UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS AKOKA, LAGOS

SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

FACULTY OF ARTS

ANALYSIS, JUSTIFICATION AND EVALUATION OF AFRICAN

IDENTITY IN BOELE VAN HENSBROEK BOOK

BEING A TERM PAPER

SUBMITTED BY

GROUP 1

AKINOLA OLUMIDE MICHAEL 920107011

AROGUNDADE ADEDOYINSOLA Y. 110107048

DUROTINU JEREMIAH OLUWADAMILOLA 070107023

ENENE ENYIUMIN MARCUS 179017006

IHENACHO PETER NDUKAKU 110117026

IKECHI EMMANUEL WISDOM ALIMBA 090109068

SAULA ALIMAT OMOBOLANLE 179017012

COURSE LECTURER: PETER ONI Ph.D

COURSE TITLE: AFRICAN SOCIO-POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

COURSE CODE: PHY 836

JUNE, 2018
 ABSTRACT

The fulcrum of this paper is in the discourse of African Identity” asserted by different political
philosophers in their quest of an Africanise. Using analytical and expository method as a channel
to deliver the epistemic thoughts of African Identity (Negro). The discourse was elaborated in
Negritude, black consciousness, ethno-philosophy, being and mode of social life, Afrocentrism
within the cultural spectrum of Africanisation as a means of identity. Hence, philosophical
questions was also raised as regards to who is an African? What constitutes an African? And
African social mode of life that differentiate them against westernisation development in African
context and the quest for nationalism. Therefore, the various aspect of African Identity fit
together into one complete mode of being, including a mode of social life (African
communalism), of religious life and of psychological makeup (the African personality). It makes
sense, to speak of “the African” The African culture and the African mode of being beyond the
observable individual Africans, African culture and people. The major cultures in the world
define their specific mode of being.

Keywords: African Identity, Afrocentrism, Black Consciousness, Culture and Culturalism,

Ethno-philosophy, Nationalism, Negritude.
INTRODUCTION

The world is perceived in term of socio-economic systems (slavery system, mercantilism,

capitalism or socialism, colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism) etc. which has a number of

effects and consequences in any given society. Hence, Africa as a continent fall victim of the

above socio-economic system in her experiences with impact on political, economic and cultural

world view. These effects pave way for the “discuss of African identity”.

Using analytical approach in the quest of Africanisation Nationalism or self consciousness,

development, mode of social life, stable polity, within the African cultural paradigm in other to

enhance the actualisation of a society that is liveable by all. Although the socio-economic system

tend to reflects African Identity but African political thinkers has made conscious intellectual

effort to ensure the Africanisation and nationalisation of the Black (Negro) with a view to attain

self-determined continent.

The intellectual structure of this paper started with analytical method as a tool of philosophers to

uncover the assumptions, presupposition, and reality in “African identity discourse” Different

political thinkers made their submissions. While expressing their political thought as regards to

what constitute “African identity discourse” its effects or consequences and its subject matters.

K. C. Anyanwu: The Nigerian philosopher formulate his African political doctrine trying to

remove the mental cobwebs of Europeanism from black (Africans) within a different unpolitical

philosophers discourse stating the spirit of his work by identifying and removing all the belief

ideas, and thought that limit the manifestation of African spirit and oneness.
 He admonished that Africans should be themselves hence if they surrender their personality then

they have nothing left to give the world.1

It is epistemic to state that different political philosopher such as Blyden, Anyanwu and Biko,

Azikiwe, Nkrumah, Senyon Senghor, Casely Hayford etc. position their political thoughts

differently within the political spectrum but as intellectuals they also belong to the same

intellectual or epistemic family which is known as the family of Africa identity discourse.2

Their identity discourse can be located in the discourse of Negritude, Afrocentrism, Ethno

philosophy, Black Consciousness, Nationalism or self consciousness the existence of being and

mode of social life within cultural milieu.

AFRICAN IDENTITY

Identity is everything and if you do not have it, you will look for it in places that will ultimately

frustrate and kill you. Every normal human being feels the need to identify with a group of

people. Just as an individual normally treasures his own personality and criticize those who are

not like him, so also do people as social animals value their membership of a human community.

As Jacques Martain observes in defining a nation as:

A community of people who become aware of themselves

as history has made them who treasures their own past, and

1
Lynch 1971, p.60. compare also Casely Hayford (1911/1969, p. 160): “What shall it profit a race if it shall gain the
whole world and lose its own soul?”; and Blyden (1887, p. 71-93): “the African must advance by the methods of his
own. He must possess a power distinct from the European.”
2
My use of the notion of ‘family’ does not involve the claim that thinkers actually traced back their intellectual
ancestry along these lines or were actually influenced by previous generations in that very ‘family’.
 who love themselves as they know or imagine themselves
to be with a kind of inevitable introversion.3

Then Aristotle, rightly points out that;

Only a beast or a god is made to live a life of solitude

without the emotional support of being able to identify with
a group. It is therefore normal that a man will tend to resent
criticism not only of his own character, but also of his
personality, real or imagined of his community.4

To define an African as a person born and bred of African stock is really a circular definition,

because one then has to defined African stock. On the other hand, if by African, we mean a

person born and bred on the continent of Africa, then, we have Africans of various physical

types: Bushmen, Pygmees, Miotics, Bantu, Berbers, Arabs and even whites and others. It is a

biological fact that these physical types differ from each other in easily recognizable bodily

characteristics. It is also a fact of nature that the climatic conditions and the geographical

particularities of most parts of Africa differ from those of Europe or of Central Asia. It is an

historical fact that the historical and pre-historical cultural evolution and the resulting value

systems of most Black Africans societies not only differ from the historical evolution and value

systems of Europe or China, but also differ between various African groups themselves, even

through one can also see points of similarities.

