File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_1996/96-08-26.043, message 140


Date: Thu, 01 Aug 1996 12:02:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: frank njubi <fnn-AT-oitunix.oit.umass.edu>
Subject: Re: Mudimbe




Azfar,
Thanks for writing. A couple of points:

1) I maintain that you _dismissed_ Mudimbe and other Africanists for 
alleged eurocentrism -- I agreed with you in the latter case but not in 
the case of Mudimbe who i pointed out, is a critic. 

2) Africanists have _primarily_ been white Europeans and Americans.  
You cannot deny that. 
If you do so you will end up with the 
kind of ahistorical definition of Africanism that you have presented us with:

You said:

> Since you insist, let me repeat what I said to mean Africanism. By
> Africanism I mean a style of discourses in which anyone--African or
> European or non-African or anybody--can participate. 

Reply:

So now you want to let the racist off the hook eh?? Africanism is not a 
"style" whatever that means --Africanist fashions perhaps??  Africanists 
have a past (no matter how much they might want to deny it) they have an 
unwholesome past, that justified slavery, colonialism and continues 
(despite the belated admission of a few non-whites) to serve the 
interests of the west. If you read Ngugi's prison diary, you 
would no doubt have seen what he says about "Lord" Lugard --the 
Oxford trained Africanist, master in the thoery of genocide. As you no 
doubt know, colonial administrators were often the "best and brightest" that 
the brits could produce. The good ol british indirect rule system depended 
on these well trained, blood-thirsty gentlemen. This is what i am talking 
about --the systematic training in racism and the art of colonial 
domination at top universities. On retirement these same africanists 
would return to academic life and pass down the odious tradition. 
This is the heritage of Africanists. Not just "anybody." A specific group 
of people with a specific geneaology. Just like PanAfricanism has a 
specific geneaology that cannot be confused with Africanism. Negritude, 
which influenced Mudimbe and is closely associated with Presence 
Africaine, is another tradition with a specific geneology. 
We must get these distinctions right otherwise we will end up an amorphous 
Africanism that "anybody" can be tagged with and dismissed in a couple of 
sentences.

3) "Particular and specific Africas" is oxymoronic. Dragging Ngugi, Laming 
and, even more bizarre, Gramsci, into the debate is not going to save that 
sloppy statement. If you are talking about geography say so. If 
ethnicity say that so we can understand your objection. "Particular and 
specific Africas" is not only redundant it is also comical. how can 
"Africas" be pluralized? What are you talkin about here ...many little 
Africas that are duplicates of the original???  i think you should be more 
specific in your quest for specificity. If you are dismissing Mudimbe 
because he has not payed attention to the nation-state or ethnic conflict 
then say so.     

4) Finally Azfar, i am no Mudimbian. you know my views on guru worship. i 
was just defending the brotha on the basis of principle. Sure he a 
western based "compardor intelligentsia" whose main purpose is to 
explain the other to the west as Kwame Anthony Appiah said of 
post-colonial intellectuals in general. I brought up 
pan-africanism and afrocentrism, not to diefy Mudimbe, but to emphasize that 
there are different images of Africa in the west and some of them are 
positive (and like the pan-africanist) while others are negative.. 

later,
njubi
 





On Wed, 31 Jul 1996, Azfar Hussain wrote:

> Dear njubi,
> 
> Thanks for your response. I'm glad that you're now placing my statements
> well  in their contexts, thus also opening up a space for my further
> responses. Well, then, let me respond point-by-point:
> 
> 1)I SAID:
>  >When a statement (or a term) is brutally yanked from its context, problems
> > are  likely to multiply, as has been the case with my use of "Africanist."
> > If one reads my Mudimbe post carefully, s/he will find that nowhere did I
> > "dismiss" him as being an  "Eurocentric Africanist."
> 
> YOU SAID:
> >i disagree. the term "Eurocentic Africanism" may be mine but you did
> >dismiss him and other Africanists for allegedly using eurocentric
> >theories. My point was that Africanists are not necessarily or even
> >primarily Africans.
> 
> REPLY:
> So you admit that the term "Eurocentric Africanism" is not mine. Good! But
> in your earlier post  you unfailingly packaged it with quote-marks and
> circulated it in my name!
> 
> Well, I still stand by my point, and once again I want to spell out a clear
> distinction between a dismissal of a discourse and pointing up paradoxes,
> blindspots and limits of a particular kind of discourse. Understandably,
> not all criticisms can be reckoned mere dismissals. I remember a flaming
> Saidist once reacting against Ahmad's critique of Said, saying: 'See, while
> Said is questioning Eurocentric discourses, Ahmad is questioning  Said!'
> giving us the impression that any question raised against Said's critique
> of orientalism and imperialism amounts to a treasonable offence in the
> context of a continuing anti-orientalist, anti-imperialist struggle whose
> leadership is unquestionably attributed to Said. Just because Ahmad
> questions Said, the former becomes, for many, a pro-Orientalist or a
> pro-imperialist!!!
> 
> Yes, njubi, I certainly understand your point and agree that Mudimbe
> himself questions and critiques Eurocentric discourses.  But my point was
> and is: while critiquing such discourses, Mudimbe suggests alternatives
> (like yet another guru anxious about telling "stories" to his "two
> Americanized children about Africa"--ah, mark the pose!) which are also
> vulnerable to critiques and questions on the ground I already suggested.
> And such questions raised against Mudimbe are NEVER intended to undermine
> or belittle the need for questioning Eurocentric discourses but to stress
> even harder, more rigorous and politically effective critiques of such
> discourses.
> 
> 2)I SAID:
> >In fact, what I was
> > trying to say, in response to and agreement with Timothy Burke's post on
> > the same subject, was that the Mudimbean afroconstructionist genealogy
> > tends to bypass--or even fails to accommodate theoretically--the many
> > particular and local Africas. Having made that point, I moved on to my next
> > and last point, which precisely involved those Africanists in the
> > metropolis to whom the many Africas pose real discursive challenges.
> 
> YOU SAID:
> >i find it difficult to understand what you are talking about here. What
> >do you mean by Africanists in the metropolis? are you talking about the
> >white africanists who control/populate the African Studies
> >Assocaition or are you confusing Africanists with Afrocentric theory or
> >do you merely assocaite Africanism with anybody of African descent??
> 
> >The term of "local and particular Africas" is a highly problematic/
> >oxymoronic/nonsensical statement. are you refering to geography,
> >ethnicity, nationalism or what?
> 
> REPLY:
> Certainly the term you've marked is likely to be increasingly "difficult"
> and "nonsensical"  to those who are blindly concerned with THE IDEA of
> Africa--or who constantly conflate homogenization with global
> alliance-building. So, to you, the many and local Africas are problematic,
> but the "Idea of Africa" is not? So while Ngugi wa Thiong'o speaks of the
> many local and particular Africas (see his _A Writer's Prison Diary_), he
> lets out nothing but only nonsensical,oxymoronic mumbo jumbo?
> 
> I must admit that the term you've found "nonsensical" has a strong
> Gramscian-Thiong'oesque resonance stemming from my reaction against, and
> resistance to, Hegel's racist, Eurocentric Idea of  Africa (or "the last
> word on Africa", as Lamming says) in _Philosophy of History_ predicated on
> homogenizing the numerous particularities, qualities, complexities,
