For European and American philosophers trained in European philosophical traditions, the field of African philosophy is largely terra incognita. The closest exposure to African philosophy that we get is in the context of anthropology, the philosophy of the social sciences, and problems of radical translation. Africans often do little more than populate our questions regarding moral obligation and international devlopment. Philosophers with radical or progressive political leanings tend to highlight the past economic, political, and cultural exploitation of Africa without delving very deeply into the contemporary lived experience of Africans.
Nonetheless, European and American philosophers are astute enough to recognize that something may be missing in our culturally limited perspectives, prompting at least a nominal interest in the perspectives of Asian, American-Indian and African philosophies. However, breaking out of one's cultural boundaries is not easy, not simply because of the new perspective that one needs to adopt, but for the more mundane reason that authentically non-European/American publications are hard to come by. Fortunately, in the case of Africa, the African Book Collective is marketing roughly 150 valuable works per year about Africa -- often by African writers themselves. One such book is The Dialectics of Praxis and Theoria in African Philosophy by Victor B. Bin-Kapela.
In The Dialectics, Bin-Kapela presents philosophy as a conversation between the specific historical experience of a people and their their common rational capacities to refelct on and make sense of that experience. This approach allows him to recognize a specifically "African philosophy," born particularly of the experiences of European colonization of African following the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference and the experiences of the post-colonial independence era in Africa. At the same time, by recognizing universal human capabilities, he is able to find common ground with elements in the Euopean and American philsophical tradition.
Bin-Kapela describes the damage done to Africa and its people by decades of colonial exploitation and writes sympathetically of the desire of Africans to develop an exclusively African philosophy following independence, but he appears to think the post-colonial philosophies coming out of Africa were founded on a reaction against European philosophy, and while much of value appears in the work of African philosophers of this era, the reaction produced an artificial philosophy not truely rooted in a deeper African experience. Furthermore, many African political leaders merely took on the abandoned roles of the European colonizers, preventing a genuine flourishing of worthwhile traditional African values.
For Bin-Kapela, thoughtful philosophical reflection on African experience can overcome this temporary distortion of African philosophy. He refers to this method as "cultural hermeneutics" in which theoria is applied to praxis in a critical and self-critical way. By taking this position, Bin-Kapela heads off the racist view that African culture and philosophy must be irrational or devoid of basic human cognitive capacities, while at the same time he highlights the unique and valuable roles that different cultures play in enlarging human understanding.
The Dialectics offers a persuasive argument in favor of the universal basis of human dignity out of which human rights can be asserted against illegitimate authorities of any nation or people. Bin-Kapela relies heavily on an Aristotelian conception of Natural Law along with an Enlightenment conception of rationality. Consent of the governed, roughly in the liberal contractarian tradition, is critical to legitimate authority, but furthermore any legitimate authority must also act for the benefit of the people. Here, again, an Aristotelian conception of the good is central.
In all, Bin-Kapela offers those of us who are European and American philosophers common ground for understanding what an African philosophical project might look like and simultaneously, he implicitly leads us to consider adopting a similar project for developing a uniquely European/American philosophy. His views are frank, refreshing, gently critical, and admirably self-critical, exemplifying the best epistemic virtues. His work is an antedote for ethnocentrism of any kind, while still recognizing the importance our cultural situations.
Showing posts with label Africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Africa. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
War Dance: a film directed by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix (2007)
In the early 1980s, a rebel group known as the Holy Spirit Movement formed in Northern Uganda with the aim of overthrowing the Ugandan government. The movement was largely fighting for the interests of the Acholi tribe; however, when the movement's leader fled to Kenya, Joseph Kony gained control of the movement and renamed it the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA quickly became one of the most notorious militias in Africa, murdering, raping, looting, and kidnapping adults and children in order to force them to fight against the Ugandan army. It is in the context of this conflict that the documentary "War Dance" was conceived.
Sean Fine and Andrea Nix take their film crew to a refugee camp in Northern Uganda where they chronicle the efforts of a group of primary school children to compete in Uganda's national music and dance festival. The film focuses on three of the children. The father of one was killed by the LRA and her mother is forced to live in a separate refugee camp to make a living. Another child lost both her parents and is now responsible for her siblings. The third is a boy who was captured by the LRA and made to serve as a child soldier. He escapes the LRA, but not before they force him to kill innocent people.
