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Paper short abstract:

This paper asks how should scholars read 20th c. African political writings today? I argue that it offers insights in six areas: Theory and Practice, Socialist Economics and Humanist Philosophy, Racism and Anti-racism, Social and Political Identity, Violence, and Self-determination and Statehood.

Paper long abstract:

This paper asks how should scholars read African political writers such as Biko, Cabral, Kaunda, Lumumba, Mondlane, Neto, Nkrumah, Nyerere, Senghor, Soyinka, Thiam, Touré, etc. from the present historical moment? The conditions for the emergence of political thought in Africa between 1940-1980 rest on imperialism and colonial governance, shifting geo-political relationships during and after WWII, and a post-WWII transition in social relations of capital. Together, these point to a 'crevice moment' in which the conditions were set for an audible conversation about politics, power, and social change. The content of these writings speaks to the 'Bandung moment' in which ideas of humanism, sovereignty, and self-determination drove resistance against oppressive regimes. David Scott (2004) argues that this project has been foreclosed. According to him contemporary thinkers are faced 'with the virtual deadend of the Bandung project that grew out of the anticolonial revolution…. [This exhausted story] cannot enable us…to give point to the project of social and political change' (57). Instead of devising a new path, this paper examines the components of that earlier path in order to consider what residues exist in contemporary political action that carry anticolonial remnants. I argue that the material is an important record of a heavily theorised political action and make the case that anticolonial thought offers insights in six areas: Theory and Practice, Socialist Economics and Humanist Philosophy, Racism and Anti-racism, Social and Political Identity, Violence, and Self-determination and Statehood.