farcus Garvey's movement shows that here, too, he saw more deeply than his
contemporaries. (CINR:xv)
Blydrn expressed the essentials of the black personaiiti/ movement ancl the
P:.:m-A_focanispt rogram, vvith its focus on the ideological necessity of becomi11g
reconciled with one's herit:.1ge and ifs particular sociohistorica1 experi\~
nce anc'. reality, vrhich presaged Nkrumah's "Consciencism." In the works of
lBlyden and Nkrumah, the political philosophy is bs:sed on a framework
composed of at least three nwjor s,)urces for inspiration: African tradition,
an falamic contribution, and a 'J'/estern legacy. The difference between the
t",ATO systems resides in the fact that Nkrumah accepted materialism's presuppositions
as the only relev-ant ones and organized his political thought by
integrating strain and interest theorfr:s, Bec,1use of his own assumptions,
Blyden did not wdd a solid programmatic junctun, between the tension of his
wish for poy,7er and the contradictions of his racial anxiety. This failure vvouJd
account for his visionary tendency, vvhich led him to make impressive propl:ecies
but not always to undertake valid sociohistorical analyses.
J\Tonetheless, this difficulty, -,N-hicihs the locus of Blyden's philosophical
problems (accounting for ff1ost of his inconsistencies on colonization, structural
slavery, Islam's future, etc) paradoxically allowed hin1 to emphasize a
relativist view cf history and its interpretations and, thc:refore, the possibilir-y
or a general criticisrr, of social sciences. He made this criticism by systematicdly
focusing on the significance of European ethnocentrism and its various
expressions. This meant, then as now, that an und 1erstanding of African
personality or African culture cann:J~ neglect a major cHmension-the epistemological
debate. Because of imperiaiis:rn and its ideological reflections in
moral and social sciences, this approach must question all discourses interpreting
Afric.ms and their culture. Blyden considered this a critical prelimi-nary
to establishing a. unifying and prcductive r:ipport between African
ideology and the ,concrete practice of knowle6ge. lie 1Nas not until the 1920s
1 34· The Invention of Africa
that African inteHectuals redis:::overed Blyden's outlook.: to benefit from the
heritage of :their own h~story rather than remaining mere objects of or
obedient participants in '~Vesiem social sciences, it was their dur-y to master
knowledge of themsdves and their own culture and to open a vigorous
debate on the limits of anthropology" What Blyden wrote to J. R. Straton,
commenting on a work of one of the most brilliant theorists of racism i.n
France, might be applied to him in turn: "Le Bon's Psychology of Peoples
ought to be carefully studied" (LET:466).
V
T'HE Pi\11EJ\JCE OF' PI-lIL()SOPrI~Y
"Primitive P:hullosophi.es"
La premiere question que je [me] suis posee,
rencontrant des paysans [frarn;ais] qui
n'etaient ni credules ni arrieres, fut alors celleci:
la sorcellerie, est-ce que c'est
inconnaissable, ou est-ce que ceux qui le
pretendent ont besoin de n'en rien savoir pour
soutenir leur propre coherence intellectuelle?
est-ce qu'un "savant" ou un "1noderne" a
besoin pour se conforter du mythe d'un
paysan credule et arriere?
JEANNE FAVRET-SAADA, Les Mots,
la Mort, les Sorts,
The expression "primitive philosophy" was current in the r92os and :i:93os,
fo a preceding chapter, I examined at length anthropologists' discourse and
both its power and its ambiguity, The concept of "primitive philosophy" is
part of this system, which since the end of the nineteenth century had been
colonizing the continent, its inhabitants and i.ts realities. lit also belongs to an
intellectual edifice built on Levy-Bruhl's work, particularly on such cornerstones
as Les Fonctions mentales clans ies societes inferieures (1910), La
Mentalite primitive (192::t), L'Ame primitive (1927), Le Surnaturel et la
Nature dans la mentalite primitive (193 r), and L'Experience mystique et Jes
symboles chez les primitifs ( r 9 3 8 ). They posit a radical difference between
the 1JVestc, haracterized by a history 0£ inteHectual and spiritual reasoning,
and "primitives," whose life, Weltanschauung, and thinking we11ve ie\X,,eda s
having nothing in common vvith the •Y/est, As Levy-Bruhl wrote in La
Nlentalite primitive:
The attitude of the mind of the primitive is very different. The nature of the
milieu in vvhich he lives presents itself to him in quite a different vvay. Objects
and beings are all involved in a network of mysticai participation and exclusions.
It is these which constitute its texture a!ld order, It is then these which
immediately impose themselves on his attention and which alone retain it. (In
Evans-Pritchard, 1980:80)
1 35
The Invention of Africa
From d-Jtisv iew emerges a theory of two types ,:JJmf entality. One is rntional,
functioning accarding to principles of logi.c and inquiring into causal determinations
and relations; the other, prdogical, seems completely dominated
by cc,lliective representa1ion and strictly depends, upon the law of myst:cal
pa.rticipation, "CVestemersp articipate in logical thought. In the prelogical and
symbolic, one finds "such peoples as the Chinese included with Polynesi2.ns,
I'>Aela•n:; Si.ans,N egroes, American Indi2111s,a nd .Australian Elc1ckfello1;;s"
(Evarn-Pritchard, 1980:88),
By 1965, E-11ans-Pritchard could state that "there ii.: n::i reputable anthropologist
'Who today accepts this theory o:t t\vo distinct types of mentality"
(1980:88). I would only note that what the present-day "grand dichotomy"
impiie~ might nor be Levy-Br11hl'sm odel of opposed mentafaies but would
surely indicatCe a division of reason between the so-called dosed and open
societieso At any rate, in the 1920s and c:.93os the division meant both the
t81sk of con1prehending the primitive mentaliry as a poor and non-evolved
entiry and the possibiliry of restoring it at the beginning of the history of
::eason. It is withiin. this framework that one understaads such books and
contributions dealing with "pri.miti.ve philosophies" as Ddhaisse's Les Idees
t'eiigieuses et philoso;/Jhiques des Wat'ega (1909), Kaoze's La Psychologie des
Bantu, des Bani Marungu (1907-15n 1), Correfa's Vocab!es philosophiques
et 1'eligieux des peuples Ibo (191.5), or the vvell known texts of Brelsford on
Priinitive Philosophy (1935) and The Philosophy of the Savage (1938).
I arn not sa.ybg that aH vvh,:) ,Nere then studying "primitive organizations"
(see Smet, 1978b, 1:975a, :r975)J) were disciples of Levy-Bmhl, defending the
thesis of a difference in reason between the "primitive" and the "civilized."
Ra:her, all of them, eve.n those who, iike Deiafosse (19.22, 1927), commented
upon .African structures and peoples 'Nith a vivid EinfijhJung (sympathy),
'Were concerned •.vitb the discrepancy between Europe and rhe black con,,
1:inent and wished to describe this difference and possibly classify _it into :1
t8.xonomk gnid of human cultures. The Belgian Franciscan Placide Frans
T:~1r:_10ea1s s,I indicated iD. my analysis of missionary language, could be
considered a paradigmatic ilJustral:i.on of this cur:osixy; He is a sign caught at
che crossroads of :;evernl curl'ents: evolutionary assumptions of the late ninf:teentb
century, L1§vy-Bruhl's r:1eses on prdoglsm, the European seff-dedared
mission to civilize Africans thn::.llgh colonization, 2,nd Christian evangelizatic,
n,
Within 1:he arrogant frame<.vork 0£ 21. Belgian colonial conquest meant tc:v
h:i,st for centuries, Tempels, a missionary in Katanga, wroi:e a small book of
philosophy that sdll di.stmbs a number of African thinkers. ';x'hat Tempefo
knew of phil0sophy amounted, esseni:iaHy, to the •education he received
during his religious training. Fie vvas not a professional philosopher, and hi.s
major preoccupations, beginning with his arrival in Africa in 1933, were of a
religious r22ture" One or his exegetes, }\.. ], Smet, has suggested that LevyBruhl's
influence is evident in the first texts, c,vhich tended tc be ethnographical
in oudook, sn:d vvhich Ternpels published before Bantu PhilosoPatience
of Philosophy
phy (S11:iet,1 9776:77-128). Ternpels wa3 fuHy committed to a mission, that
of leading the bbck person (w whc,m he did not yet give the status of being a
complete human) along the road to civilization, knov1ledge, and true religion.
Hi.s style vvas th2,t of a buianwtari (breakei of rocks), cl spiritual ma:;ter
and authoiitarian docto£ (T~mpeb, 196;,.:36). B:mt1,: Philosophy could be
consider.<::d a testimony to a revelation and as a sign of a change in the life of
Tempels:
I must say tb.a, my goal, in thif. study of the Bantu was to feel myself "Bantu"
at least o!'ce. I vva11ted to think, Iell, live like him, have a Bantu souL All drnt
with the intention of adapting ... There was doubtless in my attitude something
moce, or something else, than the simple s•clentific interest of an an-thropologist
-✓vho asks questions w,ithout the object of :1i.s science, the living
roan in front of him, necessarily beir,g the object:i,e of his invescigatio~,s. JV!.y
attitude perhaps induded an elen1ent of sympathy towards this liiving individual
and evoked in him a JCeactio,1 of confidence towards me. ('lempeis,
1962:37)
Lcoking back ai: the period thai: sa,,v the publication of Bantu Phifosophy,
Tempels neatly differentiates himself from anthropologists. His aim is dit-·
feren,t, he s2:ys, and depends upon a rndkally different attitude, one of
Einfuhlung or sympath:r. Bet his book had extraordina1y repercussions.
G. Bachefard greeted it as a treasure. Alioune Diop pledged his faith on thfo
litde 'work, appending a foreword to the french version and describing it as
the most decisive vvark h1c had ever read (Diop, 1965). However, the hook lies in Kagame's claim that the discovery, through an Aristotelian grid, of hitherto unknown elements of Bantu cultures, is a discovery of a collective, deep, implicit
philosophy: "A collective system of profound thought, lived rather than
deliberated upon, [of which one can] clearly see the superiority over the
solitary labor of a licensed thinker amid a literate civilization" (1976:171).
According to Kagame, this silent philosophy can be de~cribed by means of a
rigorous application of five major scholastic grids: formal logic, ontology,
theodicy, cosmology, and ethics (1956; 1971).
Formal logic. This is concerned with the notions or idea as it is expressed
in ;:._te rm, of judgement as signified by a proposition, and of reasoning as
exercised in a syllogism. Are these notions and relations produced in African
"deep" philosophy? Kagame ansvvers yes, noting th,:i_t:
(a) Bantu distinguish the concrete from the abstract. Concerping the
iatter, a precondition for philosophizing, they separate the abstract of accide11tality
(expressing entities which do not exist independently in nature,
such as bu-gabo [ virility, courage, force]) from the abstract of substanti;;JivJ
(expressing entities existing independently in nature, such as bu-muntu [lmmanity]).
(b) The !Bantu proposition is organized in agreement with tvvo principles.
The enunciatio:1. of actors' names is always made at the ournet of the discourse.
A dassific3tory relative, that is, a linguistic classifier incorporated
into subE.:tantives, corresponds to names of each actor and allows a systematic
distinction between scbjects and complements in the discourse.
(c) The reasoning is elli.~CJtich. may use a premise (major) but more
Patience of Philosophy 147
generally it states a general observation or even a proverb directly leading to a
conclusion.
Bantu Criteriology and Ontology. If in general terms Bantu criteriology
does not seem to be particular, nor original when compared to other "analogous"
cultures (Kagame, 1971:598), the ontology or general metaphysics is
well-educated, thanks to linguistic systems of classes.
When one wishes to reach the essential thinking of the Bantu one considers
any sample representing the terms belonging to any class. This term represents
an idea, designates an object; for instance a shepherd, a child, a robber, etc.;
all of these ideas thus represented lead to a unifying notion which is a human
being. Similarly: a hoe, a spear, a knife, etc.; each one of these objects
corresponds to the already unifying notion of instrument, surely, but if one
goes further, the final unifying notion, beyond which there are no more, is the
notion of thing. (Kagame, 1971:598-99)
There are ten classes in Kinyarwanda. But Kagame, and after him Mulago
(1965:152-53) and Mujynya (1972:13-14), emphasize that all the categories
can be reduced to four basic concepts (see also Jahn, 1961:100): (a)
Muntu = being of intelligence, corresponds to the Aristotelian notion of
substance; (b) Kintu = being without intelligence or thing; (c) Hantu
expresses the time and place (presents variants such as Pa- in the eastern
Bantu languages, Va- in the west and Go- + lo/ro in the south); (d) Kuntu
indicates the modality and thus centralizes all the notions related to modifications
of the being in itself (quantity or quality) or vis-a-vis other beings
(relation, position, disposition, possession, action, passion). As such kuntu
corresponds to seven different Aristotelian categories.
Bantu ontology in its reality and significance expresses itself through the
complementarity and connections existing between these four categories, all
of them created from the same root, ntu, which refers to being but also,
simultaneously, to the idea of force. Kagame insists that the Bantu equivalent
of to be is strictly and only a copula. It does not express the notion of
existence and therefore cannot translate the Cartesian cogito. It is by enunciating
muntu, kintu, etc., that I am signifying an essence or something in
which the notion of existence is not necessarily present (1971:602).
When essence (ntu) is perfected by the degree of existing, it becomes part of
the existing. The existing cannot be used as a synonym of being there, since in
Bantu languages, the verb to be cannot signify to exist. The' opposite of the
existing is nothing. In analyzing the cultural elements, one must conclude that
the nothing exists and it is the entity which is at the basis of the multiple. One
being is distinct from another, because there is the nothing between them.
(Kagame, 1971:602-603)
Mulago specifies the basic notion of ntu. It cannot simply be translated by
being. Ntu and being are not coextensive insofar as the ntu categories only
The Invention of Africa
subsm,ie created beings and not the original source of ntuJ that is God:
Imam:;; In Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, Nyarnuzinda in Mashi (Mui.ago,
1965:153; Kagame, 1956:109-ro). Ntu is the fundamental and referential
bssic being-force wbtich dynamically rnanifests itself in all existing beings,
difforentiating them but also linking rhem in an ontological hierarchy:
The being is fondamentally 011e and all the existing oeings are ontologically
attached together. Above, transcendant, is God, Nyamuzinda, the beginning
and end of all being; Imana, source of all life, of all happiness. Bet·vveen God
2.nd hmnans are intermediaries, all the ascendams, the ancesrors, the dead
members of the family and the old national heroes, all the armies of disencarnated
souls. Belovv humans are aH the other beings, who, basically, are only
means placed at human's disposition to develop her or his ntu, being, life.
(lVidago, 1965:155)
In sum, the niu is somehow a sign of a universal similitude. hs presence in
beings brings them to life and attests to both their individual value and to the
measure of their integration in the dialectic of vital energy. Ntu is both a
uniting and a differentiating vital norm which explains the powers of vital
inequali1.y i.n terms of difference between beings. It is a sign that God, father
of all beings-ishe w'abantu n'ebintu (Mulago, 1965:153)-has put a stamp
on the universe, thus making it transparent in a hierarchy of sympathy.
