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Eurocentrism What is it ? What is the critique of it ? What are the alternatives to it ? To go with slides at Dr Helena Sheehan Dublin City University http://www.comms.dcu.ie/sheehanh/philosophy/eurocentrism.htm Eurocentrism Is this course (module) eurocentric ? inevitability of seeing the world from where we stand ideological diversity of ways of seeing Eurocentrism: the critique intellectual rationale for colonialism from mapping of the world in voyages of discovery and conquest from point of view of coloniser not colonised myopia the west & the rest linear historical trajectory progressive line from Plato to NATO selectivity (what is in, what is out, what is assumed) ethnocentric particularity claiming false universality telling a partial story as the whole story amnesia in relation to its internal and external others achievements based on colonial exploitation of labour & resources neo-colonial brain drain & unequal trade Eurocentrism and Africa How does the world look from Africa ? How has eurocentrism impacted on Africa ? What is the alternative to it for Africa ? Africa and the world refocusing the perspective retelling the story Africa and the world from a new perspective Historiography: the revisionism of the repressed Add black history to white history. Revise the dominant story to include the african origins of the species and early african civilisations, to take a critical view of slavery, colonisation and unequal terms of trade, to celebrate african / african american identity. Negate the whole edifice of eurocentric / amerocentric history. Reinterpret the whole of history from an afrocentric point of view. Affirm a new way of life based on african specificity in thought, word and deed. Construct a new synthesis. Subject the dominant historiography to critical scrutiny. Tell a more inclusive, integrated and complex story. Add the story of the oppressed and do so in full socio-historical context. Africa and the world: retelling the story origins of human species in Africa contested interpretation of ancient Egypt (Kemet) early civilisations of Africa Nubia Zimbabwe Africa and the world: retelling the story slave trade Roots: which story predominates ? colonisation & its consequences economic political cultural psychological intellectual colonialism as armed & institutionalised ethnocentrism AFRICA: the colonial carve up and its post-colonial legacy Africa and the world: retelling the story liberation & de-colonisation from Ghana to South Africa Africa: retelling the story from DuBois to Gates & Appiah from Encyclopedia Africana project of WEB DuBois in 1909 to Microsoft Encarta Africana 2000 but is the one really the fulfillment of the other ? Africa: retelling the story Encarta Africana What is the story ? What are the alternative stories ? Africa and America: what is the story ? Colin Powell The sons of slaves too can fight capitalist and imperialist wars. Whoopi Goldberg The goal of it all: Hollywood, the best restaurants and the american dream Encarta Africana what is the story ? Kofi Annan from “cradle of humankind” through Axum, Asante, Benin and Great Zimbabwe despite “poverty and conflicts” to “pragmatic progress”, “democracy”, “human rights”, “economic reform” and “rule of law” but what does this really mean ? Afrocentrism what is the story ? Africa as origin of human species Africa as source of real greatness in human civilisation Egypt as a black african society Egypt as source of creativity of Greece Africa as locus of superior human essence stress on psychological, cultural, philosophical specificity repudiation of universal ideas and values Cheikh Anta Diop on african origins of civilisation Egypt Greece early influence of marxism moved to emphasis on race and culture over political and economic structures Martin Bernal ideological character of the historiography of the ancient world ancient model vs aryan model Black Athena Who were the ancient Egyptians ? What was their influence on ancient greek civilisation ? Why are so many people so embroiled in debate about it now ? The Black Athena debate At the core of the debate are two questions: were the ancient egyptians a black african people ? to what extent was the civilisation of ancient Greece indebted to learning borrowed or stolen from ancient Egypt ? Although the debate has been cast in terms of Black Athena (Bernal) vs. Not Out of Africa (Lefkowitz), the larger debate is between afrocentrists & eurocentrists. Much of what Bernal had to say in Black Athena on the questions at issue had been stated long before him by earlier afrocentric scholars of this century, notably James Stolen Legacy, and Diop African Origins of Civilization and Civilization or Barbarism. Molefe Kete Asante “soul as method” Afrocentricity african agency in theory and method for african people to view the world through their own eyes, to interpret the world via their own analysis, to study and teach world history from their viewpoint as subjects and not objects of history, and to approach the study of history as makers of history, not victims of history african unity and uniqueness, purity and primordiality Nana Okru Asante Peasah aka Dr. Molefe Kete Asante aka Arthur Lee Smith Recently he was made a traditional king, Nana Okru Asante Peasah, Kyidomhene of Tafo in Akyem, Ghana. He is a member of the court of Nana Adusei Peasah IV, Tafohene of Akyem Abuakwa. In his traditional role as Kyidomhene, Nana Okru Asante Peasah serves to support the Tafohene as a