The first hour of the film is dedicated to telling these tragic stories. The brutalization and suffering of the children is heart breaking, especially as one understands that they are not at all unique among the children affected by the conflict.
The second hour of the film is dedicated to following the children's trip to Kampala and their participation in the national competition. Upon arriving at the festival, the children discover that the other children at the festival distrusted them and believe them to be rebels. The mistaken belief is likely due to the fact that the children themselves are Acholi. Their "outsider" status fuels an already vigorous tribal pride among the children and seems to motivate them to perform well.
"War Dance" is in essence two films: the first tells three brutal stories, while the second is an exuberant celebration of music and dance. Brought together, these two films effectively communicate the horror that so many suffer in Africa's conflicts, while insisting that Africans are not merely two dimensional monsters and victims as they are sometimes portrayed. The pride and excitement of young teenagers participating in a national music and dance competition is deeply endearing and their performances are exhilarating.
As a piece of cinematography, "War Dance" is first rate. The beauty of the land and the people are never lost, the film's pacing is excellent, and the testimony of the children is captured with thoughtful respect. If there is a weakness, it is that the camera does not steadily track the whole of the dance and music performances. The build up to the festival is so effective that one would prefer to simple see a record of the performances and not a montage of dramatic angles and audience reactions.
"War Dance" is both heart breaking and life affirming. It's a real triumph.
Sean Fine and Andrea Nix take their film crew to a refugee camp in Northern Uganda where they chronicle the efforts of a group of primary school children to compete in Uganda's national music and dance festival. The film focuses on three of the children. The father of one was killed by the LRA and her mother is forced to live in a separate refugee camp to make a living. Another child lost both her parents and is now responsible for her siblings. The third is a boy who was captured by the LRA and made to serve as a child soldier. He escapes the LRA, but not before they force him to kill innocent people.
The first hour of the film is dedicated to telling these tragic stories. The brutalization and suffering of the children is heart breaking, especially as one understands that they are not at all unique among the children affected by the conflict.
The second hour of the film is dedicated to following the children's trip to Kampala and their participation in the national competition. Upon arriving at the festival, the children discover that the other children at the festival distrusted them and believe them to be rebels. The mistaken belief is likely due to the fact that the children themselves are Acholi. Their "outsider" status fuels an already vigorous tribal pride among the children and seems to motivate them to perform well.
"War Dance" is in essence two films: the first tells three brutal stories, while the second is an exuberant celebration of music and dance. Brought together, these two films effectively communicate the horror that so many suffer in Africa's conflicts, while insisting that Africans are not merely two dimensional monsters and victims as they are sometimes portrayed. The pride and excitement of young teenagers participating in a national music and dance competition is deeply endearing and their performances are exhilarating.
As a piece of cinematography, "War Dance" is first rate. The beauty of the land and the people are never lost, the film's pacing is excellent, and the testimony of the children is captured with thoughtful respect. If there is a weakness, it is that the camera does not steadily track the whole of the dance and music performances. The build up to the festival is so effective that one would prefer to simple see a record of the performances and not a montage of dramatic angles and audience reactions.
"War Dance" is both heart breaking and life affirming. It's a real triumph.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Castastrope / Gerard Prunier -- Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2009.
Beginning in September 1996, a massive and complex six-year war engulfed the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighboring countries. At least seven countries were direct combatants and several others were more or less indirectly involved. At its height, the war threatened to involve nearly every African nation. Almost 4 million Africans died in the conflict.
Despite the enormity of the violence, few Americans know much at all about the war. Our ignorance is largely a product of our news media's neglect of Africa in general or its fixation on specific events in Africa. During the war in the DRC, Sudanese Darfur monopolized media attention, though as a humanitarian disaster, Darfur did not equal the war in the Congo basin. For anyone interested in learning about the war, Gerard Prunier's recent book, Africa's World War provides an excellent starting point.