Upwards, one vvould read the vitality that, from minerals through vegetables,
animals, and humans, links stones to the departed and God. Downwards, it
is a genealogical filiation of forms of beings, engendering or relating to one
aaother, all of them witnessing to the original source that made them
possible. One recalls Foucault's comment upon the prose of the world in the
predassical age of the \West:
Ev,::ry resemblance receives a signature; but this signature is no more than an
intermediate form of the same resembb.nce. As a result, the totality of these
marks, slidiing over the great circle of similitudes, forms a second circle which
would be an exact duplication of the first, point by point, were it not for that
tii:y degree of displacement which causes the sign of sympathy to reside in an
analogy, that of analogy in emulation, that of emulation in conveniencr::, which
in turn requires the mark of sympathy for its recognition. (1973:2,9)
'0ve ;;;.re dealing wiith an African "implicit philosophy," which, says
Lufulm:bo, comn--:enting upon the Luba notion of being, is essentially dynamic
because the subject lives in accordance to a cosmic dynamism
(1964:22). E. J\T. C. hiujynya, a disciple of both Tempels and Kagame,
proposes the signific:mce of this ontological dynami.sm i.n four principles
(1972:21-22): (a) each element in the universe that is each created ntu is a
force and an active force; (b) everything being force, each ntu is thus always
pan ,-:ifa ern1titude of other forces, and all of them influence ,each other; (c)
ever/ ntu can ahvays,, u.nder the influence of another ntu, increase or decrease
in its being; and ( d) because each created being can vveaken inferior beings or
Pcztience of Philosophy
can be weakened by superior beings, each ntu is always and simultaneously
an active aDd fragile fo:i-ce. From these principles, Mujynya deduces tv,o
corollaries; first, only one who is ontologically superior can diminish the
vital force of an inferior being; second, whatever action is decided or taken
by a being apropos another being nwdifies the latter by increasing or
decreasing his, her, or its vital force. Consequently, one understands why
Mulago refers to Bachelard's evaluation of Tempds's Bantu Philosophy and
vvritcs that it would be better to speak of Bantu metadynamics rather than
metaphysics (lvfolago, 1965:155-56).
Theodicy and Cosmology. Although God is the origin and meaning of
ntu, he is beyond it to the point that, according w K21game and }.1ulago, one
cannot say th<1t God is an essence (Kagame, 1968:2:r5; 1971:603; 1Viulago,
1965:152). God is not a ntu but a causal and eternal being, who in Kinyarwanda
is called the Initial One (Iya-Kare) or the Preexisting one (iya-mbe,-e),
in Kimndi the efficient Origin (Rugira), and in Mashi the Creator (Lulema).
It is therefore improper, in the Efes of 'Bantu' culture to call God the Supreme
Being, since He does not belong to the category of beings and on the other
hand the qualifier Supreme places him above beings in the same line of ntu. We
must call Him the Preexisting One, an attribute that fits the Existing Eternal.
(Kagame, 1971:603)
Referring to his native Luba language and carefully reviewing Kagame's
documentation, T shiamalenga strongly opposes this interpretation. God is
essence. He is ntu, even a muntu; and, in the same vein, the human being is,
wlthin the dialec'::ic of vital forces, a thing, a h.intu. ITn effect, Tshiamalenga
believes that Kagame and his followers, namely, Mulago and Mujynya, are
'Wrong because they forget that prefixing classifiers are formal and arbitrary,
and are used to classify and distinguish the status of substantives, not that of
ontological entities (Tshiamalenga, 1973).
As to Bantu cosmology, according to Kagame, it is based on an implicit
metaphysic principle: every body, every extension has a limit; differently
stated, an umlin1ited extension is impossible (Kagame, 1971:606). It follows
that the Bantu Weltanschauung distinguishes three circular and communicating
worlds: the earth, center of the universe because it is the home of
muntu, master of aH existing ntu; above, beyond the sky, the cirde of life in
which God dwells; and under our earth the world im which the departed
dwell (see also, e.g., Van Caeneghem, 1956; Mbiti, 1971; Bamuinikile,
1971).
Rational Psychology and Ethics: In t,;rms of psychology, the reference here
is the human being as distinct from the animaL Both are living beings, have
senses and the capacity of motion. Both are marked by similar patterns in
terms of birth and death. It is, however, in their passing away that a major
difference can be observed. The aniffJa!'s vital force or shadmv completely
disappears. ln the case of a human being, although shadow usually vanishes,
The Invention of Africa
the principle of intemgence which charactedzes him as human being remains,
becomes the muzimu (modimo, motimo, etc), and joins the subterranean
universe. On the other hand, as long as they are alive, animals and
human beings are viewed analogically as having two senses (hearing and
sight) in comncon rather than the five senses attributed by dassical "IJVe;;tern
philosophy. The other three senses are obviously experienced, but according
to Kagame, the knoYvledge they bring is integrated into the sense of hearing
(Kagame, 1956:186).
In terms of ethics, Bantu philosophy can be reduced to two essential
principles.
(a) The first rule of action and utilization is based on the internal finality
of the human being. Kagame notes that if: one looks at the vital principle of a
human being, one perceives that it is a t1,J110-pointeadr row: at one end is the
faculty of knowing (intelligence) and at the other that of loving (will). Classical
philosophy has put the emphasis on the first: we have "to know beings
surrounding us in order to discern what is good and what is not good for us.
\i7e have to love who and whar is good andl avoid what is bad £or us. At a
second step we have to know and love the Preexisting One v,ho made
possible these beings so we can know and love them" (Kagame, 1971:608).
Bantu philosophy, on the contrary, would emph:isize the other point: loving,
and thus procreating, perpetuating rhe lineage and the community of human
beings. By doing this it affirms a paradigm: the vital force is immortal.
(b) The second rule is related to the preceding one. The Bantu communiiy
defines itself through blood filiation. The community stands and understands
itself as a natmal and social body and infers from the authority of its
being and its histor<; the laws and mechanisms for territorial occupation,
political inslitutions, customs, and rites. The most striking and important
aspect is that the Bantu community has developed tvvo radically opposed but
complementary types 0£ laws. :First, there are juridical laws that the society
controls through its judges and lawyers. They do nOi: bind individual ccnsciences,
and whoever can escape them is considered intelligent. Second,
there are taboo-laws, principally of a religious nature: these are generally
negative and dearly specify what should be avoided. They contain in themselves
an immanent pov,rer of sanction, and God is the sole judge. Therefore,
whatever the transgression, no human being--not even chief, priest, or
king-can sanction or forgive the taboo-sin. The problem and its resolution
lie betvveen the u:ransgressor and God, and also between his or her stillexisting
family on earth and the departed ancestors.
Kagame's views may se,em controversiaL They are, however, deductions of
a truly impressive and vvell grounded linguistic analysis. No one can seriously
question his talent in handling, for example, grammatical overviews
of Bantu languages. Nevertheless, many points are questionable, such as the
geographical extension and the meaning of the category hantu, or the
contigui~y he est;;iblishes between terms and concepts, as if the relationships
existing between signi:fiers and signifieds were not arbitrary. At any rate, with
Patience of Philosophy
Kagame's work, Bantu philosophy escapes Tempels's unsupported generalizations:
it is now founded on a linguistic order. A second feature marks
the rupture between Tempels and Kagame. Tempels spoke of Bantu philosophy
as an intellectual and dynamic system which, although implicit, exists as
an organized and rational construction awaiting a competent reader or
translator. Kagame is more prudent. He claims that every language and
culture is sustained by a deep and discrete order. Yet he insists that his work
unveils not a systematic philosophy but an intuitive organization justified by
the presence of precise philosophical principles. Moreover, this organization
is neither static nor permanent, as indicated by changes in present-day
mentalities (1956:27). Despite the evidence of its cultural roots (1976:II7,
225), it should not be reduced to an absolute alterity. The third distinction is
that for Kagame it would be nonsense to proclaim an absolute otherness
since such important notions as idea, reasoning, and proposition cannot be
thought of as offering a Bantu particularity. In the same vein, formal logic as
such does not present a definite linguistic character (1956:38-40), and
insofar as criteriology and the properties of intelligence are concerned, the
problems of the former are co-naturels to all human beings (1976:105) and
those of the latter depend on philosophy as a universal discipline (1976:241).
There is thus a clear universalist dimension in Kagame's philosophy. The
fourth and last major point distinguishing Kagame from Tempels concerns
Bantu philosophy as a collectively assumed system. For the Belgian Franciscan,
this philosophy is a silent domain which has been functioning for
centuries, perhaps in a sort of "frozen dynamism." Kagame, on the contrary,
names the founding thinkers of a system that for him is in its being a
formulation of a cultural experience and its historical transformations
(1976:193, 305). These thinkers are the historical fathers of the Bantu
cultures (1976:193, 238), the creators of our languages (1976:83) and the
first Bantu humans (1976:76).
These four differences about Bantu philosophy-the method for revealing
it, whether Bantu philosophy is a systematic or an intuitive philosophy,
whether it is a strictly regional or a universalist-oriented system, and
whether it is a collective philosophy with or without authors-indicate a
clear discontinuity from Tempels to Kagame. Yet elements of continuity exist
in both the fluctuation that these differences imply and in the objectives of
Bantu philosophy itself. For Tempels, as well as for Kagame and his followers,
the affirmation and promotion of African philosophy meant a claim
to an original alterity. Their argument, in its demonstration, runs parallel to
primitivist theories on African backwardness and savagery. If there is a
dividing line between the two, it is a blurred one established primarily as a
signifier of sympathy or antipathy. Tempels exploited visible signs of Bantu
behavior in the name of Christian brotherhood. Kagame and most of his
disciples implicitly or explicitly refer to a racial duty (Kagame, 1956:8) and
stress the right to demand "an anthropological dignity" and "the assessment
of an intellectual independence" (N'Daw, 1966:33). Once this difference is
The Invention of Africa
established, cne can note the Hnk from Tempels to Kagame and other
"etJmophil.osophe,s." It is a body of judgments stemming from their analyses
and imerpretation of African culnu-es and can be summed up in three
propositions: (1) a good application of dassical philosophical grids demonstrntes
beyond doubt that there is an African philosophy which, as a deep
system, underlies and sustains African cultures and civilizations; (2) African
philosophy is fundamentally an ontology organized as a deployment of
interacting but hierarchically ordered forces; (3) Human vital unit"/ appears
to be the ceni:er of the endless dialectic of forces which collectivdy determine
i:hei.r being in rdation to human existence (Eboussi-Boulaga, 1968:23-2.6;
Hountondji, 1977; Tshiamalenga, 1981:178).
These principles sanction the domain of ethncphilosophy, vvhose geography
is characterized by two features. The first is z break with the ideology
inherent in the anthropologist's techniques of describing African
Weltanschauungen. The second is a paradoxical dai111 according to which a
satisfactory \\'/estern methodological grid is a requirement for reading and
revealing a deep philosophy through an analysis and an interpretation of
linguistic structures or anthropological patterns. So far, it has been possible
to distinguish two principal orientations within this field: the first interrogates
and explores the so-called silent philosophy (e.g., A, Makarakiza,
1959; E Ablegmagnon, 1960; "(!!. Abraham, 1966; Lufoluabo, 1962,
19646; l'-J'Daw, 1966; J.C. loahoken, 1967; J. Jahn, 1961; Mujynya, 1972;
012yew11eni, 1982). The second orientation studies this philosophy vvith
r historical trends: the first two are an anthmpoiogical
philosophy or erhnophilosophy and 2.n ideological philosophy or
political philosophy-two currents that, in a mythical or nationalist way,
contributed to the promotion of African dignity and political independence,
Evfore recendy has emerged a post-independence trend: the critical one,
which with Crahay, Hountcndji and others demands a rigorous reflection on
the conditions of philosophy as ·well as on the conditions of existing individuals
and soci,etles (Elungu, 1978).
Foundations
.Att he other ';':Xtremef rom ethnophilosophy and its critics, one finds vvorks
that have neither the form of amh:mpological exegeses nor the fashionable
anti-;:;thnophilosophical vocabulary. They not only fit fa.ithfuHy into the
mainstream of the phiiosophia perennis but sometimes indeed deal with
specifically 'v/estem topics. lvfany ot the advanced degrees 2cwarded in European
imiversities to young African scholais attest to this uend. These scholars
single out the mfrv-ersal historicity of a mechod. One can begin by
refer6ng to applied philosophy, as iHustrated by Aguolu's study on "John
Dew--ey's Democratic Conception and hs Implication for Devdopi.ng Countries''
(Aguoiu, 1975) and m:::ire recently by Hallen and Sodipo's book on
Knou1ledge, Belief and 1,Vitchcraft (1936). ~:t✓-e shall refer as weH to the best
papers, published annually by the department of philosophy of the Faculte de
Theobgie Cathc,Eque i.n Ki11Shasa. (They are among those ;,r,rhose major
rderen;::es accidentally co1ncide \Vith the Franco-Belgian orthodoxy in philosophy")
Vile sh;:dl also refet to Vf/iredu's very British Philosophy and an
A.fri:;an Cultttte ( I 9 3o ), which ;c~mong other things "teaches" us that "iI is a
fact that Africa lags behind tbe '1Ji/esti n the cultivation of rational inquiry"
(:::980:43) and ind.icates that "the id,eal --..rvtJoy reform backward customs in
Africa ;11usrt, surely, be to undermine their found,ation in s:.1perstition by
f,'.Jstering in the people ... rhe spirit of rational inquiry in all spheres of
th,)ughi: and bdief" (198c,:45).
There are in this special area quite orthodox and apparently purely spec:-
The Invention of Africa
ulative undertakings but also some imeHectual surprises. f.lodunrin's essay ,ryn
"The Alogicality of Imrntortality" ( I 97 5 b) and "\1viredu's "Logic and Ontology"
(1973) are exemplary. h1 terms of volumillous contributions I may
suggest three m.ode1s: Elungu's systematic study on the concept of extent in
M::deb::anche's thought (19736), Ugirashebuja's book on dialogue and poetry
according to Heidegger (19n), and Ngindu's research on the philosophical
problem of religious knovvledge in Laberthonniere's thinking (1978).
