" . . . What does Bantu philosophy have to say? It teaches us that thought is based on the notion of respect for the person. Without explicitly coming into conflict with Nature, this person is nevertheless part of a hierarchy of forces and, although Man occupies a particular place in the world order, he is nevertheless imbued with a force greater than he: the vital, continuous and reversible force from the living to the dead, from dead nature to living nature. Life finds its meaning in the very equilibrium of this vital force (what do the laws of modern biology have to say?) For all the lines of forces are interlinked – there is no frontier between them, only connecting channels and, consequently, no differences of nature, only differences of degree. . . ."

http://www.mtrustonline.com/dailytrust/roots26112003.htm

Roots of African philosophy

By Tierno Monenembo

Can Africa claim to have its own philosophy, an authentic and rigorous way of thinking originating from its own experience of the world and consciousness of it? Or has it always been the confused noumenon described and discredited, in fact by some western intellectuals: from Montaigne to Hume, from Hegel to Gobineau, via Renan and Levy-Bruhl. The question seems ridiculous, and obsolete for some of them, out of place and even shameful for the others. Nevertheless, this millennium, I will permit myself to ask it. This is not in order to give a final answer, but merely to recall a few milestones amidst the speculation it has caused since the time when the Christian west, with the familiar intellectual and moral arguments, swept through Africa. In doing so, I am conscious of exposing myself to a twofold risk, namely enduring the ridicule of the followers of structuralism or Freudo-neo-Lacanism and ruffling a few old doctrinaire feathers. So be it!

For us Africans, the subject is not only an intellectual one but, first and foremost, profoundly political. The fact that the problem is solved in the dining rooms and on the platforms of Europe, means that we are forced to ask ourselves the question again and again. Nevertheless, it will not be a matter of supporting some struggle or other, between sophists and old phantoms, but of eradicating from our minds the idea that the Black Man is devoid of thought, history and civilisation. We have, in fact, carried not only the White Man’s burden but have also suffered and are still suffering from the virus that is colonial ideology – a more serious affliction. Was it not Sartre who said that the African intellectual is ‘a living lie’? The militant has arrived! Yet, be reassured – I will endeavour to disregard manifestos and slogans as I make straight for the core of the debate. What is it all about?

Briefly, we should recall the idea that Africa is ‘a world without history, undeveloped, a total prisoner of the natural mind and whose place is still at the threshold of universal history.’ This idea has insinuated itself into and spread throughout European thought. For the sake of intellectual honesty, I should point out immediately that it has not always been thus. Joachim du Bellay sang of the Mali empire before Montaigne had invented the myth of the Noble Savage. The palaces of Gao or Koumbi-Saleh filled the dreams of many noblemen and squires from Seville and Toledo before Hegel embarked upon La raison dans l’histoire. A great deal of time had passed since the first ambassador from the kingdom of the Congo presented his credentials to Ferdinand I when the highly subtle Gobineau published Introduction a l’essai sur l’inegalite des races.

The notion of an ontologically primitive black world living ‘in a state of savagery and barbarousness which prevents it forming an integral part of civilisation’ was to evolve progressively and its letters patent of nobility were to be found in a specific context: that of a triumphant Europe succeeding both in terms of world conquest and industrial mastery. The inferiority of the Black Man, hitherto perceived only vaguely, a mere probability, was to be converted into a philosophical system by one of the most rational minds of the time, namely George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel whose lofty axiom was ‘being is no more than having been.’ Rebelling against Kant’s abstract universe, he was the first to give an experimental dimension to Reason. Man was no longer the plaything of a complacent rationalism – rational thought is achieved in the world he constructs: history is both reality and logos. The ‘historical whole’ is given meaning under the aegis of the idea. ‘Similar to Mercury, the guide of souls, the idea is, in truth, what leads the peoples of the world…’ Nevertheless, however strong it may be, the idea does not appear to manifest itself everywhere. ‘The freezing cold which brings together the Laplanders or the torrid heat of Africa exert forces on Man which are too powerful for the mind to be able to move freely amongst them and to achieve the wealth necessary for attaining a developed form of life… The hot zone and the humid zone are thus not the stage for universal history.’ Pity the black man, pity the Finns!

When Mr Gobineau was born, the Hegelian model had already been accepted and he did not have to burden himself with fine concepts. It sufficed to decree: ‘the ethnic question takes precedence over all history’s other problems… and racial inequality is enough to explain the entire sequence of peoples’ destinies.’ And that is that.