3
J. Martain: Man and the State, Chicago, 1951, p.5.
4
Aristotle: Politics, Bk. 1, Ch. 2, 1253. p. 29.
What makes a man a human being is, on the one hand, the specificity of the human body: biped,

hairless, walking erect, having hand with opposite thumbs, a specific chromosomal pattern etc.

This makes a biological species, characterized by intra-specific fertility and inter-specific

sterility; a member of any biological human group who is of the opposite sex, but no human

being can reproduce with a non-human. On the other hand, man's unique psychological,

endowment distinguishes him even more radically from all non-human animals. Man is rational

and free, but these typically human characteristics combine with other psychological aspects

which man shares with other animals: Instincts, habits, emotions, sensitivity, appetites etc.

Essentially, every normal mature human being, whatever his racial or geographical origin, shares

these specifically human characteristics.

One commonality across the span of time is the notion of 'us' and 'them', where them are never

good people. Being African is not a virtue, which equals righteousness, it is just a human

sociological, political grouping. Pride in oneself is healthy because it gives us the confidence to a

productive in this world. But exclusively clinging the race as the ultimate human value can lead

to terrible consequences (Europeans in Africa), but too much 'race pride' is a dangerous pursuit,

it is only necessary to strengthen us due to an ongoing assault on Africa as a race. So "we' in

dealing with African identity is the ontological sense, we see that the state of "being African' is

not defined by air outward appearance (biological or cultural), but by our ethics and ethos,

sensibilities and paradigms, culture, religion, all modulates identity, it is deeply subjective and

even more problematic to say that these set of virtues makes one more African and these set of

virtue take you outside of the African ideal. So, on a human level, you are not going to get that
much Milage out of anything which is based on what you look like and where your ancestors

came from.

The notion of race in relevant and there is no escaping it. But that is one reality, there is also the

reality which must co-exist with that, that despite being called Africans, we are also different

culturally, genetically, spiritually, we do not share one big African culture despite having

cultures which make up the people of modern African group.

The Origins of the Problem of African identity

There is the debate about African identity and what led to it? Africans are in search of their

identity. Why should Africans be searching for their identity? The simple answer to these

questions is this: Africans of the first half of this century have begun to search for their identity,

because they had rightly or wrongly the feeling that they had lost it or that they were being

deprived of it. The three main factors which led to this feeling were:

(a) Slavery;

(b) Colonialism;

(c) Racialism;

Of these three, racialism is the most pernicious and could be said to be largely the source of the

other two. It was because Negroes were considered racially inferior and culturally uncivilized

that both Arab and Europeans felt a moral justification in exploiting them as a kind of superior

beast of a burden by reducing them to slavery. It was largely for the same reason that they felt a
right, or even a duty to bring to the white man's burden the so-called benefits of civilization

through a process of colonization.

The heart of the whole problem of African identity lies therefore in racialism. A typical

expression of this racialist attitude is to be found in one of David Hume's lesser works, where he

writes:

I am apt to suspect that Negroes to be naturally inferior to

the Whites. There scarcely ever was a civilized nation of
that complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in
action or speculation. No ingenious manufacturers amongst
them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude
and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient Germans,
the present Tartars, have still something eminent about
them.

In their valour, form of government, or some other

particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not
happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not
made an original distinction between these breeds of men...5

Admittedly, this is not Hume's best piece of reasoning. We have quoted this text almost in

extensor because it is typical of the racialist attitude. Firstly, the racialist has often no first hand

and extensive knowledge of the race he is talking about, of its history and culture, of its

achievements and its beliefs. Secondly, he assumes axiomatically that his own culture and

civilization is best, and concludes therefore with a naive logic that anything different is

barbarous, rude and inferior. Thirdly, since the race in question has made no effort to equal what
5
David Hume: Essay of National Characters (Routledge Edit. N. D), Essay Nr: XXI, pp. 152-153.
the racialist considers as the submits of human achievement, it is assumed that the inferior race is

by nature incapable of such achievement. Rather than asking oneself if perhaps the presumed

inferior race might not perhaps view these achievements as strange, unnecessary and even

ridiculous.

An author who is however, more important in this context partly because of his work was not

without profound influence on Nazism and partly because it played a significant role in the early

formation of Senghor and probably of Aime Cesaire, is Comte de Gobineau. He could be called

the original modern racist, whose magnum opus: sur l'lnegalite des races humaines was for a

while the Bible of racism. With all the appearance of a serious scientific treatise (except for the

obvious lack of first hand facts and of historical information about pre-colonial Africa) Gobineau

propounds such pronouncement as:

The majority of human races are unable to be ever

civilized, unless they mix with others...not only do these
races not possess the necessary internal spring to push them
forward on the scale of development, but moreover...no
external agent would be able to fertilize their organic
sterility, however energetic this agent might be otherwise.6

While the thinking faculties (of the Negroes) are mediocre

of even nil, he possesses in the desire, and therefore in the
will, an often terrible intensity...To these chiefs character
traits he adds on instability of humours, a variability of

