a.k.a. Jacob H. Carruthers
These comments are not as an exegesis on V. Y. Mudimbe's
The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of
Knowledge, although I will argue some of the ideas contained
therein. I am concerned specifically with his argument that "Modern African
thought seems to be basically a product of the West." To the extent that
Modern African thought includes post 1960 thinking. Mudimbe's conclusion may
be called "Intellectual Neocolonialism." My question is not so much with the
conclusion itself as with the meaning he attaches to the conclusion, and with
his location within the neocolonial discourse.
First of all let us attempt to locate Mudimbe's essential interest in the
project. In his words, his "commitment" is "not to philosophy, not to an
invented Africa, but to what it essentially means to be African and a
philosopher today (xi emphasis Mudimbe's)." In other words Dr. Mudimbe is
searching for thought about Africa and by Africans from the perspective of "a
philosopher" who is also an African. Since "African traditional systems of
thought" do not include philosophy, "strictly speaking" according to Mudimbe
(ix), he uses the Greek concept gnosis to identify African traditional
thought. He defines the term Thusly:
... 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 ..., cannot be
confused with episteme, understood as both science and general
intellectual configuration. (ix)
Thus, for Mudimbe, philosophy and science are absences from African traditional
thought. Mudimbe's vocation, thus involves a possible estrangement. His
search for "conditions of possibility of the larger body of knowledge on Africa
called `Africanism'," (ix) implies that this absent philosophy is something
that ought to be provided for Africans, by African philosophers.
Using a methodology developed from the ideas of Michel Foucault and Claude
Levi-Strauss, Mudimbe proceeds to examined "discourses" about Africa by
Europeans and Africans with a focus on evaluation of African traditional
thought. He examines the intellectual "invention" of a primitive African and
its relationship to the changing paradigms of modern European social sciences.
Following Foucault he attempts to construct as "Archaeology" of thought about
Africa with special focus on the discipline of anthropology. Archaeology
enables the researcher to treat every human discourse as a "moment" and thus
discover meanings not consciously intended by the authors of the discourses.
(Thus, archaeology is like the anthropology which allows Robert Merton to teach
that the Hopi "Rain Dance" really functions to promote group solidarity even
though Hopi priests assert that it is designed to produce rain.)
This frame work enables Foucault to trace the change in the western discourses
on "non-western" societies from those projecting the "achievements of the
civilized world against the primitiveness of non-literate societies (27), to
those which allow for the possibility of "decolonialization of the social
sciences." This is the context in which Mudimbe examines the development of
European evaluation of African traditional thought from the missionaries
through the several generations of anthropologists. From that base Mudimbe
addresses the African responses with special emphasis on the "Négritude"
and post-Négritude generations.
In fairness we must point out that Mudimbe does not accept Foucault and
Leve-Strauss with reservations. In Mudimbe's words:
"The masterful demonstrations by Levi-Strauss and Foucault do not convince me
that the subject in the discourse on the same or on the other should be a mere
illusion or a simple shadow of an episteme." (35m Mudimbe's emphasis)
This is in reference to the tendency on the part of both Levi-Strauss and
Foucault to promote ending the debate on "Race," since race never existed in
the first place: it was merely a metaphor or simply an invention. But this
"color" blind position still enables Levi-Strauss to conclude "... it is true
that science is more successful than magic" (31). According to Mudimbe,
Levi-Strauss de-emphasized the differences between the disciplines of history
and anthropology; from a framework of white cultural supremacy to one of
multi-cultural reciprocity is paralleled in the discipline of history. For
Mudimbe, Durkeheim's prescription on the pathology of civilization,
levy-Bruhl's thesis on pre-logical systems of thought and Frazier's hypothesis
on primitive scientists (28), represented the older framework which was based
upon a philosophy of conquest. These ideas in effect "invented" the concept of
"primitive Africa" in the disciplines of social science. Their studies
complimented or supplemented the explorer tales and the "philosophical
interpretations about a hierarchy of civilizations" (69).
