The Reaction of Postcolonial Theory and African Philosophy to Western Discourse on Africa
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Date
2021-11
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Addis ababa university
Abstract
European discourse on Africa had been the key challenge since the racists continued to deny the non-white identity and humanity. Racist Europeans had deliberately introduced anti-black discourses that degraded non-white people. The discourse of some white scholars had a perceptible upshot against black people. Beyond theoretical articulation a discourse of some white scholars had pragmatic consequences. To verify the impact of anti-black discourse of the West this thesis attempted to mention some anthropological discourses of the West. It seems to be that some discourses served as a precondition to colonize non-white people. The thesis attempts to uncover the reactions made by scholars of subjugated society. There is one fact that nobody can deny regarding postcolonialist engagements. Since there was the same desire between postcolonialists that is decolonization. While a difference was there among the postcolonialists concerning the method and theories. Postcolonialists had undertaken violence, non-violence, assimilation, and particularism as means to stop the colonial rule. This thesis has made a critical appraisal in the aforementioned approaches of postcolonialist perspectives. Postcolonial theories are largely envisioned to compensate the colonized people. In all dimensions the West endeavored to characterize the non-white people as backward, uncivilized, and inferior. The thesis assessed the center and peripheral polarity and the attempts made by humanitarian thinkers to overcome extremists’ thoughts. It attempted to uncover the unchanged conditions of postcolonial society. This leads us to question the aftermath of colonial rule and erstwhile colonialists’ presence in their x-colonies. It is indisputable, no one able to conclude colonizers are entirely departed from their x-colonies. Rather in one way or other anti-black power survives in Africa and legacies of colonizers are extensively realized in Third world States. Formal colonialism has ended, and the postcolonial state is sovereign in theory but in reality, its economic system and its political policy continues to be directed from outside. Neo-colonialism trapped the postcolonial state, this contributes a lot to the untransformed conditions of formerly colonized people. In connection to postcolonialist efforts to overcome problems of colonialism, the thesis has also mentioned some predominant theories of African philosophy. I will argue that between center and peripheral divisions of culture, assimilation could not resolve the difficulties. Instead of this ‘betewahido kebere’ is supposed to be the important thing to solve the tension between different cultures.
Key Words: Cultural Imperialism, Colonialism, Postcolonialism, Neo-colonialism, Negritude, Afrocentrism, Betewahido Kebere
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Keywords
Cultural Imperialism, Colonialism, Postcolonialism, Neo-colonialism, Negritude, Afrocentrism, Betewahido Kebere