6
Comte de Gobineau : Introduction a I'essai sur I'inegalite des races humaines (1848-1851) Edit. Nouvel office
d'Edition, Paris, 1963. P.131.
 sentiments which nothing can fix, and which for him annuls
both virtue and vice.7

There were reactions against colonialism, domination, oppression and racism. This we must take

cognizance of the effect of colonialism in African philosophical development. With colonialism

came the rise of nationalism and with nationalism, the struggle for political independence. And

then:

It was felt that political independence must be

accompanied with a total mental liberation and if possible
a total severance of all intellectual tiers with the colonial
masters.8

The question of African identity was set off by the initial belief or assumption by some European

scholars that the African belief systems are irrational, inferior, pre-logical. Consequently, a

scholar like Hegel is said to have presented to us the European understanding of African thought

system. Hegel is said to have seen Africans as utterly inferior to Europeans. He writes:

The characteristic feature of the Negroes is that their

consciousness has not yet reached an awareness of any
substantial objectivity. For example, if God or the law
which the will of man would become aware of his own
being. The African's undifferentiated and concentrated
unity, has not yet succeeded in making this distinction
between himself and his essential universality, so that he

7
Gobineau, Op.cit; p. 368.
8
P. O Bodunrin : The Question of African Philosophy: A Critical Survey: University Press of America, (1977) p. 5.
 knows nothing of an absolute being which is other and
higher than his own self.9

The application of Hegelian view to the study of African studies resulted in the view that

Africans have inferior forms of knowledge and understanding. After Hegel came the French

philosopher and sociologist. Lucien Levy-Bruhl, who contended that there was a basic difference

in the mentalities of European and non-European races. Levy-Bruhl argued that the thinking of

the primitive people or non-European is not subjective to the usual lives of logic as that of

Europeans "rather the thought patterns of the non-European follow a different logic from that of

the Europeans...instead of adhering to the law of non-contradictions...as Europeans do, non-

Europeans operate in accordance with the law of participation".10

Levy-Bruhl's characterization of Africans intellectual culture as "primitive mentality" sets the

mood for the attempts by several African scholars to search for a unique African thought system.

This trend exerted a profound effect on the interpretation of African culture and philosophy later

given by Leopold Sedar Senghor, Revd. Fr. Placid Tempels, Prof. John Mbiti and others. So, the

remote origin of the question of the existence of African philosophy can historically be traced to

western discourse on African thought and the African response to it.

The first in the series of response led to the formation of the Pan-Africanist Movement, an

attempt to define, characterize and establish African cultural identity. Pan- Africanism was a

political movement launched in London in 1839, initiated by Henry Sylvester Williams and later

W.E.B Dubois, an African American scholar and champion of the interests of Africans. The

9
D. A Masolo: African Philosophy in search of Identity: (Bloomington, Indiana University Press) 1994. p.4.
10
Albert G Mosley: African Philosophy: Selected Readings. USA New Jersey Prentice Hall, Inc, 1995, p.4.
Movement manifested in a series of conferences and congresses in Paris, London, Lisbon, New

York, Manchester and Tanzania in the 1990s. Pan-Africanism was meant to help towards

characterizing uniquely African personality.

Then came the concept of Negritude, most often associated with Leopold Sedar Senghor, the first

president of Senegal. Negritude attempted to reconstruct the distinctive characteristics of African

personality complimented by an African mode of knowing. Senghor places greater emphasis on

traditional African cultural values. Negritude, constitute an authentic African identity, and

instinctive mode of being an existence.

Negritude attempts to distinguish Africans from Europeans by

defining the African in terms of the complex of character, traits,
dispositions, capabilities, natural endowments, etc in their relative
predominance and overall organizational arrangements which form
the Negro essence.11

So, Negritude has been concerned with addressing the question of African identity and

authenticity which are old versions of the new question of Africanness:

When adequately analysed, Negritude was more of an attempts to

set the conditions of meaningfulness and truth within our ancient
traditions of African thought.12

11
Lucius Outlaw: African Philosophy' Deconstructive and Reconstructive Challenges in Contemporary Philosophy:
A New Survey. Guttorm Floisted (ed), The Netherlands, Martins Nyhoff Publishers, 1987), p.40.
12
S. B Oluwole: "Philosophy and Democracy, Intercultural Perspective", studies in Inter-cultural Philosophy Vol,
3. Lagos: Massatech Publishers, (1997) p. 30
NEGRITUDE

Negritude is a theory that pungent the beauty and unity of African mode of existence or being

against western mode.13 However, it is worthy to state that Negritude was mainly concerned with

the characterisation of Africanise at the phenomenological level. Negritude established the

beauty and unity of African mode of being.14

Negritude constitute an authentic African identity, a distinctive mode of being and existence. It

“attempts to distinguish Africans from Europeans by defining the African in terms of the

complex of character traits, dispositions, capabilities, natural endowments, etc., in their relative

predominance and overall organisational arrangements which form the Negro essence. So,

Negritude has been concerned with addressing the question of African identity and authenticity

which are old versions of the new question of “Africanness”. When adequately analysed,

Negritude “was more of an attempt to set the conditions of meaningfulness and truth within our

ancient traditions of African thought” 15. Furthermore, negritude is commonly and widely

associated with Leopold Sedar Senghor. Negritude is a cultural movement launched in 1930s

