Decolonial tropes obscure complexity and historicity of colonialism-turn outweighs their link

(Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò is Professor of Africana Studies at Cornell University. His research interests and writings cover Philosophy of Law, Social and Political Philosophy, Marxism, and African and Africana Philosophy. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume 57, Spindel Supplement (2019), 135–159)

I need to be very specific in this context because, as I argue, much confusion is occasioned by what I see as unfounded generalizations about the nature of colonialism and an effacing of its specific configuration in even different parts of Africa.5 It suffices to say here that even in a country like Senegal where French colonialism unfolded in two distinct phases—assimilation and association—one can see the differential fruits born of those phases. The differences were deeper still in areas of settler colonialism. No, I have not looked it up, but I would love to see what decolonizing philosophy would look like if it resonates at all for Afrikaner philosophy in South Africa. Similar questions can be raised for Zanzibari philosophy or Hausa philosophy and its iterations in Islam-dominated countries in Africa. What am I hinting at? This: it is all too easy for us to talk about decolonizing philosophy when we take Africa to be our primary referent. But, once we begin to dispel certain assumptions that inform our current discourses, things begin to look rather complicated. Given that much of the focus has turned on language and political philosophy, I elect to ask questions of these two areas in the present discussion. In sum, I shall be arguing that when viewed from the impact of what has been called “the need for conceptual decolonization in African philosophy,” it may have some very problematic, even if unintended, consequences. These consequences are traceable to the very conception of the problem I have just hinted at. First, it may strike some as odd to point out that when it comes to its cultural iterations within which the discourse we examine here falls, the very concept of decolonization is beset with significant muddles. Even among its sophisticated proponents, one hardly is ever clear as to what, ultimately, a fully decolonized—assuming that were possible— philosophy would look like. Here, one finds as many iterations of decolonization as there are thinkers promoting it. Certainly, we cannot go fully into this tendency to muddle in this discussion. My hope is that bringing this to our attention might cool our ardor at throwing it out as a panacea for what we feel ails our discourse in philosophy and culture at large. Second, in the matter of language, as articulated by both Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Kwasi Wiredu, they may be raising or have raised unrealistic expectations regarding what can and/or ought to be done. Third, a trope that emerged to break down the walls that had been erected by Eurocentrism around the very ideas of philosophy may have become a new wall that obscures much more than it discloses. Fourth, the dominant conception of colonialism in the discourse of decolonization is somewhat stilted and does not really take seriously the complexity and historicity of the concept and, this is key, the differential paths of modernity and colonialism in Africa. Finally, I would like to argue that, in the discourse, we play fast and loose with—when we are not pointedly ignoring—the intellectual contributions of thinkers in ex-colonies and their reaction and relation to, and engagement with, the legacy of colonialism and modernity. (139-40)