Once again, my commendations to the two sons of Africa who have invited us to participate in their conversation through cyber space. My first resolve upon reading it was to make reading of Prof. Diouf’s work a priority, a task to which I look forward with relish.
Abosede George and Cary Fraser have raised most of the questions I had. However, I will pick up on Fraser’s question the peculiarity of Europe as an actor in both African history and the academic practice of writing it, and link it to the question of audience and language, as well as the thorny linguistic question in the writing Africa’s history. If the African historians’ work is more accessible to Westerners – particularly the English and French speakers – than it is to Africans, then I agree with Abosede George that the ethics and political imperative of the historians’ craft becomes more urgent than would be usual for griots or African artists performing in African languages.
For this reason, I believe Achille Mbembe does not deserve credit for his famous work, On The Postcolony, which was published in English and in French. His work did not offer a space for Africans to reconsider how they may be misusing the status as the victim for moral capital; instead, it humiliated the most vulnerable of Africans – the regular citizens – for their susceptibility to the theatrics of African dictators. It was particularly annoying that the audience invited to partake in Mbembe’s pessimism was largely Western. And the fact that during his campaigns, Sarkozy recognized Mbembe and Alain Mabankou for their “contributions” to the French language and lamented their limited recognition within the hexagon is, in my view, proof of Mbembe’s failure to calculate the global stage on which his work would be read, and particularly the role that European audiences play.
Meanwhile, Mbembe does not subject French citizens and their leaders to the same treatment. Mbembe’s book was largely silent on the French “Papas” de Gaulle, Pompidou, d’Estaing and Chirac who could have easily won Pulitizer or other prizes for drama by just being themselves! French citizens also participate in theatrical narratives, particularly that about their country being the home of human rights, and are therefore none the wiser as gross violations of Africans’ dignity, economic autonomy and very survival are orchestrated from the Champs Elysees.
On another note, it would have been interesting to hear more about Prof. Diouf’s experiences in his writing on Lat Dior. The African elite of the early colonial times are interesting figures because of their complex relationship with the colonizers that was simultaneously collaborative and combative. As a result, they would probably not be popular with the nationalists of the 60’s who understandably wanted a romantic African historical narrative in which African heroes were flawless. I think the tension between the unpleasant historical realities and the human imperative for Africans to heal from our painful history is one of the most intriguing and interesting challenges that African historians – and all intellectuals – confront today.
That said, I encourage PONAL and its esteemed contributing scholars to keep up the good work. Or, to adopt (outgoing?) Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki’s campaign slogan, kazi iendelee (let the work continue). Wandia