How can these ch0ices of subject be justified? fr is difficult to read authors'
minds. The social and intellectual context in whi.ch these philosophers
developed might account for their choices, just as it would for such notorious
eighteenth-century cases as the African A. G. Amo's intellectual career in
what was not yet Germany and his works De Humana Nientis Apatheia
(1734), Tractatus de Arte Sobrie et Accurate Philosophandi (1738), and the
lost De Jure Maurorum in Ei-,ropa (1729). Another case, this one scandalous,
was that of Jacobus Capitein, an African who -wrote and publicly
presented a study at Leiden University in the Netherlands on the nonexistent
opposition between shwery and Christian freedom: De Servitude, Libertati
Christianae non Comraria (1742). At any rate, cur contemporary students
of philosophia perennis may also be troubling. One is surely taken aback
when, in examining these very classical analyses, o:r:e comes across presuppositions
on African otherness in the guise of iogical deduction. For exam.pie,
it is a surprise to follow Ugirashebuja discovering in Heidegger's writing
Banyarwanda's language as a sign of being ancl its nomination, and to
discover in the Rvvandese philosopher's text the voice of I--:Iei.deggeirn viting
aH of 11s-T•Jlfestemers, Africrns, Asians-to listen to being in our respective
ianguages (see Ugirashebuja, 1977:227; Dirven, 1978:rnr-6), In the same
vein, Ngindu, in a snphisticated introduction to the fin de siecle modernist
crisis within the Roman Catholic European cirdes of philosophy, digs up
reasons for commenting on cultural imperialism in Africa and its epistemological
force of reduction (Ngi11du, 1978:19).
In this philosophical practice, which is completely foreign to African
culture, or at best, a marginal but powerful space in ·which only ways of
domesticating the African eq:ierience are elaborated, slips of the pen sometimes
occur and rni.mrmrs are heard v1hich resemble ethno-philosophical
dreams, On the orher hand, as the School of Kinsh,tsa has demonstrated, it is
not at aH cerrai.n that Hountondji and his fellow anti-ethnophilosophers are
neocolonialist devils pre·,enting people from affirming their otherness,
Strangely enough, his responses to criticisms (Hountondji, 1980; 1981;
1982), :"·eflecta well-balanced philosophical ,:1,.nnda tionalist imagination: "as
Gramsci rightly used to say, only truth is revolutionary" (19!h:67).
Both 1:he ethnophilosophical trend and the critical school agree on their
positJ:on about the existence of philosophy as an autocritical exercise and a
critical discipline in Africa. Viewed in terms of its organic expression, this
practice can be described from aJ least four different angles: the Ethiopian
heritage, the solidity of an empiricist tradidon in English-speaking countries,
Patience of Philosophy
the debate about the epistemological foundation of an African discourse in
social and human sciences, and IVlarxist universalism.
h1y brief pm,entation of Smnner's editions of Ethiopian texts (see appendix)
shows the particular situation of the Ethiopian tradition, whose Chrlstianity
goes bask as far as the fourrh centUP/. Since that time, mon\:s and
scholars have been at work on intellectual arguments, theological and political
commen::aries, and translations. Through the ages, a philosophy took
shape. i\ccording to Samner, The Boo1~ of the Wise Philosophers (see
Sumner, 1974) and The Treatise of Zar'a Yacob (Sumner, 1978) are good
examples. The first "presents itself as the quintessence of what various
philosophers have said on a certain number of topics, most of which are
ethical" (Sumner, :::974:100). Thus philosophy, fi:ilasfa, is understood as
being principally a wisdom, vvhich includes both ,I knowledge of the universe
2.ad mankind's pt,rpose in life. Adapted maxims from the Greek, Egyptian,
and Arabic as v.reH as maxlic.1s from Ethiopian Ir9.dition (as in the case of
many numerical proverbs) guide the listener or the reader on topics such as
matter, human physiology and psychology, man's social dimension, and
n-::oral concerns (Sumner, 1974). The Treatise of Zav'a Yacob also presents
prnpositions on :11oral issues (Sumner, 19 8 3) and guidance about knowledge.
Yet it is a unique and lrnportant sign which suggests a critical outlook
in the seventeenth-century Ethiopian cultufe, to the point that A, Baumstark
has compared it to "the Confessions of a fdlmv African, St. Augustine" (ir:
Sumner, 1978:5). The method of Zar'a 'facob is definitely new: it posits the
light of reason as a "discriminating criterion between vvhat is of God and
what is of rr1en" and can be compafed to Descartes's dear idea (1978:70-71),
Another side of the foundation of African philosophical practice is the
viability of the empiricist method in Anglophone countries. Their universi1:
ies and philosophy departments are generally older, Van Parys, after a visit
to twenty African crnmtnies having university departments of philosophy;
noted in his evaluative synthesis that in Anglophone countries they were
bet 1:er organized and appeared more solid in .:heir already tested traditions.
(Van Parys, 1981:386). More directly, the quality of the biannual journal
Second Order clearly preserves a sense of academic heritage.
Its aim is to publish first dass phitosopnical work of all kinds, but it is
especially concerned to i::ncourage philosophizing with special reference c:o
African context. Although the initiators 1Jelong to the Anglo-Saxon tradi::ion
of philosophy, they see ir as their job to construe their subject rather widely: 1:0
regard inter-discipliaary boundaries as made for m,rn, not m:m for them, and
to watch ou, for growing points in their subject as it appli,es itself to ,,ew
problems, (Cover of issues: 2)
K. Win:du's elegant book (1980) is a good example of this ambitio11c In fact,
,what determines the con6guration of this empiricist practice is the very close
relationship existing between Anglo-Saxon philosophers and their African_
colleagues. For example, Second Order's board of consuhants indudes
The Invention of Africa
D. Emmet (Cambridge), E. Gellner (Cambridge), D.W. Hamilyn (London),
R. Harre (Oxford), R. Horton (Ife), D. Hudson (Exeter), S. Lukes (Oxford),
J.J. Macintosh (Calgary), and A. MacIntyre (Brandeis). Also, in Anglophone
countries teaching and research in philosophy are accepted as a given, and
the departments are well distinguished from departments of African religions
or sociology.
A third orientation in the practice of philosophy in Africa is the search for
the epistemological foundation of an African discourse. We shall examine a
few illustrative cases: the epistemological debate on African theology, the
discussion on the significance of social sciences, and the deconstruction
doctrine in philosophy.
An important debate on African theology took place in 1960 (Tshibangu
and Vanneste, 1960), stemming from a public discussion between A. Vanneste,
dean of the School of Theology at Lovanium University and one of his
students, T. Tshibangu, who later became the Roman Catholic auxiliary
bishop of the archdiocese of Kinshasa and rector of the university. When the
university was nationalized in 1971 by the Mobutu government, Bishop
Tshibangu became the president of the National University of Zai:re. The
debate concerns the possibility of an African Christian scientific theology.
Tshibangu stated that under present world conditions it makes sense to
promote the feasibility of an African-oriented Christian theology that epistemologically
would have the same status as the Judea-Christian, Eastern,
and Western theologies. Dean Vanneste, although believing in the future of
Christian theology in Africa, insisted on the demands of theology understood
in its strict sense and defined it as a universal discipline (see Nsoki,
1973; Mudimbe, 198ra; Ngindu, 1968 and 1979; Tshibangu, 1974).
At stake is the legitimacy of an exploratory inquiry: can one reconcile a
universal faith (Christianity) and a culture (African) within a discipline
(theology) that is epistemologically and culturally marked? (Tshibangu and
Vanneste, 1960: 3 3 3-3 5 2). In a great confusion, European and African
scholars, notably J. Danielou, A.M. Henry, H. Maurier, V. Mulago, Ch.
Nyamiti, A. Janon, and G. Thils (see Bimwenyi, 198ra; Mudimbe, 198ra)
took sides. The debate also questioned indirectly the form and the meaning
of the African presence in the field of Christian theology. This debate could
only lead to an evaluation of the strictly scientific orientation of the
Lovanium School of Theology. The School's intellectual configuration was
subordinated to a number of principles (scientific rigour, theological tradition,
and dogmatic vigilance) in the manner of the best European Catholic
institutions. This cult of scientific quality is exemplified in such contributions
by Zai:rean theologians as Tshibangu's work on the complementarity between
"speculative" and "positive" theology in the history of the Western
Church (1965), Atal's philological analysis of John's prologue (1972), Monsengwo's
semantic study of the Bible (1973), and Ntendika's books on
patristic philosophy and theology (1966, 1971). In which sense are these
Patience of Philosophy
highly sophisticated studies related 1:0 the COP.Crete condition of African
Christians, their human probJ.ems and spiritual hope?
The problem extends i:o alll the social and! human sciences ·md has been
enlarged npon as both an epistemological and a ;:iolitical problem b7 the
second meeti.ng of Zai:rean philosophers in Kinshasa in 1977 (see also
Adotevi, 1972; Bimwenyi, 198ra; Buakasa, 1978; Sow 1977, 1978). W!e have
seen that anthropoiogical discourse was an ideological discourse. In rhe
same vein, contemporary African discourse is Ideological too, and as a
discourse of political power, it often depends upon the same type of ideologies
(Hauser, 198:!.; Elungu, 1979). Gutkindl think$ that "actual intensification
of: capitalist control over the means of _production in Africa increasingly
reduces sections of the population to a landless mral or mba:J'
proletariat in whose Hve ancestral traditions, hovv:ever modified, no longer
mean anything" (in 1V1acGaffey, 1981). I would adrl that this has another
significance. Large sections of the African people have nothing to do with the
present-d2.y economic ancl political structures within their own countries,
nor 'Nith intellectuals' and universities' proj,ects for linking \/Ve::;tern experience
to the African context.
It is because of this situation that both the African .i'vlarxists and "deconstructionists"-
the latter in harmony with the anti--ethnophHosophy current--
base their arguments. For 1bvra, for example, the critical enterprise is a
total vocation. The esprit critique must 2.pply indiscriminately to European
intdlectual imperatives and to Africaa constructions, the only acceptable
"trnth" being that there is nothing sacred that philosophy cannot interrogate
(Iowa, 197rb:30). Hountondji goes further, stating that philosophy is essentially
history and n.ot system, amd thus there is no single doctrine that may
daim truth in an absolute m,m.ner. The best understanding of truth resides in
the process of looking for i1t "In a way, then, truth is the very act of looking
for truth, of enunciating propositions and trying to jnstify and found them"
([1977] 1983:73). Similar phHosphicali positions aUowed T. Obenga to reinvent
the cu.ltura.l relationships that existed between Egypt and Black Africa.
Tin tlhe process, he criticized European theses and pinpoints Cheikh Anta
Diop's methodologicd we2,knesses. And J, Ki-Zerbo's g::neral history of
Africa (1972) provoked a new thinking about the diversity of functions of
African cultures.
AJl of the social and human sciences underwent this radical experience
between 1950 and 1980. Fundamentally, the questioning is based on "the
right to truth," implying a new analysis of three paradigms: philosophical
ideal versus contextual determination, scientific authoriry versus sociopolitica:
power, and scientific objectivity versus cultural subjectivity. Yet
there are signs that, since the end of "\WorldV 7ar H, have meant the possibility
of new theories in the African field:, European theorists, then, seem to invert
some values of colonial sciences and analyze African experience from a
perspective that gradu;::;.Hy institutionalizes "che themes of contextual deterThe
Invention of Africa
miHation and cultural subjectivity. In the 19 50s, J. Vansina and Y. Person
envisaged a nev,r arrang,::n1ent of the African past, interpreting legends,
fables, and ora: traditions as "texts" and "documents," which with Ihe help
c,f archaeological da[a could contribute to the foundation of an "ethnohistory,"
a discipline joining history and anthropology (Vansina, 1961). Jn
the same period, G. Balandier wrote the first books on "African sociology."
Moreover, with his anthropologie dynamique, he reorganized the discipline
and described the traditional "object" of anthropology, the "native," as the
only possible "subject" for his own modernization. In the psychological
field, scholars such as A. Ombredane re-examined, on a regional basis, the
assumptions concerning the psychology and intelligence of blacks (1969).
Frantz Crahay confronted Tempels's heritage, J. Jahn's generalizations on
African. culture, and the limitations of Nkrumah's philosophy; and proposed
conditions for a critical philosophical maturity in Africa (196 5). In the 1970s
G, Leclerc, vrith Anthropologie et colonialisme (1972), and J. L Calvet, with
Linguistique et colonialisme (1974), among others, rewrote the history of
ideological conditioning in the social and human sciences.
Th.is trend of Western scholarship has had an impact on African practice,
Nevertheless, it is neither a direct ancestor nor the major reference for the
African current we are examining. Although both are concerned with the
same object, and both present, essentially, the same fundamental objective,
there are at least two major differences that distinguish them. The first
difference accounts for a paradox. These cmrents have the same origin in the
'0Vestem ez)isteme, buit their beginnings did not coincide, and despite their
similari~ they consi:itute two autonomous orientations. They have all devdoped
in the European context as "amplifications" of theses coming from
two loci. The first of these i\s the "library" constructed by such scholars as
Frobenius, Delafosse, Theodore Monod, Robert Ddavignette, B. Malinowski,
and Marcel Griaule; the second, the intellectual atmosphere of the
r 9 3 os-1940s and surely the I 9 5 os, which with the rediscovery of Marx,
Freud, and Heidegger produced a critical reevaluation of the significance of
links between objectivity and subjectivity, history and reason, essence and
existence. On the basis of these questions, new doctrines appeared: neoMarxism,
existentialism, and also negritude and black personality. These
emphasized in different ways the pertinence and the importance of subjectivity,
the unconscious, existence, reiativity of truth, contextual difference,
and otherness,
In this atmosphere, Africanism developed and took on 2i new visage. In the
1950s and 1960s, while in Anglophone ccuntries JVL Herskovits and
B. Davidson promoted a new interest in African culture, the most dynamic
schools of European Africanism in Francophone countries were 1Vfa.rxistdominated
and heavily influenced by Levi-Strauss's notions of "otherness"
and "savage mind," It is an Africanism of "big brothers." Y. Benot, C. Coquery-
Vidrovitch, L. de Heusch, C. Meillassoux, H. Moniot, J. Suret-Canale,
B. Ve chaegen, others
main methodological points: the choice of a rigorous classical analysis
of the \Y/estern historical process of indigenizing the Gospd and a :::ritical
interpretation of this process, based on the ideological significance of strategic
cultural selections and subservient rules and aimed at the explanation of
the progressive constitution of the Church's doctrine and the development of
Patience of Philosophy 171
itts Htmgy. Bishop Tshibangu's work on the history of theological methods in
the West (1965, 1980), J. l\Ttendika's careful studies (1966, 1971) on patristic
theology, and Kinyongo's exegetical synthesis of the meaning of Jhwh
(1970) are good examples of the trend. In philosophy, the sc:.me tendency to
seek a good understanding of the T\JVesterpnr actice of philosophy, as a useful
step prior to promoting African philosoyhy, can be observed in sev:cral cases.
Second Order's orientation, Ehmgu's study of the c.Jncepts of space and
knowledge in Malebranche's philosophy (1973b), Ugirashebuja's analysis of
the relationship between poetry and chought in Heidegger's work (1977),
and l\Jgindu's presentation of religious knowledge according to Laberthoniere
(1978) provide examples.
