Dear friends,
If with oral traditions we are able to store, share and transmit great wisdom over millennia is that not a superiority over those who with sophisticated writing and record keeping and huge libraries?
Just a thought.
Cheers.
IBK
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
On 5 Sep 2017, at 6:56 AM, 'Patrick Effiboley' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
This is not atonishing!--
De : Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>
À : "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Cc : Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>
Envoyé le : Lundi 4 septembre 2017 23h18
Objet : Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - African Writing Systems
--Exciting divergence on the same theme from both!
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------From: Kenneth Harrow <harrow@msu.edu>Date: 04/09/2017 21:51 (GMT+00:00)To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - African Writing Systems
Hi gloriaFor me there is afrocentrism and afrocentrism. You are insisting they are the same, and I see a world of difference.The one version, to which I subscribe, means centering one's perspective on the world from an african location. I think of it as being where your feet are located when you are seeing the world. Call that the epistemological point of view. And that has been subject to violence from european colonialists. I agree with your criticisms of it.The second afrocentrism—and to be precise, that which tempels university has been central in generating—is what I described. It might wish to frame it arguments about resurrecting a discarded past that europeans denigrated, but it does it by an act of compensation grounded on european notions of civilization.I firmly believe in this difference, and I think you do not.The latter is, as you state, reacting to what it perceives as denigration and therefore seeks to rectify, to use your term. The former, as I see it, doesn't need to respond to or react to the perceived dominant ideology, or, as soyinka said, the tiger doesn't need to proclaim its tigritude, it just pounces.For a long time now I have felt that it is wrong to begin courses dealing with african culture, literature, cinema, etc, with european versions of africa, against which we then pitch the correct vision. Time to end the responding; time to end sartre's orphee noir dialectical negative. Long time past reading achebe versus conrad. Achebe is achebe, and conrad fades to insignificance if you really read the words of the speakers in things fall apart.Anyway, gloria, I hope we might agree on a fundamental political take on the question, even if disagreeing on what founds the schools of afrocentrism.kenKenneth HarrowDept of English and Film StudiesMichigan State University619 Red Cedar RdEast Lansing, MI 48824517-803-8839
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emeagwali@ccsu.edu>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Monday, 4 September 2017 at 14:25
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - African Writing Systems
--
May I add that another form of imperialism and domination is to try to silence scholars who fill the gap in our knowledge about the African past -scholars who attempt to correct misconceptions and falsehood. Researchers have every right to make such corrections and to do so urgentlyfor the record, " for the heck of it"(Olayinka)- whether in terms of Egypt, Southern Africa or elsewhere in the continent.
Afrocentrism, whether old school or new school, justifiably contests the deliberate or accidental distortion of the African past. It has been a challenge to intellectual imperialism, and hegemony.
I believe Ken got the real motivation of Afrocentrism completely wrong. It is not that "we too are civilized" but rather," you have engaged in intellectual theft and are violating intellectual property rights, and we are developing a new epistemological system to rectify the situation."
The big challenge is to engage in such noble historical activity without swallowing hook, line and sinker, European notions of civilization -notions that Europeans often fulfill through impersonation, I may add.
Professor Gloria EmeagwaliProfessor of History
History DepartmentCentral Connecticut State UniversityGloria Emeagwali's Documentaries onAfrica and the African Diaspora8608322815 Phone8608322804 Fax
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Kenneth Harrow <harrow@msu.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 4, 2017 8:38 AM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - African Writing SystemsThe word civilization is a term of colonial discourse used to justify the domination of one group over another, either intellectually or politically. That has been true especially with africa, and the whole point of things fall apart has been to demonstrate the fallaciousness of the term. Not simply because whites are hypocritical in the use of the term—after all, that was conrad's point in heart of darkness-but more to take a community that has no large buildings or writing system, or any of the other european notions of the attributes of civilization, and to show its civilized values.
The trouble with old school afrocentrism and egyptology is that it swallows european notions of civilization and one-ups it by saying, we too are civilized, and before anyone else.
I will stand by this claim forever. There is nothing worse that adopting european notions of civilization, from latin civitas, and claiming we too are civilized. It is completely as mudimbe has claimed to be trapped by accepting the european frame of epistemology, to be trapped by the notions of value and education generated by the very society that conquered you.
The key word in the posting below is "inferiority."
Last point: conrad saw the hypocrisy in colonialism, but not in the notion of civilization. It took achebe to go that next step because conrad was an outsider with no knowledge of africa people or society, except from the outside and through the colonial lens. Achebe attacked him for his racism, an underlying attribute of the european "civilized" man. I am not using scare quotes to be ironic, but to signal exactly what mudimbe has written.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
Michigan State University
619 Red Cedar Rd
East Lansing, MI 48824
517-803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
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On 04/09/2017, 03:01, "'O O' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>"It now seems convetional for any group that lays claim to civilization to show proof that it has a writing system equal to the West in evolutionary stages or in a completed format"
>
>But isn't a belief in the absence or presence of such a writing system as the determinant of the inferiority or non-inferiority of a civilization suspect logically and psychologically -- and thus a breeding ground for egregious inferiority or superiority complexes that continue to put much of black scholarship or historiography on a defensive and diversionary trajectory that keeps gnawing the (human) spirit?
>
>
>
>> On Sep 3, 2017, at 9:34 PM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@ccsu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> It now seems convetional for any group that lays claim to civilization to show proof that it has a writing system equal to the West in evolutionary stages or in a completed format
>
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