Paris by French-speaking black intellectuals from France's Colonies in Africa and the Caribbean

territories. These black intellectuals converged around issues of race identity and black

internationalist initiatives to combat French imperialism. They found solidarity in their common

ideal of affirming pride in their shared black identity and African heritage, and reclaiming

African self-determination, self-reliance, and self-respect. The Negritude Movement signaled on

awakening of race consciousness for blacks in Africa and the African Diaspora. This new race
13
The idea of an ‘African personality’, supported at times by Nkrumah and others, also includes this idea of a
phenomenologically coherent Africanite.
14
www.wikipedia.org
15
S. B. Oluwole: “Philosophy and Democracy in inter-cultural Perspective”, Studies in Intercultural Philosophy,
vol. 3 (1997), p. 30.
consciousness, noted in a (re) discovery of the authentic self, sparked a collective condemnation

of western domination, anti-black racism, enslavement, and colonization of black people.

Negritude sought to dispel denigrating myths and stereotypes linked to black people, by

acknowledging their culture, history, and achievements, as well as reclaiming their contributions

to the world and restoring their rightful place within the global community.

Senghor used his idea of Negritude to promote a quest for the authentic self, knowledge of self,

and a rediscovery of African beliefs, values, institutions, and civilizations, Senghor advocates

assimilation that allows association "a cultural metissage" of blackness and whiteners. He posits

nations of a distinct Negro Soul, Intuition, irrationalism and cross breeding to rehabilitate Africa

and establish his theory of black humanism. He envisions western reason and Negro Soul as

instruments of research to create a civilization of the universal, a civilization of unity by

Symbiosis.

The struggle for freedom had further led Africans to the search of their identity because they felt

rightly or wrongly they had lost their identity. European powers had viewed Africans to be

primitive people, so they assigned themselves a study to civilize Africans or to them the proper

civilization which they meant colonization. The colonialist went far that Africa had no

philosophy and perhaps this seems to attest the fact that we (Africans) are being deprived our

history. There were many scholars (Nationalists) like Kwesi Wiredu, Obafemi Awolowo and

perhaps one of the greatest French Nationalist. Aime Ceasaire, Leopold Sedar Senghor, among

others.

Negritude as a philosophical concept is a literary and cultural movement developed by

intellectuals as response to French policy of assimilation that alienated them from their cultural
values and human freedom. They believed that: 'The shared black heritage of members of the

Africans in diaspora was the best tool in fighting against French political and intellectual

Hegemony and domination’.16

The term 'Negritude' has acquired, in the way it has been used by different writers, a multiplicity

of meanings covering so wide a range that it is often difficult to form a precise idea of its

particular reference at any one time or in any usage. The difficulty stems from the fact that, as a

movement and as a concept, Negritude found its origin and received a development in a

historical and sociological context whose implications for those whom it affected where indeed

wide ranging, and which ultimately provoked in them a multitude of responses that were often

contradictory, though always significant. Negritude refers to the literary and ideological

movement of French speaking black intellectuals which took form as a distinctive and significant

aspect of the comprehensive reaction of the black man to the political and economic oppression

of colonialism, it was a situation that was felt and perceived by black people in Africa and in the

New World as a state of a global subjection to the political, social and moral domination of the

West. Negritude was a tool used in espousing a reaffirmation of traditional African culture and

identity.

The term has been used in a broad and general sense to denote the black world in its historical

being, in opposition to the west and in this way resumes the total consciousness of belonging to

the black race, as well as an awareness of the objective historical and sociological implication of

that fact. It is perhaps not without significant that Aime, Cesaire, who originally coined the term

and was the first to use it in his long poem 'Carrier d'un retour an pays natal' should have given

16
A Tevoedjre, L 'Afrique revoltee. Paris, 1958, pp. 33-37.
the kind of general definition, which not only indicates the scope of the black consciousness

embraced by the term in its relation to history but also its extension beyond this contingent

factor: 'Negritude is the simple recognition of the fact of being black, and the acceptance of this

fact, of our destiny as black people, of our history, and of our culture.’17

In this broad perspective, Negritude can be taken to correspond to a certain form of Pan-Negro

feeling and awareness, and as a movement, to represent the equivalent on the French - speaking

side of what has come to be known as Pan-Africanism. Negritude is characterized by many

scholars as a formulative movement of African literature, a significant ideological and literary

development that originated during the 1930s. In essence, the movement aimed to break down

established boundaries and stereotype of blacks that had been cultivated through several

centuries of colonial rule. It was led largely by a small group of writers living in France,

including Leopold Sedar Senghor. Leon Damas, and Aime Cesaire. Negritude gained popularity

among black intellectuals over the next few decades inspiring works of literature, poetry and

drama that celebrated black identity and culture as integral and dominant elements of the arts of

these writers. In this literature, the preoccupation with the black experience which has provided a

common ground base for the imaginative expression of black writers develops into a passionate

exaltation of the black race.

The immediate polemical significance of this re-evaluation of African emerges itself into a quest

for new values, for a new spiritual orientation, such that in most expressive parts of the

literature, the cultivation of Africa formulates itself as an intense imaginative celebration of

primal values.

Quoted by Lilyan Kesteloot in La negritude et son expression litteraire; in Negritude Africaine, Negritude
17

Caraibe, Paris, 1973, p. 67.