From then on, the West had to invent a new science to describe these primitive societies capable of produ-cing a series ‘of accidents, of surprising facts’ (Hegel). This was to be ethnography, this ‘prohibited thought,’ to use the celebrated words of the Georgian philosopher, Merab Mamardachvili. Admittedly, questionable though their methods were to be, the ethnographers were to have an advantage over the Hegelians: they were to see Africa from the inside. Thus, the German anthropologist Frobenius would be quick to exclaim: ‘These people are totally civilised! The idea of the Primitive Black is a European invention!’ The Belgian missionary, R.P. Tempels was to find, amidst the Bantu, a cosmogony predisposed to receiving Christ’s light (it was like hearing Saint Paul Preaching the Gospel to the Athenians, Corinthians and Galatians!) This was no longer the absolute spirit (der absolute geist) so dear to Hegel but still a long way from former exclusive theories. However, let us ask the question again, let us ask the ancestors.

What does Bantu philosophy have to say? It teaches us that thought is based on the notion of respect for the person. Without explicitly coming into conflict with Nature, this person is nevertheless part of a hierarchy of forces and, although Man occupies a particular place in the world order, he is nevertheless imbued with a force greater than he: the vital, continuous and reversible force from the living to the dead, from dead nature to living nature. Life finds its meaning in the very equilibrium of this vital force (what do the laws of modern biology have to say?) For all the lines of forces are interlinked – there is no frontier between them, only connecting channels and, consequently, no differences of nature, only differences of degree.

When analysing the Peul and Bambara systems of thought, Hampate Ba says essentially the same thing. Here, too, everything is centred around the person, more specifically Man in the form of his essential, most complex constituent. Man, so the proverb goes, ‘is the universe in miniature.’ However, this universe is neither closed nor complete nor even predetermined – it is potential. His essential vocation is to become the preferred mouthpiece for the supreme spirit or force (Gueno for the Peuls, Maa-Ngala for the Bambaras). Briefly, then, Man is not just any element. He has a task to fulfil on earth, but it is up to him to find his place in the hierarchy of forces by investigating his own destiny.

Traditional African philosophy recognises man in his most fundamental sense: the human substrate itself. It should be noted in passing that Bantu means ‘men’ (Muntu – man). The Mande term denoting the Malinkes and the Bambaras means the son of woman. As for the Peul word, it appears to refer to this people’s pastoral activity and not to a racial or geographical meaning.

Let us now turn to the history of African philosophy in the modern era. Theophile Obenga, from the Congo, identifies no fewer than three major schools of philosophy (without taking into account such geniuses as Othman Dan Fodio, El Hadj Omar, Tierno Bokar, the wisdom of Bandiagara or Tierno Aliou Boubadian de Labe):

- At the University of Sankore (Timbuktu). The Koran, history and jurisprudence were taught here, together with what their scholars termed ‘Quadrivium knowledge,’ namely Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music. Its principal masters were the Mandingo Mohammed Bagayogo (1524-93), the Soninke Mahmoud Kati (1468-?) (author of the famous Tarihh-El-Fettach), and the Peul Ahmed Baba (1556-16270 (author of the Nail El-Ibtihadj). Aristotle’s ‘formal logic’ was already under discussion.

- The Dogon (Mali) school, from the 15th century to the present day, given prominence by Michel Leiris, Marcel Griaule, Germaine Dieterlain and a number of others. There are few questions relating to Man that the Dogons have not tackled, with such originality as to take one’s breath away: astronomy, atom theory, geometry, metaphysics, etc.

- The Guede (Baol, Senegal) school, founded at the beginning of the 20th century by the Mouride brotherhood. ‘It was interested in the problems of thermodynamics (steam engines) and, particularly, in the exact measurement of time…’ (Cheik Anta Diop).

However, more recent generations are no longer turning exclusively to their ancestors’ antics or to Europe. Their true master is Cheik Anta Diop, a physician and anthropologist and former pupil of Frederic Joliot-Curie, Gaston Bachelard and Brunschwig who completely overturned African ways of thought. On the basis of the principle that European philosophy is not a universal model, he proposed that the African intellectual should cease to think of Africa in European terms. He was undoubtedly the first African to break away from the precepts of the master ethnologists and to turn to modern analytical methods (physico-chemistry, applied linguistics, archaeology, etc.) to expand the horizons of African historiography. He was to live his life demons-trating, not without relevance, the cultural and historical relationship between Black Africa and Ancient Egypt. Thanks to him, it has become epistemologically very difficult to refute the idea that the Black Man is at the very source of ancient Egyptian civilisation. In any case, his main work, Nations Negres et Cultures, has become required reading for a number of his contemporaries, and not only in Africa.

Having emerged from the constricting framework of positivism and rid of ethnographic exoticism, African philosophy may finally restore African historical consciousness and help it regain its true place in universal historical consci-ousness. Today, Houtondji, from Benin, can allow himself to say that African philosophy must be regarded as all works produced by Africans.

Does this mean that, despite 500 years of denial and denigration, African civilisation has, for better, or worse, become a civilisation like any other? Perhaps…