This critical reading of the 'vvestern experience is simultaneously a way of
"inventing" a foreign tradition in order to master its techniques and an
ambiguous strategy for implementing alterity. In theology, for instance, it is
accepted that "African theologians have nothing w gain by withdrawing into
themselves. [By so doing] they would condemn themselves to remaining
second-rate theologians" (Tshibangu and Vanneste, 1960:333-52). Kn 1974,
Tshibangu published Le Propos d'une theologie africaine, a brief manifesto
which concentrates on linguistic and cultural relativism and upholds the
evidence of ethnic urn::lerstanding and expressions of Christianitl;~ along with
the fact that there are a variety of systems of thought. Tshibangu's work has
become a dassic and has had tremendous influence. It is already possible to
study the outcome of his thesis. There are more and more anthropological
and linguistic investigations of African traditions that pinpoint regions of
compatibility and divergence between Christianity and African religions.
Examples of this are Bimwenyi's Discours theologique negro-africain
(r98rn), Hebga's Sorcellerie et priere de delivrance (1982), the book published
by Ela and Luneau, Voici le temps des heritiers (1981), and Hearing
and Knowing (1986) by M. A. Oduyoye. Rather than insisting on the
economy of cultural and religious constellations and their possible compatibility,
this trend tends to emphasize the pertinence of diffraction and its
relative value in a regional system of revelation. Mulago's Cahiers des religions
africaines has been the most visible locus and vehide for this project
since 1965. Oduyoye sums up the nature of this quest:
We ... are confronted 'With this fact: those who were fof a long time contect
to be consumers of theology have begun to be producers of theology and it is
Christian theology. They are widening the panorama of symbols, heightening
the color of issues, and demanding comn1itment and action. (Oduyoye,
1986:76. Emphasis mine)
I asked Tshibang11 how, in this project for an intellecrnal discontinuit1; and
an ideological reversal, he could explain the relationship between thought
and action. He answered by specifying the philosophical frame in which this
new discourse evolves and the anthropological context of its possibility;
172 The Invention of Africa
Mudimbe: In any case concerning your project, one could wonder whether
thought could precede action. Surely, this is very scholastic. But people have
also said that the most important thing was to practice theology; that the
specificity, the African character of the discourse would come naturally.
Tshibangu: You are correct in posing the problem of the relationship between
thought and action. In reality, being, and consequently life, and action that
actualizes it precede thought ontologically. But thought in turn is implied in
the "form" of being that gives it the logical character of cognizability and
acceptability. In fact the two are correlative and condition each other. In
spiritual life, and particularly in a community of life such as the Church, life
and doctrine condition one another and act one upon the other. To date the
question of African theology is largely one of principle. Existentially concrete
problems are perceived and felt specifically by African Christian communities.
African theology will realize itself effectively by trying in a radical way to
answer the problems posed by the principles of African culture, the evolution
of African societies with numerous questions concerning spiritual and ethical
problems that are not lacking. [ ... ] Today given the level of awareness of
cultural differences, the specificity of cultures is not worked out over a long
period of time and in a spontaneous way. We know the conditions of the
specificity. This specificity, however, is based on the fundamental unity of
human nature. The question is one of determining the framework for the
development of this specificity so that it may enrich the total realization of the
potentialities that nature has granted to a humanity diversified in its historic
and spatial existence.
Mudimbe: You are a professor of fundamental theology at the Faculte de
Theologie Catholique in Kinshasa. By temperament and by choice you say
that you are preoccupied with epistemological questions. For what reason?
What exactly are you looking for?
Tshibangu: I mean by that that I am always preoccupied with the problem of
justification. In the field of action everything must be grounded, and this
demand imposes itself especially when in addition one accepts the law of the
evolution of things, of institutions, of ideas, of customs. In order not to stray,
to make mistakes, to act by simple habit or conditioning, it is necessary to
reflect on the foundation of judgements and attitudes. And I intend to proceed
methodologically in this search for foundations, in order to propose actions
and attitudes that are themselves grounded and well justified, infellectually
and with respect to the goals that humans must follow. (In Mudimbe,
1977:18)
A last trend in theology addresses a delicate issue: does it make sense to be
Christian and African? As the Jesuit priest E. Mveng expressed it more
concretely, why should an African believe in and promote a Christianity that
not only has become a product of exportation for Western civilization but
also has come to be used as a means of racial and class exploitation?
Unfortunately the West is less and less Christian; and Christianity, for a long
time, has been a product of export for Western civilization, in other words, a
Patience of Philosophy
perfect tool for domination, oppression, the annihilation of other civilizations.
The Christianity preached today, nm only in South Africa, but by the ·\West as a
povver and civilization, is far, very far from the gospel. The question is
therefore posed radically: what can be the place of Third 'IJVcrld peoples in
such a Christianity? And this question is first of ail aimed at the official
churches. (Mveng, 1983:140)
To face this question, another African Jesuit, Eboussi-Bouiaga, has put forth
for consideration his Christianisme sans fetiche: Revelation et domination
(1981). It is a deconstruction of Christianity. Setting aside dogmas, traditional
criteria, and official Church theories, he propmmds a direct interpretation
of revelation as a sign of liberation. In this perspective, the i:ime and the
dignity of the human being are seen and defined as the real place of God's
dream for incarnation. As a consequence, according to Eboussi-l3oulaga, the
most hr.portant issue for followers of Jesus is the liberation of their own faith
and its conversion into a practical means for a true transformation of the
world. This conclusion is the postulate of theologies of liberation in South
Afrirn (see, e.g., Tutu, 1984; Boer::ak, 1977, 1984a, 19846). One of the
soundest illustrations of this spirit of the Exodus is in J. M. Ela's Le Cri de
l'Homme Africain: Questions aux Chretiens et aux Eglises d'Afrique
(1980). Ela caHs for a "radical move away from the God of natural theology
preached by missionaries" and an invocation of the God of Exodus, interested
in history and the soci.oeconomi.c conditions of humans. Strictly speaking,
this is a political discomse in the name of Christian prophetisrn.
We have justified slavery, violence and vvar; we have sanctified racism and split
our churches on the issue of the preservation of white supremacy. 'W/e have
discriminated 2:gainst women and kept them servile whilst we hid our fear of
them behind daims of "masculinity" and sanctimonious talk about Adam and
Eve. We have grown rich and fat and pm,;erful through the exploitation of the
poor, which we deplored but never really tried to stop. All in the name 0£ Jesus
Christ and his gospel. Now this same gospel speaks to us, and we can no
longer escape its demands. h calls us to love and justice and obedience. We
would like to foHill that calling, but we do not wwt to risk too much. The
Reuben option. The Reuben option: Take a stand, bm always cover yourself.
(Boesak, 19846:38)
A hermeneutical school appeared in this context as the site of a more
mlmrally oriented research in African theology. I think that Okere's D.Phil.
dissertation (1971) was the first major initiative. Hm;vever, it is Tshian.1.alenga
(1973, 1974, 19776, 1980) and t,Tkombe (1979) who have become thi.s
school's most productive exponents. Okolo made explicit the philosophical
choices of the method (1980), dr8sving new propositions from 2, brief and
stimulating text by his former professor, Kinyongo (1979). Okere published
in 1983 an extract of his D.Phil. dissertation concerning the foundations of
the method. In this work one finds dear guidelines based on the solid
principle that while "language seems to affect culture and thought at some
The Invention of Africa
level," it does not follmv that one can "speak of philosophical and m1etaphysical
thought as somehmv predetermined linguistically" (Okere, 1983:9).
The most convincing studies to date, apart from Okere's unpublished dissertation,
bave been those of Tshiamalenga (e.g., 1974, 19776, 191fo) and
Nkombe in his methodological propositions (e.g., 1977, 19786) and his
study of metaphor and metonymy in the paroemiologic symbols of the Tetela
language (1979). In terms of intellectual classification, it is possible to
distinguish two main trends. The first is one of ontdogj_cal hermeneutics,
which at least in Kinshasa coincides with the reconversion of Tempels and
Kagame's Iegacy to more rigourous rnoclalities of philosophizing (see, e.g.,
Tshi.amalenga, 1973, 1974,, 1980). The second is more of a psychosocially
oriented hermeneutics which integrates lessons from phenomenological
methods (e.g., Laleye, 191h, r982; Nkombe, r979).
The question of the significance of these new intellectual strategies of
"conversion" has occurred in other domains. In social sciences, T K.
Buakasa, for example, has c:nalyzed the sociocultural determinations of
scientific reason, under the provocative title, Western Sciences: What For?
(1978; see also Okonji, 1975). Inspired by Foucault and especially by
J. Ladriere's work on the philosophy of sciences, Buakasa reexamines the
historicity and archltecture of scientific reason in order to introduce techniques
for the conversion of African "mentality" in terms of scientific reason.
Another philosopher, P, E. Elungu, accepts the realir-y of African authenticity
and the relative autonomy of its socioh1storical experience, but bases his
proposals for African liberation on a unique condition: a conversion to
philosophical and critical thinking. According to him, this spirit appears to
be the only possible way to modernization, insofar as it will mean in African
tradition the possibility of a rupture and subsequently the emergence of a
scientific mentality, This is a new cultural environment characterized by: (a)
man's capacity to break with what is simply given, in the pursuit of that
,Nhich is essential and specific to him; (b) the seizing of this essential
specificity in freedom of discourse, and ( c) the realization that this freedom of
3i.scourse is not freedom itself, that this autonomy of discourse is not independence.
(Ehmgu, 1976; see also Sodipo, 1975, 1983).
Examining these new rules of the game, one recalls Foucault's objectives
for the liberation of discourse in The Discourse 011 Language (in appendix,
19lh). Explicit references to V✓estem schemata are also noticeable in I-Iountondji's
program on the African practice of science, which relies on Altl:
ms:;er, and in Nkombe's research on African symbols inspired by Ricoeur
and Levi-Srcrauss. But these intellectual filiations imply methodoiogi.cal and
ideological syntheses rather than the capitulation of otherness (Vilasco,
1983). Hmmtondji presents the ambiguous dream of present-day African
philosophers provocatively:
The problem , .. as regards our z.ttitude townds our collective heritage, is
how to respond to the challenge of cu!tu_ca! imperialism without imprisoning
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Patience of Philosophy 175
ourselves in an imaginary dialogue with Europe, how to re-evaluate our
cultures without enslaving ourselves to them, hovv to restore the dignity of our
past, vvithout giving room to a passeistic attimde. Instead of bliDdly condemning
our t;:aditions on behalf of reason, or rejecting the latter on behalf of
the fonner, or making an absolute of the internal ra-cionality or these traditions,
it seems more reasonable to me to try and know our traditions as they
were, beyond any l'nythology and d:istortion, r:ot merely for t;1e purpose of selfidentification
or justification, but in order to help us meet the chalienges and
problems of today. (1983: r.1.2-43)
To sum up the rules of this deconstmcdon, I note three major objectives:
(a) to understand and define the configura!ion of scientific practice in social
and human sciences as an ideological locus determined by three major
variables-time, space, and the (un)conscious of the scientist; (b) to analyze
and understand African experiences as formed on the basis of a particular
history and as witnessing to a regional Weltanschauung; and (c) to think
about and propose reasonable modalities for the integration of African
civilizations into modernity, this in accordance with critical thinking and
scientific reason, for the purpose of the liberation of man,
It might be that all of these themes have been made possible by soi:ne of the
consequences of rhe epistemological rupture, v,hich according to Foucauh
(1973) appeared in the -west at the end of. the eighteenth centu'.1 . The
hypothesis makes sense if one looks at the progressive recession, from the
:1i.neteenth century through the r93os, of theories about "function," "conflict,"
and "signification," and at the slow emergence of a new rnnderstanding
of the potentialities of paradigms of "norm," "rule," or "system." In theory,
this reversal accounts for all ideologies of difference (see, e.g., Ricoeur, 1984).
However, it is not certain that it fully explains the functional arrangement of
the "colonial library," its histor1 and pervasive effectiveness during the
nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, nor the ambiguous relationships
berween the myths of the "savage mind" 2.nd the African ideological strategies
of otherness,
Horizons oi Knm1vledge
The history of knmvledge in Africa and "bout Africa appears deformed
and disjointed, and the explanation lies in its own origin and development.
As in the case of other histories, we fuce vvhat Veyne has called "the illusion of
integral reconstitution [which] comes from the fact d1at the documents,
which p:-ovide us with the answers, also dictate the questions to us"
( 19 84: r 3 ), Furthermore the body of knowledge itself, whose roots go as far
back as the Greek and Roman periods, in its constitution, organization, and
paradoxical richness, indicates an incompleteness and inherently biased
perspectives. The discourse which witnesses to Africa's knowledge has been
for a long time either a geographical or 211 anthropological one, 21I any r::te a
"discourse of competence" about unknow11 societies v1ithout their own
The Invention of Africa
"texts." Only recently has this situation been gradually transformed by the
concept of ethnohistory, which in the 1950s postulated the junction of
anthropological topoi with those of history and other social sciences, and
later on integrated oral tradition and its expressions (poetry, fixed formulas,
anthroponymy, toponymy). In so doing, this discourse began constructing
simulacra about the relations existing between present African social organizations
and history. On the whole, the discourse on African realities offers
two main characteristics: on the one hand, it is a heterogenous discourse
emanating from the margins of African contexts; and on the other hand, its
axes as well as its language have been limited by the authority of this
exteriority.
The atmosphere of the 1950s meant a new valorization in the Africanist
discourse, namely, the promotion of another center: history and its ideological
activity. This valorization is well represented in the shift that occurred
progressively after the 1930s, moving from the anthropological
authority and its negation of African historicity to the respectability of a
possible historical knowledge of so-called traditional societies. This shift is
illustrated by Herskovits (1962) and Vansina (1961). During the same
period, other forms of languages were being derived from the same value
presuppositions and freeing themselves from the anthropologist's intellectual
space (see, e.g., Wallerstein, 1961, 1967). Religious thinking began to conceptualize
a history and a sociology of what Schmidt called "primitive
revelation" (1931) and, as in the case of Des pretres noirs s'interrogent
( 19 5 6), to seek regional platforms for an African Christian theology. With
Griaule and Tempels, the reading and interpretation of local cultures had
already challenged the narrowness of classical ethnography and the gospel of
its topoi and raised questions of local rationalities and African philosophy.
J. Copans insists on the advent of sociology and Marxism as major events
which characterize this intellectual evolution of Africanism (in Gutkind and
Wallerstein, 1976). "Sociology was not just a new specialization, it constituted
a complete break on several counts; empirically, as it was taking into
consideration the real history of African peoples; in scale, as it moved on
from the village to national social group (from 'mini' to 'maxi'); theoretically,
as a materialistic and historical explanation took the place o1 Griaulian
idealism which ignored the realities of colonialism" (1976:23\ This new
Marxist approach was induced in the late 1950s by what Copans calls the
"collapse of anticolonial unity." This precipitated the appearance of a new
theoretical field of Marxist analysis: the world economic market, struggles
for political liberation, the development of social classes, capitalist economies
and imperialisms, etc. Thus, after 1956, "Marxist thought found new
life" insofar as from a Marxist viewpoint Africa was "a virgin theoretical
field." "The use of concepts of the imperialist system or modes of production
was facilitated by an explanation in terms of unstable arrangements and the
dynamism of contradictions." After the 1960s, "the characteristics peculiar
to neocolonialism led to research into the economic roots of exploitation and
PC!tienceo { Philosophy 1 77
into the political zmd revolutionary solutions to the overthrow of exploitation,
and so to the adoption of a J\/farxisc perspective" ( r 976: 2 5 ).