According to Mudimbe as the European paradigm shifted to the position of
cultural relativity, conditions for the methodological position of Levi-Strauss
and Foucault developed. The "ethnophilosophy" of Placide Temples and Marcel
Griaule's Conversation with Ogotommeli, provided bases for the upgrading
of African thought from the level of pre-logic to near parity with European
thought. For Mudimbe not only did these sympathetic studies pave the way for
Levi-Strauss and Foucault, they also provided "an atmosphere' for an
"African prise de parole about philosophy and knowledge." (36)
When Mudimbe turns to discourses by Africans he examines the relationships
between their arguments and those of the European thinkers. In fact Mudimbe
does not always separate the Africans from the Europeans in this regard. Thus,
African thinkers seem to be merely amending (or "Amening") the thoughts of the
Europeans. In fact modern African thought seems to be dependent on the
European paradigm:
"Until now ... African analysis have been using categories and conceptual
systems which depend on a western epistemological order ... Even the most
explicitly "Afrocentric descriptions." (x)
Indeed, after examining "the history of knowledge in Africa about Africa" (175)
he asserts, the thought of modern African thinkers:
"... Is at the crossroads of Western epistemological filiation and African
ethnocentrism (and) are inventions of the West." (185)
This intellectual colonialism is nonetheless the condition for the possibility
of African philosophy, for Mudimbe.
Mudimbe divides the African thinkers into two groups: those of "the era of
Négritude and African Personality" (38) consisting of "the
pre-independence generation" (36); and "a new generation" which advances a
"notion of epistemological vigilance" (36). Mudimbe associates the
older generation, which includes Aimé Caesar, Leopold Senghor and Cheikh
Anta Diop, with producing:
"... an African literature that flatters condescending Western ears, in which
Africans prove, by means of négritude and black personality
rhetoric, that they are "intelligent human beings" who once had respectable
civilizations that colonialism destroyed." (36)
He goes on to assert that the younger generation is more concerned with "the
path to truth" (37) among other epistemologically related issues. Indeed,
Mudimbe indicates that they are somewhat embarrassed by the arguments of their
elders. In fact some of them consider the literature "to be a childish
reaction of over compensation." (36) Among those Mudimbe considers
representative of this spirit are Willie E. Abraham, Pauline J. Hountondji,
Theophile Obenga and Kwasi Wiredu. (39) He reveals their shared
qualifications:
1. They were or still profoundly marked by Christian principles and
values. (39)
2. They are university professors (who) are not only teachers but also in
charge of regional inter-African, or even international agencies working for
the development of the continent. (40)
3. All ... are in "power." (40)
4. These intellectuals are producing a body of good works, which are both
difficult, because of the amplifications that explain them, and extremely
sophisticated with respect to the relationships between power and knowledge.
(xxx)
After explaining the Levy-Bruhl school of thought about savage Africa, Mudimbe
analyzes the Négritude movement which presumably was a black reversal of
the European perspective. He primarily focuses on Senghor whose "influence on
contemporary African thought, particularly in Francophone countries, is
considerable." (94) In fact, Mudimbe points out:
"Of the African thinkers of this century, he will probably have been the most
honored and the most complimented, yet probably also the most disparaged and
the most insulted, particularly by the present generation of African
intellectuals." (94)
Although Aimé Caesar, who first put forth the concept, is discussed by
Mudimbe, the role of the founder of Négritude is not analyzed as
thoroughly as Senghor's. Nor is the parallel "affirmation of African political
thought" (black personality) argument treated as thoroughly by Mudimbe (87-88).
