Souleymane Bachir Diagne - In Search of Africa(s)

1 Cover

2 Front Matter In Search of Africa(s) Universalism and Decolonial Thought Souleymane Bachir Diagne and Jean-Loup Amselle Translated by Andrew Brown polity

3 Foreword: In focus: a comparative reading of Souleymane Bachir Diagne and Jean-Loup Amselle Foreword In focus: a comparative reading of Souleymane Bachir Diagne and Jean-Loup Amselle Anthony Mangeon Seeing double Seeing double Let us warn the reader right away: while browsing the pages of these discussions, he or she will often see double, and for many reasons. Firstly, the two interlocutors, Souleymane Bachir Diagne and Jean-Loup Amselle, often look at the issues they are addressing from different angles, and are not always concerned to reach complete agreement; secondly, they frequently take up views that they have developed elsewhere, in their previous books and articles; and, finally, their discussions regularly juxtapose and assess two theoretical and critical currents – postcolonial studies and decolonial thinking – whose outlines, and, above all, concrete differences, are sometimes difficult to discern. The preliminary remarks in my foreword are not an attempt to replace this ‘seeing double’ with a synthetic image, nor do they aim to show how, as they put forward their arguments, our two authors often glance sideways towards other points of view. I will merely note the framework in which postcolonial and/or decolonial studies have grown and developed, and explain that, while they follow their own paths, Souleymane Bachir Diagne and Jean-Loup Amselle are ultimately quite close to such studies; this will make it easier to see what brings them closer to each other, and this book of discussions may help the reader to develop not an overview of all the questions tackled here, but simply a nuanced point of view that goes beyond traditional black and white distinctions. Looking through cultural spectacles Convergences Souleymane Bachir Diagne: a philosophy of translation Jean-Loup Amselle: an uncompromising anthropology From one dialogue to another Notes

4 Introduction Notes

5 1 Universalism in questions Notes

6 2 On the universal and universalism Notes

7 3 Race, culture, identity Merleau-Ponty Class and identity First phase: Notebook of a Return to My Native Land (1939) Second phase: the Discourse on Colonialism (1950) Third phase: the letter to Maurice Thorez (1956) Philosophy and anthropology Universalism as a matrix Notes

8 4 Africanity, Afrocentrism, representation Notes

9 5 The racial ban on representation Exhibit B Rumour Deconstructing race and (skin) colour Notes

10 6 On cultural and linguistic specificities The non-existence of language(s) The reversal of the linguistic stigma For a geopolitics of languages Notes

11 7 On African languages and translation Notes

12 8 An optimism of translation Notes

13 9 On philosophy in Islam and on the question of a ‘West African Islam’ What led me to write about Islam Falsafa in general and the philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal in particular Islam: the West African heritage The ‘Sufi preference’? Notes

14 10 The political instrumentalization of a West African Sufi Islam West African Sufi Islam and ‘Black Islam’ Notes

15 11 West African Sufism revisited

16 12 Thinking/creating Africa Notes

17 13 On the non-existence of Africa … and of Europe African diaspora/Black Atlantic African diaspora and the sixth region of Africa Thinking/creating Africa Notes

18 14 On Africa and pan-Africanism Notes

19 15 Souleymane Bachir Diagne’s ‘desire for Africa’ Notes

20 16 Were human rights born in Africa? Act One Act Two Act Three: Souleymane Kanté and N’Ko Act Four: the Kankan meeting (1998) The aftermath of the Kankan meeting: ‘Charter of Kurukan Fuga’ or ‘Charter of the Mandé’? Notes

21 17 On the charters of the Mandé Addendum on the ‘Charter of the Mandé’ and the ‘Hunters’ Oath’ Notes

22 18 On various contemporary questions White privilege, Whiteness, anti-White racism Intersectionality and universalism Cultural appropriation Non-diversity and communitarianism State racism or racism in the state? Notes

23 Bibliography

24 End User License Agreement

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2 Table of Contents

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Souleymane Bachir Diagne and Jean-Loup Amselle

Translated by Andrew Brown

polity

First published in French as En quête d’Afrique(s): Universalisme et pensée décoloniale , © Albin Michel, 2018

This English edition © Polity Press, 2020

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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4030-3

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Names: Diagne, Souleymane Bachir, author. | Amselle, Jean-Loup, author. | Mangeon, Anthony, writer of preface. | Brown, Andrew (Literary translator), translator.