By and large, I agree with Copan's diagnosis, which requires a dialectic of
analogical relations between the historical constructions of the Same and the
new compli,mces vvith and about the Othere In this prospect, l\J.arxism
achieves a radically new approach. fr does not Yl/esternize a. virgin terrain, but
rather rnnfronts inattentivenesses, the supporting walls which suppose them,
and assembles under the wof c.f the analogue, relations, contradictions,
imaginations. In dfect, the method fesults in an original type of visibility of
differences in terms of theoretical traces of taking the place o/ and representing.
Alterity--be it socioeconomic or cultural-becomes through "models"
£eenactable under the modalities of technical simifarities of relations between
the Same and the Other. At the same time, these interpretative categories can
be classified in the name of their regional context (e.g., Terray, 1969; Rey,
1973). The great originality of French Marxists and their African counterparts
in the 1960s resides in this. Beginning with G. Balandier's propositions
on macroperspectives in the field ( I 9 5 5 a, 19 5 5 b ), a new discourse unites
what had been kept separate and opens the way to a general theory of
historical and economic derivation as exemplified in the works of Osende
Afana (1967), J, Snret-Canale (1958), C Meillassoux (1964, 1974), and
C. Coquery-Vidrovitch (1972).
The centrality of history is thus rernarkable in what Marxism expounds in
African studies. In effect, the invention of an African histrncy coincides with a
critical e-valuation of the history of the Same. One also observes that the
possibiliry of an African history seems linked in a relation of necessity to a
European questioning and redefinition of both w~hat history is not ,md vvhat
it should be. For example, one notes that it is during the methodological
renewal of the 1950s that Levi-Strauss, in order to celebrate the "savage
mind," rdativizes the very concept of history, which as he put it, "is a
disconnected whole, formed oi areas each cif 'Nhich is defined by a foeqllency
of its own" (1962:340). He has since been follmved by L de Heusch and
students who favor the structures of myths as pertinent loci of identity and
differences (see Heusch, 1971, 19ih).
The paradox becom.es dearer. The concept of "African history" marked a
radical transformation of anthropological narratives. A nev, type of discourse
valorizes the diachronic dimension as part of knowledge about African
cultures and encourages new representations of the "native," who pre'"viously
wa,, a mere object within European historicity. hs Marxist version offers the
immediacy of objectivity through systems-signs of soci.oeconomic relations
that permit both good pictures of local organizations o.f power and production
and intercultural comparisons. By means of a similar articulation,
:,trncturalisi: postulations, withmit rejecting the "new historical entity" (see,
e.g., Heusch, :::971), open up areas of synchronic investigation, ~mphasizing
the dialectic tension and balance between regional creatiYity and universal
com:traints of the human 1T,i,1d( sec, e,g., Heusch, I 98 5 ). In sum, Tempels,
The Invention of Africa
Griaule, and all the apostles of African otherness have been subsumed in the
Marxist project of a universal discourse of the Analogue, as witnessed to by
the neatly ambiguous ideology of Presence Africaine between 1950 and
1960. We find Sartre, Fanon, Garaudy, and Soviet communist scholars
speaking to, and in dialogue with Bachelard, Senghor, Cesaire, Maydieu,
and Tempels. Later on, most visibly in the 1970s, structuralist methodology,
in a new reflection on cultures, renewed questions of methods apropos of
interpretative discourses on non-Western societies. It thus challenged an
ethnohistory which tends to forget that "history is ensnared by myth which
imposes its own sovereignty on kings" (Heusch, 1982:2). Structuralism proposed
synchronic precepts for tabulating the forms of myths and cultures
within a universal frame of relations of similarities and differences (Heusch,
1985).
I cannot wholeheartedly accept Copans's analysis of the succession of
methodological paradigms from Griaule to the historical materialism applied
to the African context in the 1950s and 1960s nor with respect to the
advent of sociology in the same period as an epistemological event which
would have transformed the entire economy of African studies and the
meaning of its history. Copans's analysis is slightly misleading because the
critical transformation of the 1950s is essentially and directly linked to a
redefinition of both the object and aim of anthropology. This crisis expressed
itself in African studies in two ways. One, a critique of and improvement
upon Malinowski's functionalism, which with structuralism became a whole
embodying effort for reading, commenting upon, and comparing myths and
cultures independently of primitivist prejudices. As a consequence, Griaule's
Conversations with Ogotemmeli, and Tempels's Bantu Philosophy stand
between the ghosts of Taylor, Spencer, and Frazer, on one side and the
lengthy conversation which has been uniting Malinowski, Levi-Strauss, and
de Heusch on the other. Strictly speaking, Griaule's or Tempels's idealism
does not seem to belong to the past. Rather it still marks the oscillations of
explanatory frameworks in programs for constituting or describing African
forms of knowledge. The justification of Christianity seems an extreme case.
It does not refer to a historical aberration but to a sociological fact: the
universalization of a faith and a religious ideology appearing it1 the dispersion
of both scientific and religious imaginations (see, e.g:, Bimwenyi,
198ia).
Perhaps nothing has been more significant than the 1978 conference on
Christianity and African Religions organized by the Roman Catholic School
of Theology in Kinshasa. The Belgian scholar B. Verhaegan, who is both a
Marxist and a Catholic, developed his concerns in terms of "a historical
challenge":
Christian religions in Africa will be marked by this triple influence: the
capitalist mode of production having arrived at worldwide imperialism and
having been linked to a colonial past. The question that one must pose is the
Patience of Philosophy 179
folio-wing: how colonial policy first, then imperialist forces and the organic
structures of independent States influenced and manipulated religion in its
content as well as in its forms and structures in terms of their ow'n interests?
(Verhaegen, 1979:184)
To face the combined effect of these complementary factors, Verhaegen,
following G. Gutierrez's theology of liberation, proposed three genres of
theological discourse: a theology of modernity which will link the search for
social justice to the promotion of "reason, science and progress"; a theology
of charity which v,riH address the issue of social inequalities and poverty and
offer radically new moral solutions; ::.nd, finally, a theology of development
which will redefine modalities of development in terms of local interests
(1979:188-89). Verhaegen concluded that
three characteristics will mark the new African theology: it wiH be contextual,
in other words, stemming from the life and culture of African people; it will be
a theology of liberation because the oppression is not to be found only in
cultural oppression but also in the political and economic structures; it should
recognize the place of women as a vital part of the struggle for liberation and
the struggle against all forms of sexism in the society and in the church.
(Verhaegen, 1979:191)
Throughout the following years, events and research confirmed Verhaegen's
analysis. The philosophy of the Bulletin of African Theology (an
ecumenical journal of the Association of African Theologians) encourages
stands similar to those expounded in Verhaegen's 1979 text It is important
to note a collective concern about otherness in cuh:ural and spiritual matters
and the implicit integration of the "Marxist reason" in an idealist perspective
on spiritual, economic, and social issues. Thus Griaule and Tempels's idealism
is still operating, although in a different and discrete way. Nevertheless,
it is. widespread and. efficient to the point where one might wonder if, in
countries having a high percentage of Christians, such as Cameroon and
Zaire, it is not a determining ideological current, at least in the short run (see,
e.g., Ela, 1985).
As to the second point of my slight disagreement with Copans's analysis, it
bears on the importance of sociology in the reconversion of Africanism in the
I 9 5 os. Let us begin by noting that the crisis in the fidd was neither original
nor unique. It signified a wider malaise well-illustrated in the debate that
opposed Sartre and Levi-Strauss on history as a dialectic totality, the universality
of categories of reasoning, and the significance of the subject (e.g., LeviStrauss,
1962). The concepts of model and structure progressively invaded
the whole field of social and human sciences, postulating both an epistemological
discontirmit'f with traditional practices and a new understanding
of the object of scientific inqui1-y as well as what its discourse reveals, L.
Ahhusser's theory of scientific production (1965) epitomizes this awareness,
The Invention of Africa
Commentiqg upon the tension existing between sociology and history; E
Braudel could vvrite;
The vocabulary is the same, or is becoming the same, because the problematic
is becon,ing increasingly the same, under the convenient heading of the
cuffently dominant two words model and structure . ... In fact, whatever the
cost, social science must construct a model, a general and particular explanation
of social life, and substitute for a disconcerting empirical reality, a clearer
image and one more susceptible to scientific application. (Braudel, 1980:73-
74)
Thus, in the very center of human and social sciences, there is now affirmed a
desire that in a radical manner interrogates the space of knowledge and the
foundation of discourses expressing it. Levi-Strauss's critique of sociology
and history as two dimensions of the same figure, which in its mode of being
as wdl as in its objective and aim is not so different from the anthropological
project about "primitives," convincingly affirms the importance of new
epistemological determinations (see, e.g., Levi-Strauss, r 96 3 :Intro.;
1968:0verture). Following Levi-Strauss's line of reasoning, one may observe
that history, as history of the Same, and its privileges are challenged. P. Veyne
went further, subjecting the being of history to an evaluation and demonstrating
that "history does not exist" (1984:15-30). On the other hand, he
does not consecrate sociology. In the name of individual and collective
identities in their differences and similarities, Veyne questioned the domain
of sociological representations and the validity of its discourse: "Sociology is
still at a pre-Thucydidean stage. Being history, it cannot go further than the
probable, the likely" (1984:279). Comte's "sociology was a science of history
'as a whole,' a science of history; it was to establish the laws of history, like
the 'law of the three estates,' which is the description of the movement of
history taken as whole. But that science of history has revealed itself to be
impossible" (1984:268). As a consequence, sociology no longer has an
object, particularly when it claims to be autonomous from histon;.
In my view, it is under this paradoxical sign of a challenged history that
new horizons have opened up in African studies and account for present-day
real or potential tensions, M. Herskovits's initiatives in anthropology, G.
Balandier's in sociology, J. Vansina's in history, J. Coleman's search for
general paradigms in political science, are contemporaneous with this critical
consciousness ensuring a nevv thesis that globally negates the pertinence
of the inversed figure of the Same. Concretely, they impose on the field of
African studies the rejection of grids leading to pathologies of societies and,
after Tempels and Griau!e, those positing and classifying pathologies of
beliefs. The African project of succession also designates this same configuration
as its locus of creativity. In effect, in the early 1960s, the African scholar
succeeded the anthropologist, the "native" theologian replaced the missionary,
and the politician took the place of the colonial commissioner. All of
them find :;:easons for their vocations in the dialectic of the Same and the
Patience ol Philosophy 181
Other. It is strange and significant that they tend to rationalize their missions
in terms of an encounter between a narcissistic relation to the Self and the
dual relation with the Other (see, e.g,, Nkrumzh, 1957; Sengho;c, 1962),
Thus exegeses or commentaries on a newly discovered local rationality
appear as Gestalteneinheit; that is, a self-sufficient language, accounting for
its economy of being and defining itself as a historj_cal culture, becomes a
frame 0£ social cooperation uniting peoples in tolerance, making events
intelligible and significant, and controlling the pace of its own change (see,
e.g., Abraham, 1966:215-29).
In this respect, the nevv knowledge and its symbols do not destroy completely
the relevance of the colonial library; nor the idealism of apostles of
otherness. It has brought aboul: new standards for the coilectivi:rntion and
democratization of historical reason and has reformulated residual questions
concerning ideological power and scientific orthodoxy. Its best and probably
excessivse illustration is the Africanization of diffusionism as actualized by
Cheikh Anta Diop (e.g., 1954, 1960a, 1981).
Three main initiatives combined to recapture the whole of African experience
and witness to it reality·. They are the integration of Islamic sources and
imaginations into the "newly expanded library," the constitution of a corpus
of traditional texts, and a critical renewal of the anthropological authority.
The whole conceptio11 of African history had to be defined anew on the
basis of Islamic contributions (Ki-Zerbo, 1972), which affect the classical
historical doctrina by bringing up new witnesses and documents. Islamic
narratives enter i:rito the episteme. Some African enigmas are now examined
with the aid of commentaries and descriptions by fon Hawkal (tenth century),
El Bekri (eleventh century), !drisi (twelfth century), and Ibn Batuta, Ibn
Khaldoun, and Maqrizi (fourteenth cemury). The sociohistorical phenomenon
of "Black Islam," as studied by V. Monteil (1980), is a primary concept
for some important periods of history, and the tarikhs, or chronicles, have
become valued sources. Islamic sources have alvvays constituted important
dimensions for the search and invention of African paradigms (see, e.g.,
Blyden, 1967)0 Islamic culture has powerfully contributed to the passion of
alterity, particularly in West Africa, vvhere it still exposes schemas and
lessons on social harmony and its philosophy (e.go, Ba, 1972; Hama, 1969;
1972; Kane, 1961). But, by and large, the Islamic discourse was until the
1960s an ideological interference within the ktema es aei embodied by the
colonial library as, for example, represented ad absurdum by the life and
passion of Tierno Bokar (Ba and Cardaire, 19 57; Brenner, 1984).
The constitution of a corpus of A.frican traditional texts is undeniably one
of the most important achievements in the field. The most impressive collection
remains the series of Classiques Africains created by E. de Dampierre in
Paris on the model of the Greek and Latin classics of La Collection Bude.
Note that since the first years of this century, folklorists have been publishing
translations of traditional narratives under the name of "oral literature" (see
Scheub, 1971, 1977)" for years these collections served as professed monur!
h The Invention of Africa
ments to peridvilhed or marginal experiences, Frobenius's African Genesis
( r 9 3 7 ), for exam pie, contributed to a scientific curiosity by transferring
narratives from their original context and language into a European language
and conceptual frame. They then become formulas for a diffusionist
thesis. On the '\lvholie, until the 1950s, most of the published works were
based on similar transference. Narratives were submitted to a theoretical
order, and rarher than accounting for their ovm being and their own meaning,
they were maialy used as tools to illustrate grand theories concerning the
evolution and transform2,tions of literary genres. Kagame's project of promoting
an indigenous reading of traditional narratives has been-despite its
internal weaknesses-one of the most serious and least extroverted approaches
to African genres. By making available some ioasic texts pertinent to
the hypotht,sis of Bantu ontology, the Belgian scholar, J. A. Theuws ( r 9 5 4,
1983), makes a similar contribution. Narratives presented in the truth of
their language and authenticity become texts of real peoples and not merely
the results of theoretical manipulations.
This new perspective has been reorganizing the field for some years now.