From time to time Mudimbe cites Cheikh Anta Diop's project and works with such
epithets as "extreme." (78)
Mudimbe notes Senghor's claim that this older generation was influenced by:
Anthropology, Black American Ideology, and Marxism. He assess the influence of
Anthropology throughout his work. He also examine the Marxist influence at
come length. About the "Black American influence" he is less decisive. He
agrees that:
"... the association with Black Americans strongly influenced the critical
views of black Africans with respect to the crisis of Western values." (90)
but:
"It is difficult to say with certainty to what extent the ideological
commitment of Black Americans made an impact on the African intelligentsia."
(90)
Mudimbe's assessment of the work of this "school" is that it contributed to
changes in colonial thinking along with other intellectual influences. His
list of major influences is put in the following order: first, Anthropological
and missionary commitments to Africans values (e.g. Marcel Griaule); second,
interventions by some Western sociologists and historians (e.g. Basil
Davidson); third, "awakening" of African intellectuals." (88)
Mudimbe devotes a chapter to Blyden presumably because Senghor, whom Mudimbe
calls " the father of Négritude," suggested that Blyden promoted the
spirit of "modern African ideology" in the 19th century. (99) His critique of
Blyden is based upon his conclusion that African thinkers use "categories and
conceptual systems which depend on a Western epistemological order." (x) In
this regard, Mudimbe asserts that much of Blyden's discourse is racist and
"based on the European thinking that he should be opposing." (105) Concerning
Blyden's thought Mudimbe recognizes that:
"The premises and even the essentials of his ideology were already in the air
before he explicated his thesis ... They had already been used both
politically and ideologically by the founders of Liberia ... and the Haitian
revolutionaries." (131)
Mudimbe finds some merit in Blyden's stance, for example he proclaims:
"one cannot but be amazed when analyzing (Blyden's) thesis, which was the
first articulate nineteenth-century theory of "blackness." (132)
Nonetheless, Mudimbe concludes that Blyden's thought "represents an emotional
response to the European process of denigrating Africa. "Finally he asserts
that Blyden's concept of race is now generally considered an ideological trap!"
(132)
In his penultimate chapter, Mudimbe examines the influence of "The Belgian
Franciscan Placide Frantz Temple" whose Bantu Philosophy seemed to have
been a wake up call to African intellectuals. The African thinkers began to
take sides either generally supporting or opposing Temple's "sympathetic"
assertions about traditional African deep thought. It is out of this debate
that the African discourse on philosophy seems to have begun Mudimbe.
Although Mudimbe's view of "the existence of philosophy as an autocritical
exercise and a critical discipline in Africa" (162) includes four broad angles
he apparently exudes the Diop project, which seeks "to give Africa the moral
benefit the cradle of mankind and of having influenced the history of ancient
Egypt as well as Mediterranean civilizations." (97) Instead he included only
those African discourses which have been influenced by Christianity (Ethiopian
heritage) or Western Europe including Marxism. It seems as though African
discourse cannot exist except in response to foreign intrusion, for Mudimbe.
Mudimbe adds an appendix entitled "Ethiopian Sources of Knowledge." The
implication seems to be that here at last are authentic African discourses.
But these texts are responses to the impact of Christianity. Had Mudimbe
included those Kemetic (Ancient Egypt) texts in his thinking, his treatment of
Diop's proposals may have been different. Surely African deep thinkers should
examine what Africans were thinking about before the advent of Christianity and
Islam. The mutual impacts of those encounters could then be a later stage of
analysis.
Before beginning my negative criticism of some of Mudimbe's ideas, let me
first of all commend his scholarship. The Invention of Africa is a
brilliant work which presents a provocative argument and is well documented and
surprisingly complete. Indeed he seems to have read everything possible and
included significant insights to many positions put forth by the leading
scholars about African thinking. There are, however, some connections,
disconnections and possible discourses which, in my opinion are quite pertinent
to discourse about African thinking.
To begin let us accept a modified version on Professor Mudimbe's
proclamation: "The conception framework of [some] African thinking has been
both a mirror and a consequence of the experience of European hegemony." (185)
This has been true in parts of Africa since the advent of European
Christianity, first in the latter part of antiquity and later from the latter
15th century when Europe began its invasion of the West Coast of Africa.