 A distinctive vision of black man and Africa, and of his
relation to the world, thus stands at the very heart of the
literature of Negritude and informs it in a fundamental way,
provides what can be said to constitute them 'mental
structure' that underlies the imaginative expression of the
French-speaking black writers, and which emerges with a
sharp clarity in the ideological writings.18

In this writings of Senghor, accord the most coherent expression of Negritude considered as a

body of ideas relative to the identity and the destiny of the black man, and to his experience of

the world.

In considering Senghor's theory of Negritude, it might be useful to begin by setting it against the

new of Jean-Paul Sartre, whose contribution to the formulation of the concept can be said to have

been determinant in its establishment. It is a common knowledge that Sartre was the first, in his

now celebrated essay "Orphee Noir" to offer an extended exposition of the concept. However, he

was much less concerned with defining Negritude than identifying the collective sentiment

which ran through the poetry of the black writers whom he was introducing and with exploring

its historical possibilities. Sartre describes Negritude as: ‘The weak stage of dialectical

progression, a stage which is to be transcended in the synthesis defined by him as the realization

of the human society without racism’.19

The opposition of Sartre's view point to that of Senghor serves to emphasize the fact that the

Senghor's formulation of Negritude stems from the absolute vision of the negroid race.

18
Karl Manhelm, 'Conservative Thought' (essays on Sociology and Social psychology, London, 1953) p. 13.
19
Jean-Paul Sartre, Black Orpheus, Paris, 1948 . p. 60.
For Senghor, Negritude is an inner state of the black man, he thus accepted the objective reality

of race an indicative of a specific inner identity and aptitude, Senghor rejects the idea that the

black man is inferior in his human quality to the Whiteman. But perhaps the really significant

departure from the traditional racial view in the west initiated notably by Gobineau in his

rejection of the idea that races are so constituted to the mutual exclusive of one another. As he

says: 'Race is reality. I do not mean racial purity; there is difference but not inferiority or

antagonism’.20

For Senghor, there in a constant association in his thought between race and culture, between the

physical constitution of a people is the result of evolution within an environment over a

considerable period. He once defined culture in one of his essays so: ‘The racial reaction of the

man upon his milieu, tending towards an intellectual and moral balance between man and his

milieu’.21

The primary factor in Senghor's conception of the Negro appears in this view to be associated

with black race. This association defines for all black peoples a common cultural denominator

which is at the basic of their various and often disparate forms of expression. The fact of the

blackness or Negritude consists essentially in the participation, in an immediate way or at a

second remove, in a fundamental African spirit of civilization. In this spiritual conception of

Negro race, the position of the Afro-American acquires a particular strategic significance.

African cultural survival in the New World have frequently been deduced as evidence of the

persistence of an African nature in the New World Negro, and this argument has served black

nationalists, on both sides of the Atlantic as the emotional lever of their reaction against West

and even more, as one of the principal ideological planks of the Pan-Negro movement. It is
20
Maurice Barres ; Negritude et Humanisme, Paris, 1963. p. 13.
21
Ibid. p. 12.
hardly surprising that Senghor's vision of the race (black) should embrace the Afro-American

culture, they represent varied extensions and differentiated manifestations of the original spirit of

African culture, which Senghor's says: "Emigrated to America but remained intact in style, if not

in its ecological elements.”22

From Africa, the Negro has inherited those natural traits which, more than the biological factor

establish an original bond between him and Africa. Senghor has made in this respect an explicit

observation:

What strikes me about the Negroes in America is the

permanence not of the physical but of the psychic
characteristics of the Negro-African, despite race-mixing,
despite the new environment.23

To sum up on this point, Senghor's conception is founded upon a total, if not exclusive, vision of

the black race. Although this vision is inspired by the historical situation of the black people and

involves a recognition of the biological as conferring an external unity of race, the determining

principle of the collective personality of black people in their spiritual association with African

culture. Beyond the common historical experience and beneath the biological factor, what gives

an essential unity of black identity-, then, is the African heritage.

Senghor has singled out, as the dominant trait of this conscience, it emotive disposition. He

presents the African as being, in his physical constitution, a being of emotion, or as he puts it:

“One of the norms created on the third day.. .a pure sensory being.24

22
Ibid, p. 23.
23
Ibid, p. 254.
24
John Reed and Give Wake : Psycho Logic Du Negro-Africaine : Diogene, Paris, 1962, p. 30.
The African's response to the external world in Senghor's conception is an upsurge of the

sensibility at the level of the nervous system, an intense, engulfing experience in which the

whole organic being of the self is involved. The psycho-physiological constitution of the African

determines his immediate response to external reality, his total absorption of the object into the

inner most recesses of his subjectivity, by the very fact of physiology Senghor simply writes:

The Negro has reaction which are more lived, in the sense
that they are most direct and concrete expressions of the
sensation and of the stimulus, and so of the object itself,
with all its original qualities and power.25

In other words, the emotive response of the African is an act of cognition, in which the subject

and the object enter into an organic and dynamic relationship, and in which intense perception

through he senses culminates in the conscious apprehension of reality. This Senghor says: "The

African spirituality is rooted in his sensuous nature, in his physiology”.26

His mode of apprehension involves a warm living dialectic of consciousness and reality

“Emotion then is the accession to a higher state of reality”.27

As it can be seen, Senghor derives from his exposition of the distinctive psychology of the

Negro-Africans, what one might call a theory of knowledge implicit in the African attitude in the

world, a black epistemology. The African apprehension amounts to living the object in the depth

of his soul, penetrating through sensuous perception of its essence.