The authority of reading and classifying genres, texts, and foeratures from
some kind of divine position, which does nor demand a knowledge of a
specific social context, its culture, and language, is being progressively replaced
by concrete questions bearing upon contextual authority and the
necessity of linking narratives to their cultural and inteHectual conditions of
possibiliti;. By wiy of illustration, one naturally turns to the magnificent
collection of Classiques africains published first by Julliard and then by
A. Col.in under the direction of E. de Dampierre. Recently, K. Anyidoho
surveyed the geography of the field ( 19 8 5 ), H, Scheub evaluated the "state of
the art" ( r 9 8 5 ), and S. Arnold described changing aspects of African literary
studies ( 198 5 ). Examining these articles, one finds a resolute n.ev'I message:
African Hterature studies is interested in knowledge and every text is worthy
of being considered literature.
This commitment is in itself a problem, insofar as it claims to apply to all
narratives, be they in African or European languages. Diverse texts produced
for differing purposes and in different economic areas are all lumped together
as material for one discipline. At the rnen::y of scientific paradigms and
grids, they become almost identical memories, reflecting in the same way
African social relations of production, ideological signals, and cultural
geographies. Intellectual histories mix with ethnographies, imaginative
works in English or french with "oral narratives." The uniformizing dichotomy
of modem versus traditional organizes the competing values and merits
of texts. "What this sort of literary criticism does to the actual experience and
meaning that the text expressed in its original cultural context does not seem
to concern most students of African literature.
From an anthropology redefining itself come new possibilities and questions.
L. de Heasch has brought structuralism to African studies, rediscovered
Frazer's universal mythemes and faced the question of the being of
the Analogue.
Patience of Philosophy
Frazer ... curiously neglected to point out that the drama of the Passion, reen,
Kted on Christian altars, is a universal theme. Christianity's greatness lies in
knowing how to present the political assassination perpetrated in Judea by the
Roman coloniser, as the ultimate sacrifice and in having tried to build on this
schema-at the price of a metaphysical illusion-a society of peace and
brotherhood. That message can never again be forgotten. Yet a blind man's
sofr voice, vvhich would not have been heard outside Dagon country if Griaule
had not been so attentive, also deserves to be considered as a profession of
sacrificial faith, based on the hope of a more humane, more balanced world
... the sacrifice circulates "a word," destined for all, says the old Ogotemm.eli.
(Heusch, 19 8 5: 206)
Disciples of Ricoeur and Gadamer are also proposing ways for conciliating a
critical consciousness with the authority of regional cultural texts, as in the
case of Bellman's study on symbol and metaphors in Poro ritual (1984), or
Tshiamalenga's philosophy of sin in the Luba tradition (1974), as well as his
linguistic and anthropological analysis of the ntu vision of the human being
(1973). Semiology, as an intellectual tool for examining social signs, and
hermeneutics, as means and method of reading and interpreting these social
signs, may indicate a future direction for African Studies. They address an
apparently simple question: how can one unveil and describe African experience?
Is it just a matter of the methodological association of concepts, which
when applied well will reveal an empirical reality, or is it a problem concerning
the explanatory principles of scientific and philosophical models?
The main problem concerning the being of African discourse remains one
of the transference of methods and their cultural integration in Africa.
However, beyond this question lies another: how can one reconcile the
demands of an identity and the credibility of a claim to knowledge with the
process of refounding and reassuming an interrupted historicity within representations?
l\,foreover, could not one hypothesize that, despite the cleverness
of discourses and the competency of authors, they do not necessarily reveal la
chose du texte, that which is out there in the African traditions, insistent and
discrete, determining the traditions yet independent from them? Colonialism
and its trappings, particufady applied anthropology and Christianity, tried
to silence this. African discourses today, by the very epistemological distance
which makes them possible, explicit, and credible as scientific or philosophical
utterances, might just be commenting upon rather than unveiling la
chose du texte. This notion, which belongs to hermeneutics, and ywhich
according to Ricoeur's proposition calls for an obedience to the text in order
to unfold its meaning, could be a key to the understanding of African gnosis.
As an African responsibility, this gnosis emerged in the gradual and progressive
preemi.nence of history and has marked all discourses for intellectual
succession.
In history, the ambition of this gnosis has, since the 1960s, been embodied
in the work of such scholars as Ajayi, Ki-Zerbo, Obenga, and others. They
brought into a dialogue the authority of historical methods and forms of life
and societies which up to the 19 50s vvere largely considered historically
The Invention of Africa
mute" Against the mythologies of anthropology, rightly or wrongly, the
critique historique faced ideo 1:ogies of otherness and combined with thenc:Lin
synthesrn that ,;fo.imed w repn makes possible its approximate definition,
always remembering of course that this nodal point of past, present and
probable events does not exist as a substrawm, but only in the sense that
phenomena are occurring in it ... (Levi-Strauss, 19!:lI:625-26)
One could also refer to Ve,1ne's strong critique of a history of the Same that,
in reality, does not exist despite its ambitions (Veyne, 1984:15-30). Most
important, at least in African gnosis, are the implications of this new perspective:
(a) an interrogation about the subject of discourse; (b) a reevaluation of
the concept of rationality from the viewpoint of intrinsic propertiefof categories
functioning in regional texts, myths and interpretations; ( c) a reconceptualization
of scientific method and the relationships that "scientific knowledge"
might have with other forms or t1;pes of knowledge; and ( d) a redefinition
of human freedom. These are not small issues, and because of their
range, structuralism, to use an unfortunate expression of 1vL P. Edmond, has
been perceived as a process of de-\J{!esternizing scientific knowledge (Edmond,
1965:43-44).
Let me be frank: twenty years of careful study of structuralism have
convinced me that although there is an impressive body of good and comprehensive
analyses on structuralism in which one finds stimulating and
highly technical criticisms (e.g., Beiddman, 1966; Turner, 1969) and philoConclusion
199
sophical challenges (e.g., Ricoeur, 1969), a great number of criticisms of
Levi-Strauss are consciously or unconsciously ideological, even, 1 would say,
raciaHy motivated. They can often be reduced to the two follov:ring statements:
Is not strncturaHsm a Jewish enterprise against the achievements of
the Christian West? And, as one of my European students put it, forgetting
my origin: "Levi-Strauss does them too much honor."
Concerning the methodology of describing African cultural dynamics, the
difficult exchange that exists nowadays between J. Vansina and L de Heusch,
T. Obenga and his opponents, P. I-Iountondji and his critics, is a sign of the
organic richness of discourses focusing on the individuality of norms, rules,
and systems. These discourses show the perilous path of the future. On the
other hand, they point to the delicate validity of patient translations and
interpretations of regional cultural economies, such as the work of Lienhardt
(1961), Buakasa (1973), Jackson (1982), and Izard (1985), This orientation
is revealed most explicitly in Bird and Karp's collection of specialized studies,
Explorations in African Systems of Thought (1980), and in Beidelman's
study on Kaguru modes of thought (1986). The domain of a universal
language (langage) or megarationality has been replaced by the criterion of
experiential authoriLJ' "inventing" itself as translation and exegesis of institutional
and well-delineated languages (langues) founded by concrete performances
(paroles), ,What one gets is thus a decisive critique of traditional
methods of correlating the Same to the Other, In JB. Bames's words, these
enterprises from within indicate that "making a demarcation in actors' own
terms is usduli for explanatory purposes. Such a demarcation is part of the
actors' perception of the situation; and action is inteBigible only as a response
to that perception . , . Making a demarcation by external standards,
on the other hand, is useless for explanatory purposes ... " (1974:100). It is
obvious that such a method should define itseH as a critical system of making
statements, which could only partially unveil the social and cultural archives
of a society.
\Vhat then should we do with the problem of a transhistoric thought?
From the rhetorical margins of history, i.t opens upon a paradox: something
like the pure reflection of consciousness in a pure language, It enlarges and
universalizes regional archives and brings them into contact with the analyst's
mind, thus inventing in a dynamic manner both understanding and
hi.story. It is useful "for history to move m;vay from us in time or for us to
move away from it in thought, for it to cease to be intemalizable and to lose
its intelligibility, a spurious intelligibiliry attaching to a temporary internaliiy"
(Levi-Strauss, 1966:225). This does not constitute the negation of the
truth of social forms as expressed and generated by the dialectic between
Leben (living and sharing with others) and Gemeinsamkeit (a permeating
community). On the contrary, a permanent recapitulation of this dialectic
should remain as an endless task of reading, commenting upon the permanent
production of cultural legends and "une parn!e pour-soi."
Foucault once said that he deprived "1:he sovereignty of the subject of the
200 Conclusion
exclusive and instant right to discourse." That is good nev,rs. I believe that the
geography of .African gnosis also points out the passion of a subject-object
who refuses to vanish. He or she has gone from the situation in which he or
she was perceived as a simple functional object to the freedom of thinking of
himself or herself as the starting point of an absolute discourse. Xt has also
become obvious, even for this subject, that the space interrogated by the
series of explorations in African indigenous systems of thought is not a void.
APPENDIX
ETHIOPilt.N SOURCES OF KJ:\~CPXTLJEDGE
"If Abyssinia had been a colony; for example, the most ardent believer in the
preservation of native culture would not have advocz,ted the recreation of -che
pre-Christian religion" wrote L P. Mair (Malinowski :ind others, 1938:4). ln
the lvfarxist Ethiopia of today, a Canadian scholar, C Sumner, has made a
major contribution to the search for a new outlook on "African philosophy."
He thinks that "there is an urgent need that philosophy, taught in fahiopic: at
a university level, should not be entirely alien, but integrate values found at
home, in the fertile riative ground" (Sumner, 1974:3). He has so far made
available the following major sources.
(1) The Bool~ o/ the Wise Philosophers has been known since 1875 thanks
to C. R Cornill (Das Buch der Weisen Phi!osophen nach clern
Aethiopischen untersucht, Leipzig) and A. DiHmann ( Chrestomathia
Aethio;/Jica, 1950, Berli.n)" his an anthology of sayings, most attributed to
such philosophers as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Galen, "The rnajority of
the sayings vvere exhortations and advice, ofren ack~ressed by a wise man to a
disciple or to his son" (Sumner, 1974:4), The text used is a Gt:ez translation
from an Arabic original compi.led between 1510 and r 5 22 by Abba lviikael,
an Arabic-speaking Egyptian. It ls profoundly marked by Greek and Christi:
m influences, as shown in references tv Socrates's lifo and to platonic
philosophy and in quotations of early church fathers such as Gregory andl
JBasiL
(2) The Treatise of Zlir'.a Yacob and of Walda Heywat. The corpi1s of
these seventeenth,-century texts was established for the first time in 1904 by
E. Littman (Philosophia Abessini, Corpus Scriptorum Christim.oruvn OrientaEium
18, (1):Paris). Sumner's edition (1;?J76, 1978) is the first complete
English version (1976:3-59). The vmrk comprises tvvo hatatas, aut0-
biographical mechtations, The Zar'a Yacob (seed of Jacob) is divickd into
twenty-five chapters be;;iring on thi:: author's life, the eternity of God, division
among believers, the meaning of faith and prayer, the Jaw of God and i:he hvv
of man, Mosaic law and Mohammed's mechtmion, physical and spiritual
work, marriage, and the nature of knowkdge, Composed of thirty-:5.ve brief
chapters, the Treatise of Walda Heywat (son of life) exar1ines such topics a;:;
creation, knoc,,1ledge, faith, the nature of the wul, law an.cl judgf.mem, social
life, the use ot love, virtues and human -weaknesses, echication, tirfa:\ and
culture.
lin his 1904 edition, Littmann noted the int:c:llectualp •mver ·.J.ncol riginality
of these works.
20:;:
202. Appendix
\l(/hile the greater part of Ethiopian literature is translated from foreign l.angrnages,
these [WO books written by Abyssiinians are in1bu,~cl with their ovvn
native ch,;,racter ... 1-Iow;cveIr ,w ould say that these flowers could not grow
solely from the Ethiopian ground, unless they had been irrigated by external
waters. (In Sufnner, 1976:63)
In 1916, Carlo Conti Rossini hypothesized that the t!'eatises were of Emopean
origin and suggested the author might have been Giusto D'Urbino, an
hali:m missionary. Eventually, the tv10 hatatas came to be considered ninet,
ernth-ce!ltury Italian works. Sumner hz.8 ·1Norked to prove the contraq and
to reestablish the Ethiopian origin of the rexts (Sumner, 1976:250--75).
Hov.rever, in his extensive analysis, Sumner comp2,n,s Zar-a Yacob to Mani,
Luther, Herbert of Cherbury, Rene Descartes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(1978: 6 5-73). He thinks that "many of the ideas developed! in the Hatata are
similar 1:0, and im some instances identical with, the Tractatus de Veritate
and the Discours sur la methode. Bm the convergence would not apply
beyond the logical level of a common rationalistic approach and or epistemological
investigations" ( r 9 7 8: t, r ).
(3) The Life and Maxims of Skandes is an Ethiopic version of the wellknown
text of Secund11s, whose roots go back to i:he first centuries of the
Roman EmpirL It has survived in two lineages: 'Jlfestem (Greek and Latin)
and Eastern (Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic). Sumner reproduces the edition
established by Bachmann: Das Leben und die Sentenzen des Philosophen
Sewndus das Schweigsamen (1887, Halle\ This Geez version bdongs to the
L':'34-1468 literary period and is a translation of an earlier Arabic text. The
theme of the book is a question: what is the relation between a -woman's will
:md her instinctive tendencies? Et is also a commentary on the shocking
maxim that aH wornen are prostitutes. According to Sumner, rhe Ethiopian
version is, from a literary viewpoint, original. "The translator very often
departs from the A.rabic original. He both subtracts and adds" (1981:437).
Sumner is preparing two other volumes for publication: The Fisalgwos
2nd Basic Ethiopian Philosophical Texts. Greeting the publication of The
Boo.k of the Wise Philosophers, L. Nusco, of the then Haile Selassie I
University, remarked th2t the book "is not a work of philosophy in the
technical sense of the word,"' adding that "such a classification would cause
the indignation of aE professional philosophers" (Sumner, I97"1-l- fr:. his
eval1uation of the 1976 Addis Ababa Seminar on African philosophy, Van
Parys asked whether or not these treatises are really Ethiopian, since at lea.st
the first and the third are transladons. }-Hs answer is prudent: they are
original and creativdy Ethiopian, but apart from the second, they are not
really criticaL "It i.s in the comparisons bet\veen Arab and Greek on one
hand and Ethiopian on the other that is found Ethiopian originality. I-fowever
none of these works shavv the critical spirit that characterizes modern
thinking" (Van Panis, 1978:65).