Acceptance of the proclamation however, does not require that we also accept
the conclusion that there was no African thought before the advent of European
hegemony, or that some traditional African thinking did not continue throughout
the era of colonialism, or that African thinking was inferior before the
advent, or that there is no continuity between African thinking before and
after the intrusion. In fact, it is quite logical to conclude that there have
been continuous African discourses from the beginning of our national
histories. We may further assume that the African discourses responded to
foreign encounters and intrusion when they occurred; some did mirror European
thought, some others probably accepted European thought wholly. But why then
are we implied to begin the reconstruction of African "critical" thinking with
the first African who reacted to the ancient Christian project or to the
European Anthropologists or missionaries; or indeed to the first African who
argued against "racism." Why not begin with what African thinkers were talking
about before these intrusions and regardless of the great interruption.
If we begin by the restatement of an African traditional discourse we may view
the period on which Mudimbe focuses as the era of "Intellectual Welfare."
(Carruthers, 1996) In the middle of the 18th century the European thinkers
such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Hume, and Kant began their project of white
supremacy with the fabrication of an inferior "Negro." In time this "Negro"
was separated not only from Eurasian humanity but also from other black skinned
kinky haired Africans like the ancient Egyptians and Ethiopians. This
intellectual blitzkrieg was followed by a sustained barrage of ideological
atrocities aimed first at "educating" Europeans about the necessary causes of
the slave industry. Africans in the diaspora were the first Africans to
experience and recognize the intellectual onslaught as a cruel campaign to
aggravate the deep wounds of the three centuries. If successful the campaign
would have removed Africans not only from higher humanity but also from
history.
We can trace the militant African response to these atrocities from the last
decade of the 18th century, although a response of submission was recorded a
few years earlier (the poetry of Phylis Wheatley). The responses of Richard
Allen, Absalom Jones, and Prince Hall in the 1790's were more than appeals to
recognize the humanity of Africans as Henry Louis Gates has suggested. They
established Ethiopia, Ancient Egypt, and the Haitian Revolution as pillars of a
revitalized African History. This intellectual strategy was continued in the
early 19th century by such leaders as Prince Sanders, David Walker, and Hosea
Easton who converted the defensive stratagem into a vigorous offense. By the
1860's this project had been cultivated as a concrete plan for liberation and
intellectual freedom by Henry Highland Garnet and Martin Delaney and others.
First and second generation repatriated Africans such as Africanus Horton,
Colin Teague, and Edward Wilmot Blyden took the strategy to the African
continent itself. By this time the pillars of Africanity were used by two
camps of Africans: the vindicationists and the foundationalists. The former
directed their discourse toward the European in order to prove their humanity;
the later spoke to their fellow Africans in order to reconstitute independent
African nations. At this point we can observe the emergence of two streams of
African intellectuals: those who would become the agents of intellectual
neocolonialism (the Vindicationists), and those who continue to fight for
intellectual freedom, who are often called extremists and irresponsible.
In the meantime, European intellectuals began to exercise dominance over
African knowledge through disciplines such as anthropology, and the training of
excommunicated Africans. Indeed the training of Europeanized African
Intellectuals, whether through integrating European Universities or through
providing "separate but equal" African schools, was the final phase of the
white supremacy project. These trained scholars were pitted against the
self-educated champions of African civilizations. From time to time a few of
these intellectuals have rebelled and joined the ranks of the champions.
Let us now focus on a major implication of this conceptualization of the
Intellectual Warfare. All European disciplines and scholars with African
interests aim at dominance, i.e., mastery of knowledge about and by Africans.
Some of these "patrons" are emphatic or sympathetic toward the African target.