Prunier concentrates his attention on political and military events, giving a detailed account of the state and non-state militias, political parties, and politicians. The story is so complex that the reader would do well to take careful notes along the way just to keep the changing alliances straight. The primary combatants were the Rwandese Patriot Army (RPA) and successive governments in Kinshasa, Zaire (later the DRC). Each side was allied with rebel groups and other local militias in the Congo basin. Other direct state actors included Uganda, Burundi, Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. As the conflict expanded, Sudan, Chad, the Central African Republic, Libya, the Republic of the Congo, Zambia, and South Africa also became more or less involved. At various stages, the United Nations attempted to intervene, bring in troops from outside of Africa.
Prunier aptly describes how the decline and death of Zairean President Mobutu led to a power vacuum in the Congo basin, prompting opportunistic military actions by neighboring countries. The spark which ignited the war were conflicts in the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda. Following the conquest of Rwanda by the Rwandese Patriotic Front, the new largely Tutsi government in Kigali, Rwanda mounted assaults against the Hutu refugees that it accused of having participated in the genocide and of working to destabilize the Kigali government. These assaults led in September 1996 to the invasion of the Zairean states of North and South Kivu and to a military campaign to depose Mobutu, who was supporting the Hutu refugees.
During the war against Mobutu, nearly every African country supported Rwanda; however, once Rwanda was able to place Laurent-Desire Kabila in power in Kinshasa, alliances broke down. After a period of some confusion, Kabila broke from his Rwandese patrons and sought to drive the RPA out of his newly renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo. Angola became Kabila's main supporter along with Zimbabwe and Namibia. The Angolan government's interest in the Congo was largely related to its ongoing war against its own rebel movement, UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi. UNITA, having been allied with Mobutu, now became roughly allied with the RPA against Kabila and the Angolan government.
In the north, Uganda had worked in concert with the RPA in the assault against Mobutu and it remained allied with the RPA against Kabila; however, its primary role in the war involved struggles against its own rebel movement the Lord's Resistance Army, which was supported by Kabila and the Sudan. This battle (along with the internal Angolan battles) were played out mostly on Congolese soil.
The third and final stage of the war, began with Kabila's assassination in January of 2001. Kabila's cabinet was largely sympathetic to Angolan interests and might have arranged for an openly pro-Angolan successor, but to avoid dissent, they placed in power Kabila's 29 year old son, Joseph Kabila. Joseph Kabila turned out to be surprisingly politically astute. Without a domestic power base of his own, he cultivated international support, particularly support from outside of Africa. This provided him with just enough security to break from his Angolan cabinet and establish a relatively stable and effective government.
By now, the war's belligerents were becoming exhausted and each gradually accepted peace agreements and over the course of next three years, they withdraw from Congolese soil, though in some cases, particularly Rwanda, they continue to support various Congolese militias. As the war began in the Kivus, it wound down last in the Kivus, but in general, the DRC remains a violent theatre of conflict despite the end of all out war.
Prunier's final chapter, "Groping for Meaning," attempts to provide more than an account of the main political and military events of the war. Along with a summary of U.S. and French involvement in the war, this final chapter underscores the difficulty in understanding African conflicts within a European paradigm of state and national politics. The complexity of the conflict related in the main of the book makes this clear enough. The European state system developed over centuries on a continent with very different economic and social conditions than Africa. Consequently, it provides little to no insight into the actions of the war's belligerents.
To understand the conflict, one must comprehend cross-cutting national, tribal, religious, linguistic, economic, and social identities, all on a continent abused by imperialist exploitation and riven by the cold war. While Prunier recognizes this challenge, his work does little more than expose the difficulty of understanding the war. This does not, however, detract from his excellent political/military account of the war.
Also missing from the account are vivid accounts of the pain and suffering that came to so many combatants and non-combatants in the course of the war. Prunier occasionally mentions deprivation, massacres, rape, and the drafting of child soldiers, but his account is surprisingly antiseptic, which may be a plus for the reader in that any attempt to give a full account of the human suffering may have made the work too painful to read. Nonetheless, a chapter bearing witness to the atrocities of the war from the perspective of its victims would have given the work more than academic value.
Despite the enormity of the violence, few Americans know much at all about the war. Our ignorance is largely a product of our news media's neglect of Africa in general or its fixation on specific events in Africa. During the war in the DRC, Sudanese Darfur monopolized media attention, though as a humanitarian disaster, Darfur did not equal the war in the Congo basin. For anyone interested in learning about the war, Gerard Prunier's recent book, Africa's World War provides an excellent starting point.