This is possibly a matter of opini,on. The body of ancient Ethiopian texts
Ethiopian Sources
does not conceal its sources. Nevertheless one cannot ignore that some of
them, s11ch as the books or Zar'a Yacob and \Valda Heywat, witness to a
regional inspiration. fa any case, all these texts are somehow "subjects"
commencing upon themselves and their restlessness, The fact is that, as in the
case of most intellectual contributions, there is a mystery on two sides: the
genealogical reciprocity existing between the Ethiopian versions and their
historical references, and, on the other hand, the privileges of their own
textuality, In a paper focusing on the ethical aspects of this literature, Sumner
has emphasized the complementarity of these two aspects:
If W'io consider together the t'JVO expressions of Ethiopian Philosophy: translation,
adaptation and personal reflection, popular-traditional wisdom and
rationalism O •• we come to a fevv conclusions which can be summarized
under four headings: centrality, comprehensiveness, richness, theological
basis. (Sumner, 1983:99)
For Sumner, the notion of centrality is linked to that of moral importance or
prevalence that "characterizes all types of Ethiopian thought:' That of comprehensiveness
implies that "aH aspects, objective and subjective, proximate
and ultimate, are taken into consideration in the assessment of the norms of
morality." The concept of richness is a theoretical image expressing connotations
and implications stemming from "the key word of 'heart,' the
radiating polarity of 'conscience'" in the texi:s. Finally, there is the theological
basis, which is radically anthropocentric. About the sixteenth-century
Book of the Wise Philosophers and the seventeenth-century philosophical
treatises of Zar'a Yacob and his disciple Walda Heywat, Sumner proposes
hypotheses that clearly discriminate them from the tradition that produced
them:
Both are opposed to any kind of religious revelation, and hence are not
Christian in any way; they are, in that sense, explicitly anti-Christian. And yet
their rationalism led them to a dear, pure, abstract theism. l~or the natural
light of reason, however opposed to any revealed positive light, is nonetheless a
penetration of the divine into the creatural. (Sumner, r 9 8 3: r oo)
Thus, one can. provisionally note that textual deviations mean what they
silently or explicitly negate: the intellectual locus of their possibility, .At the
same time and more important, by their very presence they also indicate a
remarkable instance of a culturally regional authoriry in terms of creativity.
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INDEX.
Abdou, T., 160
Abraham, W. E., 39-41, 7'3
Acndturati.on, 2.0, 68, 19I-92
Ac:aptation, theologies of, 5 7
Adotevi, S., 36-37, 167
Adventures in a Mitd Hut (Barley), 2.I-22
Afana, ()sende 1 96
Africa (Schulte~), u
African A!/egory (Ripa), 12
Africa and the Africans (Blyden), 99, me
African Empires and Civilizations (lviichdet),
88
A/rican Genesis (Frobenius), 182
African gene~is, hypotheses of, I 6, 22
African.ism, 91 166-68, 176'.I I79; Blyden's
attitude toward, 124
P1.fricanity,3 71 79
African languages') 60~ I23, 169; missionaries'
2.nd anthropologists' knowledge of,
65-66
African nation, concept of, r::: 5-16
African Personality, 3 8; Blyden as precurcso:i'.'
of, 98, 131. See also Black personality
African Studies, 9, J6, 44, 169, r23
A(rique ambiguii (Balandier), 38
Aguolo, C., 161
.Ahidjo, .A., I 8 5-86
Ajayi, J. F. A., 194-9 5
Akarnbas (people), I 52
Alexander './I (pope), "i· 5
"Alogicality of lll'monality, The"' (Bodumin),
162
Alterity. See Otherness
Althusscr, L., 158, 160, 179
Americz.n Colonizarion Society, 103, 104
}u11ia, S., 5
Amo, A, G., 16?.
i\.nglican Church, 2e9, 5 5
Anobo, M,: OE Senghor, 94
Anthropoiogicd philosophy. See fahnophilosophy
Anthology of New Negro
and Malagasy Pcetry (Senghor), 83-84
Anthropology, 16-22, 37, 67-69, 75-78,
r2, 1-85; Africa1, critique of, 38; and African
sociology, 166; Blyden compared to
founders oi, II9; and Christiani,y, 56-58;
commitment to African values, 60, SS-89;
concept of primitive philosophy, 135, 1.;.2;
on distance fro111 San"!e to Other, 8 r; and
ethnocentrism, I9'; Foucault on;) r6~ 29; in1-
pact on black intelligentsia, 88; LeviStrauss
on, 28-29; and ma~·ginality, 6; miss10_
rnne~ information as, 64-67;
negritude's influenr;e, 8 5, 8 6; arrd philology,
I8; and philosophy~ 152, 158, 168; on
prim'tive philosophies, r4 3-,,4; relationship
w history, 176, 178; struc,uralisc,
I 9 8; Tempels' differentiation from, = 3 7
Anyidoho, K., I 82
Arabic language: Blyden on, 123, I26
Arendt, Hannah: on racism, 108
Aristotelianisn::., Lq6, 14 7
A.rnold, So, 182
.A..r t.i. African, 9- I 2
Art, European: depiccion of Africans, 6-9, u
Arusha Declaration, 9 5
Astmnomy, 13-15
Authenticii:y, 153, 169, r74
Avenement de l'Afrique noire: .. , , L'
(Bilinschwig), 38-39
kNolowo, 0,, 9 :i
Azikiwe, Nnamdi, 90, 95, 93, 131
Azombo-Menda, S. M.: on Senghor, 94
Ba, A. Harnpate, 96
Bachelard, G., 137
Baeta, C. G., 5 5
Bahoken, J. C: on Christianity, 'jtt
Baker, Sir Samuel, I I 8
Balance Sheets of Imperialism (Clark), 3
Balandier, Georges, 80, 88, 89~ :r66, 177;
AJ'riqw? ambiguii, 3 8
"Eantou Probk-aatique, Le" (Eboussi-
Boulaga), 157-58
Bantu (people), 50, 53-54, 138-39, 169
Bantu languages, 145-46
Bantu philosophy, 5!;; Crahay's lecture on,
154, 155-56; Kagame on, 145-52.; Te1npels
on, 135-4.1., 144, rs,-52
Ban;u Philosophy (Tempels), :;o, 67, 136-42,
144, 149, 153, 178; Crahay on, 155; Kagame
011, 146
Banyarwanda (people), language of, ~,62
Barley, N., 21-22
Bi.rth,~s, R., 129
Basic Bthiopian Philo5c,t:,hicaTle xts (Sumner,
ed,), 202
Baurnstark, i,., 16 3
Being, 28, 162.; in Bantu philosophy, 138-41,
q.7-48; in Western philosophy, 140. See
also Ontology
lJei;-zga nd f-._~?thi11gne(Sssa rtre\ 8 5
Bell0nz.n, R L., 18 3
Benedict )?:_J(Ip ope), 5 3
Bib;e, 123, 128; ,& prnbiem Gi cultural differences,
8-9. See a/sc Gospel, the
Bilinguality: of missionaries and anthropologists,
66-67
Bigo, E: OH marginalir-1, 5
Bimwenyi, 0., x, 39-40, 168
Bird, C. S.: Explorations in African Systems
o/ Thought, I 99
Blz.ck Africans: portrayals of, in European
paint.;_ngs, 7-9, 12
Black (Negro) Americans, 90, II7, 130;
Blyden on, 98, Io4,_ 105-107, 111 1 130,
132; Nkrumah influenced by, 88
Black consciousness: Blyden on, JI:21
"Black Islam," r8s
Blackness: Blyde•1's restric,:ive meaning, 104,
132
Black Orpheus (Sartre), 83-85, 90-91, 92,
132
Black personality, 87-88, 98, n8-24, 131,
132., 166; emphasis on, in Christianity, 58,
60; rhetoric of, 3 6; as stra,egy, 194
Black responsibility: Blyden OD, rn9
Bloch, M.: on history, 1 9 5
Blyden, E.W., 80-81, 98-134; Africa and the
A/ricans, 99, ma; Christianity, Islam and
the Negro Race, 99-129, 133; on B1ack
Arnericans, 98~. IOLj., ro5-ro7~ III, I30~
131.; on colonization, 99-rn7; criticisill of
European tradition, I 11-q.; on education,
99-roo~ ::.::02-Io3; Liberia: Past) Present
and Future, 99; Liberia's Of/ering, 99,
104, 106, 122; Negrn in Ancient History,
99, 100, 109; political theory, u4-r8,
124, 128-29, 132; Vindication o( the
Negro Race, 99, rn8
Boas, F., 18
Bodunrin, E 0., 162
Boesak, A. A., 173
Book of the \Vise Philosophers (Stnmer, eel.),
163, 201, 203
Boulle, P.: Planet o( the Apes quoted, r, 5-6,
2.J}, 28, 35-36, 44, 64., 83,145,153
Bourgeois, A., 69
Brande:, E, 180, 188-89, 195
Bricolage, 3 1, 3 2
Brunschwig, H., 3 8-3 9
Buakasa, T. K., 174
Buffon, 72, 119
Bulletin o( African Theology, 179
Burgkmair, Hans: Exotic Tribe, 6--7, 8-9
Buthalezi: on indigenization, 63
Cai,iers des religions af,-icaines (Mulago), 171
Cannibalism: as pagan trait, 49-50
Capital;sm, 2-3, 165, 196-97
Capicein, Jacobus, 162
Carnzts de Lucien Levy-Bruh/, Les (LevyBruhl),
r 5 4-5 5
Cavergne de Bongo, La (film), "I·
Index
Certeau, M., de, 5I
Cesair,e, _A.im,~2~, 36, 83~ 141, I58; .Discourse
on Colonialism, 90, 9~, 153
ChaiHet-Bert, J., 20
Ch2jn of being, 9, 13, 27
Christianis1ne sans fitiche: Revelation et
Domination (Eboussi-Boulaga), 173
Christianity, 2oi I52') I70, I72-73; }drican
response to, 51, 54-64; and anthropology,
56-58; attempts t'.J justify, 178-79; as
background of African intellectuals, 39-4.0;
Blyden en, II2, 16, 124-28, 130. See also
P•otestant churches; Roman Catholicism;
Theology
Christianity, Is/a1,1 and the Negro Race
(Blyden), 99-192, 133
Christopher, A. J., 4 7
Civilization: equated with Christianity, 20,
49, 31, 53
Clark, Grover, 3
Classics, study of, u 3
Classification, 6, 9, :, 3; in Bantu philosophy,
138-39, 14-6-47, q.9
Ciassiques Africains (Dampierre), 18I-82
Ciifford, J,, 66
Clirnate: as barrier to colonization, ! o 5,. I 07
Cogito, 147, 190
Coherence Theory, 67
Collective memory: myth as, 144
Collingwood, R. G., Sr
Colonialism, !-5, 16, 76, 93, 170, 191; definition
of~ 1; lVIarxist theory of, 3-4; 1nissionary
role in, 44-4 7; negritudc as resist"
nce to, 83, 88; Sartre on, 85; Temp!es'
portrayal of, 137, 141
Colonization, 1-2, 4., 46, 58-59, 62, 64; benefrrn
oi, 16-17, 67-68; Blyden on, 99-107,
n6, 130; Chaillec-Bert on, 2.0; definition
of, I
Comm.unalism (ujamaa), 91, 95
Community: as defined among the B2.ntu,
150; Islamic, II4-15
Conflict (in epistemology), 26-2 7, 8 2, I 90---
91
Confurmity, 5 2, 5 3
Conquest, ideology of, 69
Consciencism, 1 3 3
Consciencism (Nkrumah), 79, 91, 95
Ccnsci.ousness, 17, 26, 157; African, 36, 77-
78, u:;; black, 77-78, 121; European, 1.0-
21, histcri.cal, 34
Conversations with Ogotemmi!li (Griaule),
q.1-43, 178
Conversion, 44-, 4-7-53, 60; Blyden on, u2.,
I2I
Copans, J., 22, 68, 176-77, 178, 179
Coptic church: members in Africa, 5 4
Cosmology, 13-15; in Bantu philosophy,
146, :i:49
Crahay, F., 154, 155-57, 159, 162, 166;
Index
"'Decollage' conceptud," I 5 5-5 6
Creation: in Bantu philosophy, 139; in Dogon
thought, 142
Cri de /'Homme Africain, Le (Ela), 173
Crise du Muntu: Aiithenticite africaine et philosophie,
La (Eboussi-Boulaga), 153
Criteriology: in Bantu philosophy, 147, 151
Cn:r.vther, Samuel Aja'/i, 48, 49, 5er-51, 52
Cuius regio, i1lius religio, 4 5
Doguicimi (Hazoume), 77
Donders, J. G., 5 5
Dowayos (people), 2r
Drunken King, The (Heusch), 144
DuBois,, \)V. E. B., 90, I 3 I
Dum Diversas (Nicholar. V), 4 5
Durkheim, K, 28, 68-69, 82
Dyongu Seru, 14-15
2 35
Cultural anthropology, 184 Eboussi-Boulaga, F., 39-40, 41-42, 60, 157-
58, 167, 169; oa Bantu Philosophy, I4I;
Damas, Leou, 83, 90 Christianisme sans fetiche, 173; Crise du
Damnes de ia terre, Les (Fanon), 8 5, ':J7- Muntu, I 5 3; criticism of anthropology,
Dampierre, E. de, 181-:fa 168; evaluation of Christiani1y, 51-51.
Danquah, J.B., 78 Economics, 24-2.6, no; and colonialism, 2.-
Darwin, 18 4, Ior-102
Davidson, Basil, 80, 88, 89, 166 Education: Blyden on, 99-Ioo, 102.-103,
Dicollage, 156-57, 159 . 120-24
"'Decollage' conceptue!: Conditiocs d'une Edward Wilmot Blyden: Pan-Negro Patriot
philosophie bantoue, Le" (Crahay),.I:£5.,J6. . .(Ly:rn;:h),1 30
Deconstruction: of Christianity,. r73.;. i1t .c~n- . Egg 9fthe world, 144
temporary African thought, 164,. 1~5-';67, • E.ii1£U:hlL,1p3g6, , 144-45, 185
De~~~'ss:~t:,5136 ·• Jt;;J~7~3 ~-~l
Demonstration: in missionary qiscc;imse;·sr; ,:~1~11gt{,3:9f-t4.0, , 43, H,0-61, I74; study
52-53 .:,:.• ; > ;;..>\,,;f..t,f{\l~bqnche, ~61., 171
Dependency: African tendency tlllWar{1;··1,t;§,).~I1'rRftfcjs_in\r6::,--64,,6 8
D!':s~;~ ~~: ~;"' u2. ,~/ :/{; :: . ;]{~~;~ini sA~fri can education,
Derision: in missionary's discoursz,~5;:~§Jt ·
Descartes, 41 . , ·. ., ;.:,\;;..f ·
De Servitude, Libertati Christianae CZ.!.J!l.~i gi,'i, <
trari~ ('~apitein\ 162 ?~- ~.~~:i·~;;:;,: ;
Determ1msm, 3I, 73 ..,.;
Development, theology of, 179 ·:.)'.''·~
Dia, Mamadou, 92, 96
Diachrony, 32, 183-89, 193
Diagne, Blaise, 90
Dialectical materialism, 196
Dialectical reason, 34, 86
Dickson~ K., 5 8
Dieterlen, G., I3-I5
Dieu d'eau (Griauie), 67
Diffusionism, 18, 181 .,., .
Diodoms of Sicily, 70, 71; quoted,t87 ;;_. ',,
Diop, Alioune, 86; ore Bantu Phifosol'i'.
137, q.r, 153 .
Diop, Cheikh Anta, 78, 79, 165, 169; .\ .