Others are apathetic, still others are antipathetic. But whatever the bias of
their pathos, all attempt to persuade other Europeans and Africans that their
way of discoursing about Africa is the proper way. (Admittedly some of them
are brilliant, enchanting, audacious, and rebellious like one of Mudimbe's
mentors, Foucault.) This includes Anthropologists, sociologists, historians,
political scientists. Marxists, and especially philosophers. The extent to
which trained Africans are protégés of these European
intellectuals attests to the success of European domination of African
knowledge. At best the relationship between these African thinkers and their
European teachers is neocolonial.
The problem can be seen in Mudimbe's response to the "original interpretations
of `savages' [by] Enlightenment social scientists." (17) He continued:
"I quite agree ... that if we look at their work what shine (sic) out
are its virtues rather than its vices, its brilliant intuitions rather than its
occasional logical lapses, its adventurousness and novelty rather than its
dogmatism." (17, my emphasis)
Let us recall that the "Enlightenment social scientists" include Montesquieu ,
Hume Voltaire, and Kant. The concepts they put forth included not only
"savages" but also "Negro inferiority." In other words they develop
philosophical white supremacy. They set the stage for Hegel's proposal of
African historicide. How can their virtues out shine their vices for African
thinkers? The intellectual atrocities which they perpetuated was a declaration
of was against African peoples. According to them a Mudimbe could never come
into existence except as "a parrot who speaks a few words plainly," as Hume
would put it. (Hume, 208) Thus, Mudimbe is himself as agent of the
intellectual colonialism which he so brilliantly analyzes.
W. E. B. DuBois's dilemma over the tension between being "a Negro" and "a
student of Science," (DuBois, 725) is a classic example of the tendency toward
intellectual schizophrenia. He criticized John W. Burgess (who is credited
with the founding of Political Science as a discipline in the United States).
DuBois explained Burgess's "theory of Nordic supremacy which colored all of his
political theories" and Burgess's conclusion that the United States
congressional reconstruction policy as an attempt" to establish barbarism
(blacks) in power over civilization (whites)" (DuBois, 719). After his
critique of Burgess, DuBois concluded:
"Subtract from Burgess his belief that only white people can rule, and he is
in essential agreement with me." (DuBois, 726)
The tendency of African Intellectuals to find the good in the opponent is a
testimony to the power of the European control of knowledge. Perhaps in
attempting to humanize those who have dehumanized us we must search their vices
to find some virtue. But let us make a distinction between the moral urge to
sympathize and the emotional tendency to empathize, on the one hand, and the
necessity of analyzing the enemy on the other hand. Understanding the
oppressor does not require us to fall for his propaganda about morality and
objectivity.
Let us put the question in a much simpler manner. If one could not be both,
which would DuBois choose to be, "a Negro" or a social scientist? Which would
Mudimbe choose to be, an African or a philosopher?
This is the context in which I wish to consider Mudimbe's commitment "to what
it essentially means to be an African and a philosopher today." (xi) The first
answer is that the commitment is a ticket to intellectual schizophrenia; that
is the position in which the African agent of neocolonialism finds himself or
herself. Philosophy is the cause of the warfare against African knowledge.
Philosophers invented the doctrine of Negro inferiority, especially
intellectual inferiority.
Mudimbe's indictment of Blyden who advocated African racial solidarity as a
necessary condition for liberation, fall under a like criticism. There is
always contradiction in fighting to establish peace but what can you do when
the other side refuses to stop its aggression? While African racial solidarity
may never be achieved, to abandon the goal seems an invitation to defeat. As
long as while supremacy exists in any form, political, economic, social,
psychological or philosophical it seem that all Africans should fight together
against it by any means necessary.
The "obvious racism" Mudimbe found in Blyden's criticism of " people of mixed
blood," is removed from Blyden's context. (104) As clumsily as Blyden may have
expressed himself, he was reacting to the attitudes of many "light skinned"
Africans who project as air of superiority over darker Africans. Chancellor
Williams in Destruction of Black Civilization presents extended
discussions of the intra racial problem.
