World Africa, Africa Point and many other magazines have become relays of African thought rising in the Francophone cultural area. We have been witnessing for some years in Africa the emergence of what preceded our French revolution: the century of enlightenment!
These French-speaking intellectuals condemn, in the words of Achille Mbembé, “the ideology of development and the discourses on poverty and assistance to the prisms of which many read Africa have paved the way for a terrible anthropological or even ontological impoverishment. Africans “.
In the wake of their elders, his African neo-thinkers call for awareness, or even insurgency through education. They propose to follow a new path, which they will have freely chosen as supports Felwine Sarr. They refuse the attractive offers made by France to reflect on a new era of Francophonie (Alain Mabanckou). They are joined by some presidents who, like them, refuse more and more, this approach of assistanat detrimental to the African renaissance. We think of the Ghanaian President, Nana Akufo-Addo.
NGOs are being blamed by these intellectuals because some of them carry this gene, voluntarily or involuntarily, misery! After blackness and Africanity, Africa does not know a new form of intellectual emancipation “Africanitude” that could lead to greater independence! Achille Mbembé summarized it to me in these terms: “The big question is the advent of Africa to its own project as it participates in a planetary deal.”
The challenge is indeed to address a humanist audience. It is not to outbid not to be overwhelmed by another phenomenon of radicalization worrying, embodied by Kémi Séba.
This seems to me a prerequisite and sine qua non for a better dialogue between civilizations. It is vital and saving to support this stream of thought. It is also in the interest of France to have a stronger interlocutor, convinced of his strength. UNESCO must be at the forefront in supporting this current of intellectuals as it was in the 1960s when it was question of the reappropriation of African history by Africans. Today, this agency does not aspire to become a leader because it is too politicized and intellectual leaders are wary! What a pity !
Africa is everywhere in the world with its diasporas but paradoxically, one would be tempted to say that it is nowhere. Both the contradictory forces are still great today. These include insurrectional intellectuals: they declare to free themselves from the former French colonial power and yet write open letters to their Presidents. This was the case of Alain Mabanckou with the election of Sassou Nguesso! They want to build their own model of thought but they publish in magazines held by big French bosses! Let us also take care that these intellectuals who have made the song of an Africa open to the world (Achille Mbembe and his concept of Afropolitain -) do not attract them radicalists! For this is the danger that lurks for this intellectual current, it is its radicalization, its difficulty in finding a necessary balance between the decolonization of minds and openness to the world. The challenge is indeed to address a humanist audience. It is not to outbid not to be overwhelmed by another phenomenon of radicalization worrying, embodied by Kémi Séba. It is not to forget the ideas of cultural diversity that they put them in front of the stage, it is not to confine themselves in destructive intellectual facilities! By mischief, are not these French-speaking intellectuals the product of those they seek to rid themselves of?
This current of intellectual emancipation is in progress, but its foundations are still fragile! Undoubtedly, the Dakar workshops deserve our full attention. Dakar, hitherto the symbol of French Africa, can become the capital of the African Renaissance not only in the form of a statue but also by the diffusion of the thought of these new intellectuals. Another Africa is slowly waking up, still discreet, but so promising for the humanity of tomorrow!
“When a tree falls, we hear it, when the forest grows, not a sound”