Nations negres et cuiture, 89, 96-:9 1:; :_,;•!l
truth of African history, 194-95 · .. ::-.:;.
Diop, Majhemout: on Marxism, 96
Discourse on Colonialism (Discours
colonia/isme) (Cesaire), 90, 9I, ,53 .. .., .
Discourse on Language (Foucault), H, X?4:)
Discourse on ths Origin of Inequality Nat~ral History (Buffon), II9
Nduka, 0., 80
Negritude, 38, 83, 86-87, 88, 132-33, 185;
in Bantu vision of worid, 79; Blyden as
precursor of, 98, 131; in contemporary
thought, 166; emphasis on, in Christianity,
53, 60; Horton on, 80; influence on African
philosophy, 152, I 5 8; literature of,
36, 83, 85, 86-87; Sartre's role in, 83-87;
Senghor on, 92, 93-94; as strategy, 194
Negritude et negroiogues (Adotevi), 167
Negro: Blyden on, III, 114, n8
Negro-Americans. See Black Americans
Negro in Ancient History, The (Blyden), 99,
100, 109
Negro personality, 13 I. See also Black personality
Neornlor;ialisrn, 176
Neo-Marxism, 166, 168
Index
New Testament Backgrnund in cm African
Background (.Mbiti), 152
Ngindu, A., 39-40, 43, 162., 171
Ngouabi, M., 91-92
Nicholas V (pope): Dum Diversas, 45
Nietzsche, 4 r, 4 2, 4 3
Nkombe, 0., 80, 173-74
Nkrumah., K., 88, 91, 92, 184; co:npared
with Blyden, 9 8, I 3 3; Consciencism, 79,
91, 95; I Speak of Freedom, 95
Noble savage: myths of, uo, !29
Non-Bourgeois The,J/ogy (Danders), 5 5
Norm, 26, 43, 190-91, 192
Nothingness: opposed to being, r~.o
Ntedinka, J., 164, 171
Ntu, 147-49
Nusco, L., 202
Nyamuzinda, 148
Nyerere, J., 91, 92, 94-95, 185
Obenga, T., 39-40, 165, 167
Oduyoye, lVL A., 59, 171
Okere, 1:, 39-40, 62, 173-74
O!umide, L. J., 78-79
Ombredane, A., I 66
Ontological hermeneutics, 174
Ontology, 157-58; African philosophy as,
rp; in Bantu philosophy, 138-41, 146-
49; in Christian ,heology, 172, I74; in
Dagon thought, 14 2. See also Being
Oral literature, 181-82
Oral philosophy, 7 5
Oral tradition, 161, 176
Order, principie of, 2.4-2 5, 1. 7
01·igin of Language, The (Rousseau), 72
01igin of Table Manners (Levi-Strauss), 3 5
Ortega y Gasset, Jose, r 88
Other, the, xi, 22, 34.-35, 177, 196; anthropologist
as, 3 3; in European consciousness,
20-21; right to be, 6 3; and the
Same, 80-82, 96, 180-81; in Senghor's
philosophy, 94
Otherness (alterity), 79, 178, 179; 184, 192;
in African philosophy, 151, r'p, 157; in
-contemporary thought, 162, 166-67, 170,
I 7 r; in discourse, 7 2, 8 o-8 I; and history,
190, 195; ideologies for, 86, 87-92; missionaries
on, 44, 59; ordering ot in European
art, 9, 12; romantic philosophies of,
r32
Padmore, G., 96
Paganism, 20, 49--50, 5 8, 63; Blyden on, 121,
124-25, I28
Pagans, 47, 48, 49-50, 112, 121
Pan-African Congresses, 90
Pan-Africanism, 88, 131, 133, 194; Blyden
on, 114, 117-18, 130,133
Panafricanism or Communism (Padmore), 96
Index
Park, Niungo, 20, I,,o
Paroles, I90, I99
Path to Nigerian Freedom (Awolowo), 95
P'Bitek, 0., 140
Peau noire, 1nasques blancs (Fanon), 8 5, 92
Person, Y., I66
Phenomenological method, use of, 174
Philology~ 18, 25-26
Philosophie Bantit comparee, La (Kagame),
145
Philosophie bantu-rwandaise de /'eire, La
(Kagame), 57-58, 145
Philosophy: Crahay's defi11ition of, 156
Philosophy, African, ix, 38, 41-43, 74, I52;
contempornry aspects of, 15 3-86. See also
Bantu philosophy
Philosophy, primitive, I3 5-4 5
Philosophy, 'Xlestem, 41-43, 154, 159, 161,
I68; compared ·with primitive philosophy,
135-36, 138, 139, 140, 150; methods used
in study of African philosophy, 145-47,
l~2
Ph"losophy and an African Culture (Wiredu),
161, 163
Pierre Tei/hard de Chardin et /a politique africaine
(Senghor), 131
Pigafetta, Filippo, 8
Planet of the Apes (Boulle): quoted, 1, 5-6,
24, 28, 35-3~44,64, 83,145,153
Plant domestication, African, r 3
Pliny, 70-71
Political philosophy, I 6 l
Political power, 16, 36, 91,165,170,185
Polytheism, 5 8
Pour la revolution Africaine (fanon), 92
Power, 8, 5 I
P-relogism, 72, 82, r 3 6, r 5 5
"T'l:esence Africaine," 86, 157 1 178
Pretres noirs s'interrogent; 56, 176
Primifive Man as a Philosopher (Radin), 154
Primitive (sav-age) mind: Levi-Strauss on, 30-
33; Levy-Bruh! on, 135-36
Primitiveness, 63, 72, 75-76, 82, 108, 191;
Blyden on, I rn; as historical invention,
I 90; and p21.ganis1n, 20; versus civilization,
197
P!-imitivism: and African philosophy, 15 1
Primitivist strategies, I 9 5
Production: modes of, 196-97; processes of,
4, 170; relations of, 60, 170~ r89j 196
Prophetism, n6, 173
Pmpos d'tme theologie africaine, Le
(Tshibangu), 171
Protestant churches, 19, 45, 49, 54, 55, 127
Psychology, 26, 73, 1<9-50, 166
Quakers: in Ke117a, 5 5
Race: Blyden on, no, n4, u5-16, n7,
118-20, I:17, r29-30, 131-32; European
vie·ws of, 107, 108
Racism, 8 5; in Blyden's theories, 104-ro5,
106, H9, 129-30
Radin, E, 1 54
Reason, 51, 136
Recherches philosophiques Africaines, I 60
Reci.t pour soi: propounded by Eboussi-
Boulaga, 42, 169
Reduction, p, 66, 68
Reformation, the, 4 5
Refutation, 51, 52-53
Relatione del Reame di Congo (Pigafetrn), 8
Relativism, 86, 131, 171; in Blyden's theories,
n3-14, 133; in Levi-Strauss's thought, 33
Religion: Blyden on, 120, 124-28. See also
Christianity; Islam; Religions, African
Religions, African, 56, 58, 59-6,, 63, 76, 88;
Blyden on, 124-2 5; and Christian theology,
171; ethnocentric theories on, 73-
74
Rembrandt: depiction of blacks, 9
Renascent Africa (Azikiwe), 90
Revelation, 58, 141, 173
Ricoeur, Paul, 19-21, 34, 57, 183-84, 195
Rigaud, Hyacinthe: depiction of blacks, 9
Ripa, Cesare: African Allegory, 12
Ritual, 14-15, 144
Roman Catholicism, 39-40, 137, 162;
Blyden on, 126-27; members in Africa,
54-55; missionaries, 45-46, 48; perspective
on traditional religions, 58-59, 61-62
Romano, E Giovanni, 48-49, 50-51, 52, 53
Roman writers: on Africa, 69-71; on blacks,
IIO, I20
Rossini, Carlo Conti, 202
Rousseau~ I 5 7 2, I I 9
Rubens, Peter Paul: depiction of blacks, 9
Ru!e, 26, 43, 190-91, 192, 193
Sachs, I.,~
Sagala: in Dogon cosmology, I3-14,, r 5
Sagan, Carl: on Dogon astronomy, 13-15
Salkin, P., 76
Salvation, theology of, 52--54, 66
Sarne, Ihe, 20, 22, 177, 198; history of, 28,
33, 34-35, 177, 180; identity of, in European
art, v,; and the Oi:her, 80-82, 96,
180-81, 199; and v:oience, 43, 196
Sameness, 72, 83
Sartre, J.-P., 83-87, 90-91; Biach Orpheus,
83-85, 90-91, 92, 132; Levi-Strauss on,
34, 35
Saul, John, ,97-98
Saussure, F. de, 190
Savage (primitive) mind: Levi-Strauss on, 30-
3 3; Levy-Bmhl on, r 3 5-3 6
Savages, :10, 42, 47, 75, 103; Crowther on,
49; Enlightenment views on, 17, 72; explorers'
discourse on, I 3 ~ I 6
Scheub, H., 182
Schmidt, VI., 58, 176, 185, 194; concept of
UrmonotheisnzusJ 76, 81; Urspvung der
Gottesidee, 76
Scholastic grids: used in analysis of Bantu
philosophy, 146-50
Schuchardt, H., I 8
Schulter, Andreas: Africa, 12
Schum peter, J. A., 2-3
Science, 16, 65, 123, 165; relationship to
niagic, 3 0-3 I; role in modernization, 169-
70, 1 74-75
Science of the abstract~ 30, 3r-32
Science of the concrete, 30, 31-32
Sculpture, African, II
Second Order, 163-64, 171
Selected Letters of Edward Wilmot Blyden
(Lynch, ed.), 98
Self: recit pour soi as way to, 42; relationship·
to the Other, 181
Semiology, 183
Senghor, L. S., 43, 86, 184-85; on Blyden,
98-99, 131; compared with Blyden, 123,
I 3 2; and negritude, 8 3-84, 8 5, 8 8, 9 2, 9 3-
94
Shorter, A., 73-7 4
Signification, 26-27, 37, 41, 82, 190-91,
193, 195
Sigui ritual: and Dogon cosmology, 14-15
Silent philosophy, I 52.
Sirius and Sirius B, 13-15
Slavery, 9, 58-59, rn8, 169; Blyden on, rno,
103, 105, 119, 132; under Islam, 1q.-15
Slave trade, ro, 100, 114-15, 119
Smet, A. J., 74, 136, q.r, 160-61
Snowden, E M., 69
Social and human sciences, 17-18, 37, 61,
79, 176, 179-80; contemporary African
philosophy on, 164, 165-70, 174-75;
Foucault on, :;,,,62~ 7; Levi-Strauss on, 28;
pluralization of, 192
Social Anthropology and Other Essays
(Evans-Pritchard), 67-68
Social classes: gap between, I 8 5
Socialism, 91-92, 93-9 5
Sociology, 73, 166, 176, 173, 179-80, 184
Soldier: role of, 46-47
Sodipo, J. 0., 39-40, 161
Sm;v, I. E. B., 18, 39-40
Spencer, 189-90
Springer, Bartolomaus, 6-7
Strain theory: l3lyden's ideology as, 131-32
Structuralism, 19, 35, 177-78, 179-80, 187,
198-99
Sumner, C.: editions of Ethiopian treatises,
163, 201-203
Sur la philosophie africaine (Hountondji),
158
Surnaturel et la Nature dans la mentalite
primitive, Le (Levy-Bruh!), 13 5
Synchrony, 32, 177-78, 189, 194
Syncretic churches, 5 4
System, 26, 43, 190-91
Index
Taboo-laws: in the Bantu community, 150
Taylor, J. V., 54
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, 94
Tempe!s, Placide Frans, 48, 50-54, 136-41.,
177-78, 179; Bantu Philosophy, 50, 67,
136-42, 144; on colonization, 67-68; contemporary
philosophers on, 153-56, 157-
58) 159; I(agame on, 1:45-46
Temu, A., 197
Terrn nullius, 4 5, 46
Theodicy: in Bantu philosophy, 146, 149
Theology: contemporaiy African views, 59-
63, 170-74, 178-79; epistemolvgical debate
on, 164-65
Theories of Primitive Religion (Evans-Pritchard),
73
Theuws, J. A., 182
Thornton, R., 15-16
Tidy, M., 169
Tiv mythology, 14 3
Toure, Ahmed Sekou, 91, 91.
Tourist art, 11-12
Towa, M., 39-40, 43,157,158,160,165
Towards Nationhood in West Africa (Graft-
Johnson), 90
Toward the Decolonizatio11 of A/rican Literature
(Chinweizu, Jemie and Mudobuike),
168-69
Tradition, 4, 76-77, 169, 189, 191-92; role
in ethnophilosophy, I 5 3; versus modernity,
197, 198
Traite de metaphysique (Vo!taire), II9
Transhistoric thought, 187, 188-89, 198
Travelers' reports, 69-72, I 8 9
Treatise of Ziir'y Yacob and of Walda
Heywat, The (Sumner, ed.), 163, 201-202,
203
Tristes Tropiques (Levi-Strauss), 33, 35
Truth, 41, 47, 51, 165; will to, 15, 27, 41, 63
Tshiamalenga, N., u,o, 149, 160-61, 173-
74, I83
Tshibangu, T., 164, 171-72
Turgot, A. R. J ., 6
Ugirashebuja, 0., 43, 162, 171
Ujamaa (communalism), 91, 95
Unconscious, 34, 3 5, 3 7-3 8
Universal civilization: Senghor on, 94
Universalism: in Kagame's philosophy, 151
Untu, 79
Urmonotheism11s, 76, 8 r
Urspnmg der Afrikcnischen Kulturen (Frobenius),
n-2.3
U:-sprung der Gottesidee, Die (Schmidt), 76
Van der Kerken, G., 74
Vanneste, A., 164
Van Overbergh, C., 7 4
Van Pa1ys, J.M., 163, 202
Vansina, J., 39, 80-81, 166, 176, 194
Index
Varenius, 10, 191
Vatic:m Council, first: on curse of Ham, 46
Vaughan, A. T., 129-30
Velasquez, Diego: depiction of blacks, 6, 9
Verhaegen, B., 167, 178-79
Veyne, Paul, 17-18, 23, 83, 180, 198; on
history, 192-93, 196, 198
Vindication of the .Negro Race, A (Blyden),
99, 108
Vital force. See Force
Voltaire, TL, n9
Von Daniken, E., r 5
'Wagner, R., 27, 67, 184
Wake:fieldjE . Go~I OI
Wealth, theory of, 2.4-25
Weber, M., 17-18, 192
Weltanschauungen, xi, 33, 74, 75,135,175;
and .African philosophy, 15 4; of the Bantu,
149, 15 5-56; described by anthropologists,
I 5 2
Western Sciences: What For? (Buakasa), 174
West Indian Blacks: Blyden on, 105, n7, 130
\1Vhite, H., 3 3
Williams, G., 16-17, 46
Will to truth, 15, 27, 41, 63
Wiredu, K., 39-40, 161-62, 163, 168
°\Jlfomen: new African theology on, 179
Yai, 0., 160
Zoungrana, Paul Cardinal, 6
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