25
Ibid, p. 5.
26
Ibid, p. 7.
27
Leopold Senghor. Prose and Poetry. London 1965. p. 35.
 Knowledge then is not the superficial creation of discursive
reason, cast over reality, but discovery through emotion,
less discovery than rediscovery. Knowledge coincides,
here, with the being of the object in its discontinuous and
intermediate reality.28

And it is this sensuous grasp of reality that Senghor refers to as intuition.

The significant factor here is that, Senghor associates knowledge with the imaginative faculty.

The African's attitude to the world precludes objective intellection, so that his mind works less

by abstraction then by intuitive understanding. This as Senghor says "he is sensitive to the

spiritual and not the intellectual qualities of ideas"14

Senghor has provided a striking illustration of what he means by this observation.

The African is moved out not so much by the outward

appearance of the object as by its profound reality, less by
the sign than by its sense. What moves him in a dancing
mask, through the medium of image and the rhythm is a
new vision of the 'god'. What moves him in water is not
that it flows, in liquid and blue, but that it washed and
purify. The physical appearance, however, intensely
perceived in all its particulars by the neuro-sensory organs,
indeed, through the very intensity of such perception, is no
more than the sign of the object's real significance.29

Artistic expression thus becomes the prime mediator of the black (African) consumers. The

artistic expression and religious feeling are inseparably linked, in so far as it is conceived

28
John Reed and Clive and Wake. Op.cit; p.l 1.
29
Maurice, Op.cit, p.23.
primarily as an epiphony of the sacred, of the cosmic energy with which the visible world is

permeated. This is the foundation of the Africans mystical participation in the universe.

The Blackman, Senghor has written had succeeded in

perceiving the harmonious order of nature. Then, thanks to
his sense and to his intuitive intelligence to his hands and to
his techniques, he had integrated himself to it. To perceive
the harmonious order of nature, that it to grasp the
correspondence which bind one to the other, the cosmic
forces which underlie the universe.30

The essential idea in Senghor's aesthetic theory is that the African arrives at a profound

knowledge of the world by feeling the material world to the cosmic mind of which it is an

emanation, to the transcendental reality underlying it, what Senghor calls in a modification in the

theory of Negritude culminate in Senghor's enunciation of a hypothetic Negro-African Cogito,

which he explicitly opposes to the traditional enunciation handed down to the west by

Descartes, Senghor text runs thus:

“I think, therefore I am' wrote Descartes, the European par

excellence. ‘I feel, I dance the other, the Negro-African
would say. It does not read like Descartes that would as
may old master Ferdinand Brunot used to term it, a
conjunction to realize his being, but an object complement.
He does not need to think but to live the other by dancing
lion.31

30
Senghor, op. cit, pp. 34-55.
31
Les Fondements de L’Africanite: Presence Africaine. Paris, 1967. p. 64.
The distinction between Europe and African drawn by Senghor in terms of the cultural form

that, traditionally, mental operations have taken in their respective civilizations, and of their

opposed directions, hence his well known formula. "Classical European reason is analytical and

makes use of the object. African reason is intuitive and participation in the object”.32

Negritude is aimed at re-asserting, re-evaluating and re-defining the personhood of Africans. On

the cultural aspect of it, Negritude is aimed at preserving African cultural heritage and he called

for integration of both African and white positive values for the civilization of the world. Thus

be writes:

If it was legitimate to cultivate the values of Negritude, to

awaken in ourselves dormant energies, it should be for the
purpose of bringing us into the current of cultural
intermingling...into the current of pan-humanist
convergence to edification of the civilization of the
universal. Biological intermingling occurs by
itself...encouraged by the way laws of life against policies
of apartheid. It is different in the cultural domain our
freedom remains whole to accept or refuse to cooperate to
provoke or not to provoked a synthesis.33

ETHNO-PHILOSOPHY

Ethno-philosophy: this concept examined the ontological foundation of what is African. It

examines the essence of African from the cultural or African tradition rather than race or African

personality. Ethno-philosophy involve the narrative and belief technique of African in their

diversity more of communal than individual.

32
John and Dive, Op.cit, p. 7.
33
Senghor, Op.cit, p.34
Ethnophilosophy is the study of indigenous philosophical systems. The implicit concept is that a

specific culture can have a philosophy that is not applicable and accessible to all peoples and

cultures in the world; however, this concept is disputed by traditional philosophers. Hence, an

example of ethnophilosophy is African philosophy34

BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS

This express group pride and the determination of the black to rise and attain the envisaged

self.35 It is worthy to state that black consciousness is the display or exhibit attitude that shows

the art of mental decolonisation of Black i.e. Africans.

Black Consciousness is base on self examination which has ultimately lead them to believe that

by seeking to run away from themselves and emulate the white make them to insult the

intelligence of their creator. Therefore, Black consciousness envisages the prestige and heritage

of a Blackman (African).

It is academic to note that the philosophy of Black Consciousness incorporates three distinct

elements of political thought

(i) Orthodox African nationalism or (Africanism)

(ii) Anti-colonialism of African nationalism

(iii) Radical socialism and Marxism.36

We begin this paper by noting that being black is not a matter of pigmentation, on the contrary,

being black is a reflection of a mental attitude. Merely by describing yourself as black you have

34
www.wikipedia.org
35
Biko 1978/1979, p.92 in the essay “Black Consciousness and the Quest for True Humanity”.
36
Guy Martin, 2012, “African political thought”. Publisher Palgrave Macmillan
started on a road towards emancipation, you have committed yourself to fight against all forces

that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being. However,

real black people - are those who can manage to hold their heads high in defiance rather than

willingly surrender their souls to the colonialists’ ideology.

