{"id":8191,"date":"2010-11-01T11:47:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-01T10:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=8191"},"modified":"2010-11-02T14:00:31","modified_gmt":"2010-11-02T13:00:31","slug":"the-cultural-unity-of-black-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/11\/the-cultural-unity-of-black-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cultural Unity of Black Africa?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Douala, Cameroun<\/em>:\u00a0 That is the title of the fascinating book by Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-86), published by Presence Africaine in Paris and Dakar first time in 1959.\u00a0 A very original doctoral thesis presented at the Sorbonne in 1954, and it passed the test: it was refused by some minor French character.\u00a0 After that, Diop published a number of books on related themes till his demise in 1986, arguing a federal United States of Africa, with 700 million inhabitants, eight natural regions, incredibly rich.<\/p>\n

His approach to unity is based on the theses of a Swiss lawyer-macrohistorian, Johan Bachofen, a US anthropologist, Lewis M. Morgan, a German macrohistorian, Friedrich Engels, and deep knowledge of Greek drama.\u00a0 Why the latter? Because it reflects the matriarchy-patriarchy contradiction after the first form recognized by Bachofen, promiscuity.\u00a0 They are all variations on the perennial theme “mama’s baby, papa’s maybe”.\u00a0 The uterine connection is undeniable, giving the mother strong prominence as the source of life, and matriarchy an equally solid basis.\u00a0 What could challenge that?<\/p>\n

The factor usually referred to is the muscular edge men have over women, selecting men for hunting rather than gathering.\u00a0 The months before and after birth are often mentioned, tying women to the house, whether in nomadic or sedentary societies.\u00a0 Care for the ill and weak may be shared, but easily goes together with care for the newborn.<\/p>\n

Hunting selects men for long distance nomadism, violence and warfare.\u00a0 Material abundance calls for women caring for all, sharing and less for men.\u00a0 In times of scarcity–drought, basic climate change, men are mobilized, and with them patriarchy.\u00a0 And most black Africa had abundance before colonialism came from a Europe laboring under harsh climates, scarcity, competition.\u00a0 They killed and enslaved the males, and found something around which to build scarcity.<\/p>\n

Megatraumas they inflicted, but they did not destroy Black Africa completely.\u00a0 Concludes Chekh Anta Diop (pp. 185-186):\u00a0 “–the Southern cradle of humanity on the black\/African continent is characterized by matriarchy as family system–, xenophilia, cosmopolitanism, some kind of social collectivism that has as a consequence a quietness bordering on little worry for tomorrow, a material solidarity as the right of everybody which has made material and spiritual misery unknown up to our days; there are poor people, but nobody feels left alone, nobody is anguished.\u00a0 In the moral domain the ideals are peace, justice, goodness, and optimism that eliminate feelings of guilt and original sin from religion and metaphysics.\u00a0 The favorite types of literature are the novel, the story, the fable, and the comedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Nordic cradle in Greece and Rome is characterized by patriarchy as family system,–, xenophobia, individualism, moral and material loneliness, the distaste for existence, the material around which modern literature is built, which philosophically is nothing more than an expression of the distaste for life–are emanations from this cradle \/like\/ wars, violence, crime, conquests inherited from nomadic life, together with feelings of guilt and original sin as the basis for religious and metaphysical constructions.\u00a0 Technical progress, modern life and gradual emancipation of women under this individualism –.\u00a0 The favored literary expression is the tragedy, the drama.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strong words.\u00a0 And one wonders whether the militancy that came with christianity under the Roman empires and the crusades are related to the scarcity of the temperate zone, and for islam to the desert context.\u00a0 And whether a buddhism rooted in lush tropical abundance simply had to preach “neither too little, nor too much” to pave the way for spiritual growth, and whether African religion did the same.\u00a0 Reductionism to nature, natural determinism?\u00a0 As one<\/span> factor, yes.\u00a0 With gender biology as one<\/span> factor in that one factor discourse.<\/p>\n

Professor of IR, peace and development at the Protestant University of Central Africa, C\u00e9lestin Tagou, has lived in many parts of Africa, like Rwanda.\u00a0 White people rejected African superstitions and brought their own.\u00a0 The German colonizers were fascinated with anthropometry and found the Tutsis closer to German stature and physiognomy than the Hutus, and appointed them higher in evolution.\u00a0 In fact, the Hutus were farmers and the Tutsis herdsmen and had more access to milk–.\u00a0 The Belgian successors to the Germans found the Hutus more numerous than the Tutsis and appointed them the basis for majority democracy.\u00a0 Strong ideas that found their 1994 expressions.<\/p>\n

We can add another Western superstition: the idea of progress, projected on the world to report less, underdeveloped, and more, developed, societies, and developing societies, as facts, data; referring to that as science.\u00a0 What is missing, what escaped attention given their superstition?\u00a0 Overdeveloped societies<\/em>, of course.\u00a0 And underdeveloping societies<\/em>, the idea of regress, right now hitting Anglo-America whence these ideas came, and the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain)–but they also happen to the recipients of much assistance from the EC-EU Development Fund, meaning much non-organic growth.\u00a0 Strong forces that may call for African assistance.<\/p>\n

Passing review for our eyes is lush abundance, the majestic Mt Cameroun (4,100 meters) next to the rich Atlantic coast, plentiful food, beautiful clothing, bad housing, healthy people, much schooling.\u00a0 And a community (CEMAC – Communaute Economique et Monetaire de l’Afrique Centrale) of six states, Cameroun surrounded by the smaller Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Tchad, Central African Republic and Congo-Brazzaville, open borders, free flow of labor and a single currency, the franc, long before the euro.\u00a0 Peace, Work, Fatherland is a slogan.\u00a0 And I see for my inner eyes a three months old baby, father C\u00e9lestin, mother Gladys, named Galtung Tagou Nephane (heavenly).\u00a0 And I dedicate this editorial to him.\u00a0 May he make Africa more African.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Douala, Cameroun: That is the title of the fascinating book by Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-86), published by Presence Africaine in Paris and Dakar first time in 1959. A very original doctoral thesis presented at the Sorbonne in 1954, and it passed the test: it was refused by some minor French character. After that, Diop published a number of books on related themes till his demise in 1986, arguing a federal United States of Africa, with 700 million inhabitants, eight natural regions, incredibly rich.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}