Prunier concentrates his attention on political and military events, giving a detailed account of the state and non-state militias, political parties, and politicians. The story is so complex that the reader would do well to take careful notes along the way just to keep the changing alliances straight. The primary combatants were the Rwandese Patriot Army (RPA) and successive governments in Kinshasa, Zaire (later the DRC). Each side was allied with rebel groups and other local militias in the Congo basin. Other direct state actors included Uganda, Burundi, Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. As the conflict expanded, Sudan, Chad, the Central African Republic, Libya, the Republic of the Congo, Zambia, and South Africa also became more or less involved. At various stages, the United Nations attempted to intervene, bring in troops from outside of Africa.
Prunier aptly describes how the decline and death of Zairean President Mobutu led to a power vacuum in the Congo basin, prompting opportunistic military actions by neighboring countries. The spark which ignited the war were conflicts in the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda. Following the conquest of Rwanda by the Rwandese Patriotic Front, the new largely Tutsi government in Kigali, Rwanda mounted assaults against the Hutu refugees that it accused of having participated in the genocide and of working to destabilize the Kigali government. These assaults led in September 1996 to the invasion of the Zairean states of North and South Kivu and to a military campaign to depose Mobutu, who was supporting the Hutu refugees.
During the war against Mobutu, nearly every African country supported Rwanda; however, once Rwanda was able to place Laurent-Desire Kabila in power in Kinshasa, alliances broke down. After a period of some confusion, Kabila broke from his Rwandese patrons and sought to drive the RPA out of his newly renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo. Angola became Kabila's main supporter along with Zimbabwe and Namibia. The Angolan government's interest in the Congo was largely related to its ongoing war against its own rebel movement, UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi. UNITA, having been allied with Mobutu, now became roughly allied with the RPA against Kabila and the Angolan government.
In the north, Uganda had worked in concert with the RPA in the assault against Mobutu and it remained allied with the RPA against Kabila; however, its primary role in the war involved struggles against its own rebel movement the Lord's Resistance Army, which was supported by Kabila and the Sudan. This battle (along with the internal Angolan battles) were played out mostly on Congolese soil.
The third and final stage of the war, began with Kabila's assassination in January of 2001. Kabila's cabinet was largely sympathetic to Angolan interests and might have arranged for an openly pro-Angolan successor, but to avoid dissent, they placed in power Kabila's 29 year old son, Joseph Kabila. Joseph Kabila turned out to be surprisingly politically astute. Without a domestic power base of his own, he cultivated international support, particularly support from outside of Africa. This provided him with just enough security to break from his Angolan cabinet and establish a relatively stable and effective government.
By now, the war's belligerents were becoming exhausted and each gradually accepted peace agreements and over the course of next three years, they withdraw from Congolese soil, though in some cases, particularly Rwanda, they continue to support various Congolese militias. As the war began in the Kivus, it wound down last in the Kivus, but in general, the DRC remains a violent theatre of conflict despite the end of all out war.
Prunier's final chapter, "Groping for Meaning," attempts to provide more than an account of the main political and military events of the war. Along with a summary of U.S. and French involvement in the war, this final chapter underscores the difficulty in understanding African conflicts within a European paradigm of state and national politics. The complexity of the conflict related in the main of the book makes this clear enough. The European state system developed over centuries on a continent with very different economic and social conditions than Africa. Consequently, it provides little to no insight into the actions of the war's belligerents.
To understand the conflict, one must comprehend cross-cutting national, tribal, religious, linguistic, economic, and social identities, all on a continent abused by imperialist exploitation and riven by the cold war. While Prunier recognizes this challenge, his work does little more than expose the difficulty of understanding the war. This does not, however, detract from his excellent political/military account of the war.
Also missing from the account are vivid accounts of the pain and suffering that came to so many combatants and non-combatants in the course of the war. Prunier occasionally mentions deprivation, massacres, rape, and the drafting of child soldiers, but his account is surprisingly antiseptic, which may be a plus for the reader in that any attempt to give a full account of the human suffering may have made the work too painful to read. Nonetheless, a chapter bearing witness to the atrocities of the war from the perspective of its victims would have given the work more than academic value.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
What is the What / Dave Eggers -- NY: Vintage Books, 2007.