Briefly defined therefore, Black Consciousness is in essence the realization by the black man of

the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression - the blackness of

their skin - and to operate as a group in order to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to

perpetual servitude. It seeks to demonstrate the lie that black is an aberration from the "normal"

which is white. It is a manifestation of a new realization that by seeking to run away from

themselves and to emulate the white man, black are insulting the intelligence of whoever created

them black. Black Consciousness, therefore takes cognizance of the deliberateness of the God's

plan in creating black people black It seeks to infuse the black community with a new-found

pride in themselves, their efforts, their value systems, their culture, their religion and their

outlook to life. The interrelationship between the consciousness of the self and the emancipatory

programme is of a paramount importance. Blacks no longer seek to reform the system because so

doing implies acceptance of the major points around which the system revolves. Blacks are out

to completely transform the system and to make of it what they wish. Such a major undertaking

can only be realized in an atmosphere where people are convinced of the truth inherent in their

stand. Liberation therefore is of paramount importance in the concept of Black Consciousness,

for we cannot be conscious of ourselves and yet remain in bondage. We want to attain the

envisioned self which is a free self.

The surge towards Black Consciousness is a phenomenon that has manifested itself throughout

the so-called Third World. There is no doubt that discrimination against the black man the word
over fetches its origin from the exploitative attitude of the white man. Colonization of white

countries by whites has throughout history resulted in nothing more than sinister than mere

cultural or geographical fusion at worst, or language bastardization at best. It is true that the

history of weaker nations is shaped by bigger nations, but nowhere in the world today do we see

whites exploiting whites on scale even remotely similar to what Africa has experienced. Hence,

one is forced to conclude that it is not coincidence that black people are exploited. It was a

deliberate plan which has culminated in even so-called black independent countries not attaining

any real independence.

AFROCENTRISM

Africentrism is a cultural ideology or worldview that focuses on the history of people of African

descent.37 It is respond to global (Eurocentric) attitude about Africans people and their historical

contributions. It re-units their history with an African cultural and ideological focus.

Emphasizing or promoting emphasis on African culture and the contribution of Africans to the

development of western civilisation.

Moreover, there is a strong affinity between individual and his culture which also called the

genetic code of identity discourse.

CULTURE and CULTURALISM

Culture as rightly conceptualised by Ralph Linton is the total way of life. Culture reflects the

norms, idea, belief, values etc. of the people in a given society.

37
www.wikipedia.org
It is important to note that Africans have their way of life which reflect in their world view,

hence, the process of culturalism is the idea that individuals are determined by their culture, and

that this cultures formed closed, organic wholes and that the individual is unable to leave his or

her own culture but rather can only realise him or herself within it. 38 Therefore, Africans cannot

be separated from their culture.

Culture of the people in a given society is capable of enhancing development and civilisation or

modernisation. African intellectual over-time has face challenges in some of their rigid and

traditional culture which undermined development in the area of science and technology,

economic, political and social cultural aspect.

Hence, for a modern and develop Africa the need for Afrocentrism should pervades their world

views in the area of economic, political, and socio-cultural to enhance socio democratic ethos

among African and in Africa society. Culturalism is the idea that individuals are determined by

their culture, that these cultures form closed, organic wholes and that the individual is unable to

leave his or her own culture but rather can only realise him or herself within it.

NATIONALISM

Nationalism can be defined as the feeling or the consciousness on the part of individuals or group

of persons belonging to a political community, characterized by culture, language and religion,

as well as geography and history. As a feeling, nationalism enables one person to regard another

as brother not because they are blood related but because they have things like culture, language,

38
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religion, geography and history in common. Nationalism is a devotion and commitment to one's

nation or country.

AUTHENTIC AFRICA

Before going into details on how Africans can attain authenticity, it is pertinent for us to

understand what authenticity or being authentic means.

Etymologically, authenticity is derived from the Latin word authenticus, meaning genuine or

original. The New world Encyclopedia defines authenticity as a “concept that denotes the

genuine, original and true state of human existence.” 39 Routledge Encyclopedia defines

authenticity as “the idea of being true to oneself, owning up to whom one really is and getting in

touch with an inner self that contains one’s true nature.” 40 Hence, Authenticity can be said as the

quality of being real, genuine, true or honest with oneself and having credibility in one’s words,

behaviour.

Fundamentally, African Authenticity is an ingoing cultural, socio-economic and political

progress of self-definition. Ideologies of authenticity within African thought are self-affirming

and counter ideological positions adopted by individuals, groups and communities of resistance

who have had their identities traumatically impacted upon or disrupted by forces of imperialism

and conquest such as slavery, colonialism and neo colonialism

Hensbroek outlines some relevant discourses in the attainment of an authentic Africa. These

discourse aims at identifying Africans root and identity and also known as identity discourses. It

includes Black consciousness, Negritude, ethno- philosophy, Afro-centrism, etc.

39
www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/authenticity.
40
https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/existentialism1v-1/sections/authenticity.
EVALUATION

In the quest for a develop Africa society. Perennial question awaiting answer need to be

examined. Who is an African and what reflect African identity? Can African exist in isolation to

the rest of the world in this global system? Is the social mode of life (communalism) attainable in

this era of globalisation? Is African culture and tradition capable of enhancing development? Can

African be personality free from prejudice, western world view and mental colonialism or

orientation etc?

