A conversation with Dr. Kwame Nkrumah: Africans as producers of knowledge

Thembani Mbadlanyana, is a Masters in Public Administration candidate at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, Paris-France

I know that Dr. Nkrumah would be happy to hear me saying that, indeed, Africa has a noble and rich history. As we are deep into our conversation and trying to reconstruct the history and map out and elaborate new visions for the future of the continent, Nkrumah whispers to me, “there is a need for Africans to explain their own culture, and interpret their own thought and soul life, if the complete truth is to be given to the other races of the earth”. He insists, “the next edition of Encyclopaedia Africana should be produced in Africa, under the direction and editorship of Africans, and with the maximum participation of African scholars in all countries”. He further tells me that “if the intellectual project is to be relevant to Africans, there is a need for an Afro-centric point of view for the Encyclopaedia Africana” and he fiercely maintains that the Encyclopaedia Africana must reject non-African value judgments of things African.

I easily agree with him. I tell him that my agreement is based on my historical deduction and my imagineering of plausible and probably African futures. I remind him that, having observed Africa’s glorious past, Old Romans concluded that "Semper aliquid novi ex Africa" (From Africa always something new). I add, one wonders whether when it comes to present day Africa with regard to knowledge generation, does the old Roman saying still hold and can we confidently say today that from Africa new ideas always emerge? I ask him whether with the introduction of Encyclopaedia Africana, is there a promise that that the rest of the world will get to say in agreement once again that from Africa always something new? I tell him that, my answer to the two questions is a resolute no! Africa lost its former glory and nothing, at least for now, that has international relevance will come from our continent.
To me, the continent lost its former glory and our political history is the culprit. African intellectual traditions and discursive communities were suppressed. The new army of missionaries, social anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists trooping into Africa in the periods immediately before and after ‘independence’ would go on to deploy their ‘extroverted’ mode of writing and thinking about Africa and Africans (see writings by the late Archibald Mafeje). They made their job to narrativize about Africans and Africa from their own ill-informed perspectives.

To his surprise, I then tell Dr. Nkrumah that, the new postcolonial thinking class and the following generation of African public intellectuals also contributed to misrepresentation of Africa. They heralded a break with earlier African intellectual traditions epitomized by such thinkers as Ahmed Baba. Their central thematics were not grounded in and driven by the affirmation of African experiences and ontological accounting for the self. They didn’t show an uncompromising refutation of the epistemology of alterity that shaped colonial modes of gazing and writing about Africa and Africans. They didn’t embrace a method of scholarship rooted in the collective Self.

However, there have been some changes over the years. As an appeasement to Nkrumah, around early 70s until early 90s a new breed of African intellectuals as shown by Achilles Mbebe, started to explain their own culture, and interpret their own African philosophical thought. This new breed of intellectuals explained new experiences and ideas in the most accessible and understandable ways to the rest of society. They didn’t rely on ‘importation of ideas’ and they didn’t address African issues in borrowed languages and paradigms.

Nonetheless, this didn’t last. To his surprise, I tell Nkrumah that today’s African thinking class is preoccupied with ‘status anxiety’, how it is seen by the other in the Global North. Despite all the progress made in trying to bring back the former glory of the continent, they fail to infuse an afrocentric view in their analysis, research and writing. Afraid to disappoint him, I reluctantly tell Nkrumah that, despite all the progress made by our Radical Scholars from the Dakar and Dar Es Salaam Schools of Thought, there is still a long way to go.

We desperately need redeemers to reconnect us to the profound scholarship of the real intellectuals of the bygone era. He smiles when I tell him that, Africa needs intellectuals who are grounded on something, that is their ontological experiences; intellectuals with continentally relevant paradigms and languages; intellectuals who are preoccupied with the labour of the mind and soul not status anxiety; intellectuals that are committed to the intellectual, social, economic and political transformation of the continent and more importantly; intellectuals who are committed in assisting the continent as it is busy reconstructing its past, interpreting the present and navigating or mapping out new visions for the future.

I then tell Dr. Nkrumah that, the time for public intellectuals who excel in decontetxualized abstraction and catalogues and in methodological inexactitude is gone. As the late Archie Mafeje would say, wayward intellectuals who confuse feigned erudition with committed scholarship have no place in our society. The time for derivative scholarship is passé; it has reached its sell-by date. Nkrumah becomes so relieved when I tell him that, there is an increasing acknowledgement amongst the emerging and young cream of African intelligentsia that, there is a need to show an uncompromising aversion to the ‘epistemology of alterity’ – the ‘othering’ of Africa and Africans. I see a smile on his face when I tell him that; there is a need for the advancement of scholarship grounded in the centering of African ontological experiences.

As we conclude our conversation, we reach an agreement that, if we are going to have the rest of the world to say "Semper aliquid novi ex Africa" (From Africa always something new), we need African intellectuals who will continue infusing afrocentric views in their analysis, research and writing. We need intellectuals who will focus on churning out new endogenous ideas so that we can continue to de-whiten human civilization and paint human imperfections with a black and white colour.