> characeteristics of Africa. The Hegelian Idea also emphasizes the
> "unhistoricality" of Africa on which Lamming justly put his fingers. So
> when I speak of the many local and particular Africas, I don't merely refer
> to geography, ethnicity, etc, but certainly to particular, localized
> histories inhabited by numerous peasant movements and uprisings, the
> relentless details of blood and toil of the masses, that is to say, to
> unwritten histories--the kind of histories sometimes Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
> speaks of. Indeed, the focus on the particular and the local and the many,
> as Gramsci appropriately suggested much prior to Foucault's microphysics,
> is I believe necessary for building and expanding the anti-imperialist
> struggle whose possiblities, I'm afraid, can considerably be frozen by the
> kind of genealogy Mudimbe espouses. In fact, I always see his pose like
> this: 'Well, Mr Hegel you've given an idea. Well, Europeans, you've given
> some. And now let me give THE Idea.' And I agree with Timothy when he said
> earlier that he finds this pose of Mudimbe  simply irritating! Indeed.
> 
> 
> So now you don't want to recognize Africanists in the metropolis? Well,
> when I speak of them, I refer to those who religiously  "read in the name
> of Foucault," his Eurocentrism notwithstanding, and to those who never tire
> of chanting Eurocentric mantras, producing and reproducing homogenizing
> discourses on Africa, and finally claiming to author an updated version of
> radicalism.
> 
> I think I've never equated Afrocentricism with Africanism.
> 
> 3) I SAID:
> > But  your post now gives me the opportunity to examine your definition of
> > "Africanism," and also to see how Mudimbe himself envisages and engages the
> > very notion of Africanism. So let's first  take a look at a page--not a
> > blank one!
> >  Interestingly enough, Mudimbe, together with Robert H Bates and Jean
> > O'Barr, in their recent anthology called _Africa and the Disciplines_
> > (Chicago: the U of Chicago P, 1993), write their dedicatory page thus: "TO
> > THREE DEDICATED AFRICANISTS--Margaret Rouse Bates, M. Elizabeth
> > Mudimbe-Boyi, William McAlston O'Barr" (v). So it seems that being an
> > Africanist for Mudimbe is not so bad, eh? See, he doesn't fail to recognize
> > and honour "dedicated Africanists!"
> 
> YOU SAID:
> >Wrong again! these "dedicated africanists" are clearly not africans. But
> >again i would question your logic..... not to mention the
> >_remarkable_ fact that the authors of the book seem to be praising their
> >wives ---are they africanists on the basis of marriage???
> 
> REPLY:
> Ah njube, how glibly like a guru mahashay you say this--"Wrong again!"  I
> wasn't trying to show that these "dedicated Africanists" are  Africans, for
> I already made it clear that Africanists can be both Africans and
> non-Africans.  But what I was pointing out here was the way in which
> Mudimbe and his colleagues use the term "Africanists" and dedicate their
> whole anthology to them who are not only "Africanists" but also "dedicated"
> ones, deserving love and honour.
> 
> 
> 4) I SAID:
> Understandably, Mudimbe will find it
> > hard to accept your definition which seems to give a predominantly negative
> > status to an "Africanist". Of course, Mudimbe has been critical of some
> > kinds of Africanisms, but not by dismissing each and every version of
> > Africanism as such.
> 
> YOU SAID:
> >some Africanists are not so bad, and some are Africans as i stated in my
> >post.  As you say above, my point was that the discourse has
> >historically been assocaited with negative/jingoistic views of Africa.
> 
> REPLY:
> So you're saying now that some Africanists are not so bad! Who are those
> not-so-bad Africanists? Aren't you contradicting yourself? In your earlier
> post, you never mentioned that "some Africanists are not so bad," but you
> certainly gave a  negative status to an "Africanist."
> 
> 5) I SAID:
> > Also, your definition seems to delimit the scale and scope of Africanisms
> > as understood by Mudimbe. According to him, "Africanists" were and are not
> > only Europeans and Americans but also Africans themselves (perhaps himself
> > included), as he says in _The Idea of Africa_: "I find it hard to believe
> > that the majority of AFRICANISTS--AFRICAN as well as WESTERN (emphases
> > mine)--would have fallen into that abstruseness" (44), although surely he