What is the What is the most extraordinary book I have read in quite a while. Dave Eggers novelizes the astonishing experiences of Valentino Achak Deng. Achak, born in a small village in southern Sudan, was made a refugee at the age of six. Torn from his family when genocidal horsemen descended on his village, he fled alone until meeting up with a group of boys led by Dut Majok, a young teacher from his village. Apparently, Dut is leading the boys to safety in Ethiopia, but in time it is revealed that he may be delivering them to the Sudan People's Liberation Army to become child soldiers.
The structure of the novel provides further interest to the story and insight into Achak's psyche. Achak narrates the story by imagining himself recounting his events to Americans he encounters once he has emigrated to Atlanta. Achak has a desperate need to tell his story, but without a venue for doing so, he recounts it to himself. We, the readers, are the beneficiaries of his reflections.
Among the most striking features of the book is the role that sheer luck played in Achak's survival. He is often placed in a situation where he must choose between two or more courses of action without any basis for knowing what is best. One path leads to survival, the other to disaster or even death. On his journey, many of his fellow travelers die of malnutrition, disease, and exhaustion. Some are attacked and eaten by lions and hyenas. At one point, Achak is running through the forest with another boy and a lion "takes" the boy. The lion comes so close to Achak that he can smell it. It's clear to the reader that survival is entirely a matter of chance.
While the novel recounts horrors and hardships, it also recounts Achak's adolescent urges, his friendships, his school-day triumphs, and romantic passions, allowing the reader to not merely feel sympathy for him, but to empathize with him. Other characters are also well constructed. His friends are multidimensional and his fellow Sudanese refugees are engagingly diverse, leaving the reader to understand that the horror of the civil war beset real people and not merely generic African victims.
More than anything, What is the What provides a clearer understanding of war and the personal cost of war than any political or military history that could be written.
The structure of the novel provides further interest to the story and insight into Achak's psyche. Achak narrates the story by imagining himself recounting his events to Americans he encounters once he has emigrated to Atlanta. Achak has a desperate need to tell his story, but without a venue for doing so, he recounts it to himself. We, the readers, are the beneficiaries of his reflections.
Among the most striking features of the book is the role that sheer luck played in Achak's survival. He is often placed in a situation where he must choose between two or more courses of action without any basis for knowing what is best. One path leads to survival, the other to disaster or even death. On his journey, many of his fellow travelers die of malnutrition, disease, and exhaustion. Some are attacked and eaten by lions and hyenas. At one point, Achak is running through the forest with another boy and a lion "takes" the boy. The lion comes so close to Achak that he can smell it. It's clear to the reader that survival is entirely a matter of chance.
While the novel recounts horrors and hardships, it also recounts Achak's adolescent urges, his friendships, his school-day triumphs, and romantic passions, allowing the reader to not merely feel sympathy for him, but to empathize with him. Other characters are also well constructed. His friends are multidimensional and his fellow Sudanese refugees are engagingly diverse, leaving the reader to understand that the horror of the civil war beset real people and not merely generic African victims.
More than anything, What is the What provides a clearer understanding of war and the personal cost of war than any political or military history that could be written.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Petals of Blood / Ngugi wa Thiong’o -- New York, NY: Penguin, 1977.
A couple of years ago I read another novel by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Wizard of the Crow, which I found to be an extraordinarily gripping and brilliant political novel. So it was with high expectations that I picked up the celebrated Kenyan author’s earlier work, Petals of Blood. The novel opens as a murder mystery but does not function as one. Those who were murdered develop as characters very little and much later in the novel, and Ngugi does not build much suspense around solving the mystery of who murdered them. Petals of Blood is not as gripping as Wizard of the Crow and moves quite slowly for the first third. However, in the second two thirds of the books, a handful of very well developed characters from a remote village in Kenya engage in some interesting and revealing dilemmas. Although the novel may have been shocking in its time, political corruption in Africa is not news today. Petals of Blood remains an excellent novel, however, not only for its beautiful writing but also as a meditation on the dynamics of power and development.
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