NEW INSIGHTS FROM THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN INTELLECTUALS

African intellectuals like Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Toya Soga and Steve Biko were all critical of Western ideals and the role they played in African contexts. Their premise is simple: Africans have always had, and will always have, a distinct social system of equal value to a Western system. Showing this from different perspectives and historical epochs, each of these African intellectuals offer an alternative sociological analysis to South African society. By and large, their contributions have made less of an appearance in South African sociology. This is perhaps the consequence of an education system that has not truly been “decolonized” – a project currently on the agenda of student movements across South Africa.

Dating back to the South African colonial days, Toya Soga was influential in his responses to colonial order. As a high-ranking Christian minister, educated in Scotland and married to a Scottish woman, Soga was radical in his commitment to Christianity and simultaneous cultural integrity. He understood how a Western religion could be reconciled with African tradition and promoted the value of African societies. From Soga, we see how African-ness co-existed with “British civic nationality” in a potentially meaningful and socially (re)productive way. His intellectual attention to the cultural/religious project of colonial rule greatly influenced the political movements that followed after him. As a consequence of his views, other African intellectuals, like John Tengo Jabavu, began to challenge the subservient role in society which most colonialists expected blacks to adopt.

In post-colonial Africa, Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere echo a similar sentiment towards “African-ness”. Nkrumah saw the value of African systems and argued that economic and political subjugation of colonialism conflicts with the original humanist (and inherently socialist) principles underlying African society, and must therefore reassert itself in post-colonial society. Likewise, Nyerere apprehends the value of African humanism as the foundation upon which pre-colonial Africa existed and thrived. For both of these intellectuals, the impact of colonialism infiltrated African thought and philosophy to the detriment of African progress.

These insights are telling of the functioning of pre-colonial social and political life and support a task of de-colonization that demolishes the roots of oppression in a system that rejects the legitimacy, sufficiency and ability of traditional African systems. Steve Biko was resolute in his belief that African culture is not time-bound. Present-day capitalism, neocolonialism and neoliberalism continue to present themselves as the norm, but these intellectuals show how Ubuntu or African humanism directly offers an alternative to that norm. This alternative is brought to light by a deep African understanding of African culture.