Perhaps the experienced colonialism in Africans form the attention of African intellectual to

think thank that the way forward is political liberation hence, Kwame Nkrumah famous dictum

that “Seek yee first the political kingdom and all other things shall be added unto you”.

Encourage nationalism for most Africa states.

SUMMARY

African political thinkers have been able to assert the fact that the social-economic system such

as slavery, colonisation, imperialism, social mode of life etc. define African which constituted

African identity discourse. But in a view to redirect mind or identity of Africans to its humanity

Afrocentrism, nationalism, black consciousness, culturalism African communalism became a

tools for Africans to mentally decolonised their orientation from the western world view

(European) in other to actualise a liberated and modern Africa as propagated by African

intellectuals or thinkers for a virile and develop continent.

RECOMMENDATION

African identity discourse came as a reaction of the consequences of socio-economic system

experienced in African through slavery, colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism, capitalism,

etc. Hence, in a view to enhance Black Consciousness of African, Nationalism, development,

Afrocentrism of Africans. The following are to be carryout. Firstly, Africans should show great

vitality and as regards material resources African has great potential. Escaping current

marginalisation, therefore, is a practical task. It requires that Africans themselves take the

initiative to revolutionise their societies and cultures by absorbing as many beneficial influences

as possible, especially scientific and technological expertise, and applying these to the benefit of

development.

Secondly, we believe that Africans should fashion out and adopt a political system

(communalism) that is compatible with their culture or way of life, also, Africa democracy

should be utilise which promote collectively rather than liberal democracy which promote

individuality, capitalism thereby paying way for exploitation of man to man or state to state.

Fourtly, Nationalism, patriotism and unity should be rekindled among Africans so as to pave

way for progress and development.

The fifth thing to be carried out, is that African heritage such as mineral resources, culture etc.

should be preserved in the spirit of Afrocentrism to enable liberated and modern Africa. The

sixth thing here is that Africa should seek for African solution rather than western solution when

problem arose hence the intellectual thought of African thinkers should be documented,

consulted and applied. Which will promote Africanism rather than Europeanism.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

A Tevoedjre, L 'Afrique revoitee. Paris, 1958, pp. 33-37.

Albert G Mosley: African Philosophy: Selected Readings. USA New Jersey Prentice Hall, Inc,
1995, p.4.

Aristotle: Politics, Bk. 1, Ch. 2, 1253. p. 29.

Biko 1978/1979, p.92 in the essay “Black Consciousness and the Quest for True Humanity”.

Comte de Gobineau : Introduction a I'essay sur I'inegalite des races Humaines (1848-1851)
Edit. Nouvel office d'Edition, Paris, 1963. P.131.

D. A Masolo: African Philosophy in search of Identity: (Bloomington, Indiana University Press)

1994. p.4.

David Hume: Essay of National Characters in Hume's Essays (Routledge Edit. N. D), Essay Nr:
XXI, pp. 152-153.

Gobineau, Op.cit; p. 368.

Guy Martins, 2012, “African political thought”. Publisher Palgrave Macmillan

https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/existentialism1v-1/sections/authenticity.

J. Maritain: Man and the State, Chicago, 1951, p.5.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Black Orpheus, Paris, 1948 . p. 60.

John and Dive, Op.cit, p. 7.

John Reed and Clive and Wake. Op.cit; p.l 1.

John Reed and Give Wake : Psycho Logic Du Negro-Africaine : Diogene, Paris, 1962, p. 30.

Karl Manhelm, 'Conservative Thought' (essays on Sociology and Social psychology, London,
1953) p. 13.

Leopold Senghor. Prose and Poetry. London 1965. p. 35.

Les Fundements de VAfricanite: Presence Africaine. Paris, 1967. p. 64.

Lucius Outlaw: African Philosophy' Deconstructive and Reconstructive Challenges in
Contemporary Philosophy: A New Survey. Guttorm Floisted (ed), The Netherlands,
Martins Nyhoff Publishers, 1987), p.40.

Lynch 1971, p.60. compare also Casely Hayford (1911/1969, p. 160): “What shall it profit a race
if it shall gain the whole world and lose its own soul?”; and Blyden (1887, p. 71-93): “the
African must advance by the methods of his own. He must possess a power distinct from
the European.”

Maurice Barres ; Negritude et Hummariisme, Paris, 1963. p. 13.

Maurice, Op.cit, p.23.

My use of the notion of ‘family’ does not involve the claim that thinkers actually traced back
their intellectual ancestry along these lines or were actually influenced by previous
generations in that very ‘family’.

Negritude et Hummanisme. p. 12.

P. O Bodunrin : The Question of African Philosophy: A Critical Survey: University Press of

America, (1977) p. 5.

Quoted by Lilyan Kesteloot in La negritude et son expression litteraire; in Negritude Africaine,

Negritude Caraibe, Paris, 1973, p. 67.

S. B. Oluwole: “Philosophy and Democracy in inter-cultural Perspective”, Studies in

Intercultural Philosophy, vol. 3 (1997), p. 30.

The idea of an ‘African personality’, supported at times by Nkrumah and others, also includes
this idea of a phenomenologically coherent Africanite.

www.eurosine.com

www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/authenticity.

www.wikipedia.org