> > distinguishes between "Western Africanism" and "African Africanism," and
> > critically looks at the points of contact and confrontation between them
> > (see _The Invention of Africa_ 166-168).
> 
> YOU SAID:
> >EXACTLY. but does this point not contradict your earlier
> >statements??
> >If Mudimbe clearly distinguishes between western and african theorists
> >then what is your problem? this is exactly what i said..... that we need to
> >distinguish between westerners who study africa and africans who
> >criticise them and suggest alternatives.
> 
> REPLY:
> NO, this point doesn't contradict my earlier statements at all, simply
> because I don't dismiss Mudimbe as being utterly useless. Yes, Mudimbe does
> distinguish between those two discourses. And why should I have problems?
> BUT, despite all such distinctions made, when Mudimbe himself comes up with
> a genealogy  (or what you call alternatives), exhibiting a part-Hegelian
> part-Foucauldian posture (by the way I'm not implying any synecdoche here),
> yes, then I begin to have problems. I think I already explained this point.
> 
> 
> 6)I SAID:
> >But the point is, Africans can
> > very well become Africanists, even if they don't have memeberships of the
> > kind of "exclusive club" you speak of. By the way, Africanism is not simply
> > a matter of "an exclusive club of scholars," but it is also a style of
> > discourse in the way that Said's "Orientalism" is not simply Oriental
> > studies at the University of London or elsewhere but is also a "style of
> > thought," to use Said's own phrase. So some clubs might be dissolved over
> > time, but the style persists. And it is with this style of
> > discourse/thought that I was primarily concerned.
> > Of course, it would be absurd to think that Said is an Orientalist just
> > because he writes about Orientalism. But while critiquing some versions of
> > Africanisms, Mudimbe ultimately comes up with a construct, with a
> > geneaology which, paradoxically enough, tends to forge yet another version
> > of Africanism.
> 
> YOU SAID:
> >What would you have him do? come up with another version of Europeanism?
> >Of course he suggests alternatives and if these alternatives include an
> >element of essentialism like that of the Pan-Africanist movement (which
> >by the way was highly effective in the struggle against colonialism) then
> >so be it. You seem to be howling that Afriacans should not should not
> >seek common ground while the rest of the world is busy forming alliances
> >that go beyond national boundaries. As someone asked earlier...why these
> >double standards whenever Africa is mentioned. Is it just knee-jerk
> >prejudice?
> 
> REPLY:
> Your questions here--"What would you have him do? come up with another
> Europeanism?"--are simply redundant (some questions can be utterly
> nonsensical, as Wittgenstein justly alerts us), because it is precisely for
> the sake of challenging Eurocentrism more rigorously that I question the
> Mudimbean genealogy, or point up its limits. And when I question him, you
> simply go on to presume that I am dismissing the whole ideology, history
> and spirit of Afrocentrism and the Pan-Africanist movement, and thus you
> also simplistically equate Mudimbe with--or turn him into a holy symbol
> of--the Pan-Africanist movement. Ah Mudimbe, how devoted are your
> disciples!
> 
> Where did I say that Africans shouldn't seek common ground? To speak of the
> many particular Africas is not necessarily to preclude the possibilities of
> seeking common ground or of ranging beyond national boundaries for
> alliance-building. Now you give me the distinct impression  that the
> Mudimbean genealogy is nothing but the Holy Scripture that can provide the
> magic-formula for constructing an (or the?) all-united Africa against all
> forms of hegemony in Europe and elsewhere! But sorry, I cannot work for
> Mudimbe's construction company, nor can I share your guru-puja.
> 
> Thanks for your time. Regards.
> 
> Azfar Hussain
> 
> ##############################
> AZFAR HUSSAIN
> Department of English
> Washington State University
> Pullman, Washington 99164-5020
> 
> Phones: 509-332-4405 (home)
>         509-335-1803 (work)
> E-mail: azfar-AT-wsu.edu
> ##############################
> 
>        
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 


     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005