rear-guard. Afrocentricity emphasis on ancient african civilisations delinking from european thought and culture return to source Conference on Afrocentrism Oct 2000 At the conference: "we are the descendents of ancient Kemet ... we can be like them ... we are pharoahs ... we are nobles ... we are aristocrats" Africans are warm. holistic, communal, cosmological, connected to land and ancestors, whereas white people are cold, fragmented, calculating, individualist. Leonard Jeffries melanin source of physical, aesthetic and ethical superiority of blacks over whites “sun people” vs “ice people” racial essentialism in CCNY classes african-asian communal, cooperative and collective value system of humanism and spiritualism contrasted with the general european-american value system of unbridled individualism, fierce competitiveness and ruthless exploitation institutional manifestations extended family clan system divine-king priesthood societies of secrets Marimba Ani (formerly Dona Richards) what is the story ? All world history determined by opposition between european world view (homogeneous) logical, analytical, abstract individualist materialist non-european world view (homogeneous) intuitive holistic collectivist spiritual Afrocentrism for and against Afrocentrism as corrective to a racist, colonialist, imperialist view of Africa However preoccupation with pharoahs, pyrmaids and pageants, with romanticised primitive past blindness to gender and class neglect of economic realities and global structures of power static, essentialised, homogenised view of african personality / thought processes ideological position of identification with pharoahs rather than their slaves, with oppressors rather than oppressed Marxism & Africa influence of marxism vis a vis africanism as philosophies of liberation movements in Africa role of USSR & other socialist countries in supporting liberation movements Marxism & Africa what is the story ? dynamic of historicity emphasis on stuctures of power focus on whole field of interacting forces Walter Rodney Basil Davidson How Europe Underdeveloped Africa Frantz Fanon (1925 - 1961) emphasis on colonialism over racial identity critical of nationalism as ideology of bourgeoisie, a parasitic class mediating between metropolitan capital and african masses saw retreat into past african glories as a black hole, negritude as a blind alley from colonialism to neo-colonialism cultural imperialism postcolonialism decolonising the mind multiculturalism Edward Said orientalism a system of representations framed by political forces that brought the Orient into western learning, western consciousness, and western empire. The Orient exists for the west, and is constructed by and in relation to the west. It is a mirror image of what is inferior and alien, what is other. the image of the 'Orient' expressed as an entire system of thought and scholarship in "a manner of regularized writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient." necessity of intellectual decolonistion Stuart Hall “The political movements in the new world in the 20th century have had to pass through the re-encounter with Africa … (but) Africa is not waiting there in the 15th or 17th century, waiting for you to roll back across the Atlantic and rediscover it in its tribal purity, waiting there in its prelogical mentality, waiting to be woken from inside by its returning sons and daughters.” basic positions in debates over the constitution of knowledge conservatism / tradition / great books liberalism / empiricism / pluralism postmodernism / ecofeminism / afrocentrism / etc marxism / critical reconstruction Professors of African American Studies in US spectrum of ideological positions Henry Louis Gates Harvard Kwame Anthony Appiah Harvard Cornel West Princeton Manning Marable Columbia Molefe Kete Asante Temple Leonard Jeffries CUNY Angela Davis UC Santa Cruz What is african philosophy ? levels of debate African philosophy levels ethnophilosophy sagacity philosophy ideological-political philosophy professional philosophy positions traditional / religious animist, christian, islamic positivist / liberal marxist / socialist postmodernist / culturalist Africa today global system internal forces African renaissance how to create an african renaissance how to create the best synthesis of traditional african culture contemporary global culture South Africa transformation and academe structures studies University of Cape Town of Europe or of Africa ? Eurocentrism colonialism postcolonialism & curriculum ? & UCT What to do with Cecil John Rhodes ? Africanism and South African universities at Wits, the “Makgoba affair” at UCT, the “Mamdani affair” How clear were the issues in these debates ? What sort of debates are there today about Africa and the production of knowledge ? about “decolonising the mind” ? What is the role of analytic philosophy in the new SA ? Is it eurocentric ? Is it tied to class, gender, race in unacknowledged ways ? Is it even interesting ? Or is it the most perfect philosophy that our species has evolved ? What has happened to marxism in Africa ? http://www.comms.dcu.ie/sheehanh/za/cronin02.htm and the ex-marxists ? “ex-marxists have conceded too much too soon . .. There is something exaggerated about their apostasy … Marxists should be prepared … to defend the totalising powers of marxist analysis” Colin Bundy to neo-liberalism (sometimes justifying neo-liberalism in marxist terminology) to postmodernism So now over to you … diaries due. What have you been thinking ?