The term racism as Mudimbe uses it gives the European intellectuals a great
advantage because as a generic term it implies that there is white racism
and black racism. But if racism is what Montesquieu, Hume, and company
inserted into European philosophy, and if the brutal, hostile, and demeaning
behaviors of Europeans toward African peoples are instances of racism, then
only one case of racism has ever come into existence. There could possibly
come a time when the leading African thinkers might invent a theory of white
inferiority; there would come a time when the political and economic leaders of
African nations could oppress all whites within their reach and base such
actions on a doctrine of black supremacy. In the meantime, let us identify the
real problem, white supremacy, and leave the ambiguous term racism out of the
discourse. Not even Mudimbe could accuse Blyden of being a white supremacist,
although some Africans probably are.
I should say at this point that we hold as did Martin Delaney, that there are
probably some Europeans of good will. The problem is that these good Europeans
have never had the power, or the "will" power, to overthrow their more mean
spirited fellow Europeans. In any case, our fight is not against good
Europeans but against the perpetrators and defenders of white supremacy, some
of whom are Africans. In pursuit of our objective, however, we do not believe
that the enemies are necessarily our friends. While the overthrow of white
supremacy should be everybody's goal, the revival of African thought is a job
for Africans-only; that is only Africans can do it. If Europeans do it, it
would only mean that they defeated us again.
Finally, we must oppose the way Mudimbe dismissed Cheikh Anta Diop's project
with the question:
"But could then potentially mobilizing myths provide, as Diop hoped, the
possibility of a new political order in Africa?" (97)
The possibility of restoring African thinking to its position of world wide
acclaim lies with Professor Diop's instruction that: "The return to Egypt in
all domains is the necessary condition for reconciling African civilization
with history, in order to be able to construct a body of modern human sciences,
in order to renovate African culture." (Diop, 1991) In other words, it seems
to me that the objective is neither to adapt African discourse to the
parameters of a European discipline nor to modify the European discipline to
include African content because both approaches are essentially intellectual
versions of neocolonialism. Rather Africans should construct their own modern
disciplines based upon the pillars of African traditions. In this sense we do
not have to "invent African history" but merely to restore it, to free it from
the debris of the European sandstorm which covered it up. If we abandon the
search for the phantom of an African philosophy (or at least philosophy,
"strictly speaking") we may indeed rediscover a much more profound way of
thinking about existence. [One might begin to break the bonds of intellectual
colonialism by not only recognizing that African traditional deep thought is
different from European philosophy but calling it by one of its African names
like Medew Netcher (Divine Speech), instead of Greek words such as gnosis which
Professor Mudimbe uses. (Carruthers 1995)] It seems to me that the question
is whether African thinkers should give their intellectual allegiance to the
traditions of those who debased us including their rebels, or to the traditions
of their ancestors.
(Winter 1996)
______________________________
Jedi Shemsu Jehewty (a.k.a. Jacob H. Carruthers) received his
Ph.D. from the University of Colorado and is currently on the faculty of
Northeastern Illinois University's Center for Inner City Studies in Chicago.
He is a founding member of the Association for the Study of Classical African
Civilizations (ASCAC) and Director of the Kemetic Institute. He is the
author of Mdw Ntr: Divine Speech (A Historical Reflection of African
Deep Thought from the Time of the Pharaohs to the Present) and The
Irritated Genie: An Essay on the Haitian Revolution.
Citations
Carruthers, Jacob 1995 Mdw Ntr: Divine Speech Karnak House
Carruthers, Jacob 1996 Intellectual Warfare
Chicago: Third World Press
Diop, Cheikh Anta 1991 Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology
New York: Lawrence Hill & Company
DuBois, W. E. B. 1964 Black Reconstruction
New York: Meridian Books
Gates, Henry Louis 1992 Loose Cannons: Notes on the Culture Wars
New York: Oxford University Press
Hume, David 1912 Essays: Moral. Political and Literary
New York: Indianapolis Liberty Classics