ASCL Seminar: When Africans speak

In this lecture Grâce Ndjako will explore the impact of African anti-colonial critique. As Martinican philosopher Franz Fanon concludes ‘Les Damnés de la Terre' by arguing for a ‘Pensée neuve' and ‘faire peau neuve,’ urging colonised people to think anew. In contemporary philosophy René Descartes’ radical doubt is often regarded as the starting point of modern Western Philosophy, and this radical doubt is then presented as being universal. Ndjako in turn questions the degree to which this radical doubt is actually being upheld as a universal principle. In Discourse on Colonialism the Martinican writer Aimé Césaire posits that colonialism fails to be consistent in upholding the philosophical principles that it claims to defend. It claims to defend Cartesian rationalism against ‘primitive’ though, but doesn’t take the following words of this same Descartes into account: “la raison… est tout entière en chacun”. In the same way it fails to be consistent in maintaining radical doubt as a universal principle for everyone. As when Africans excercise this radical doubt and then go on to formulate a radical critique this is problematized.

Ndjako will explore this phenomenon by looking at the speech Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba gave on the day that the Congo became independent, and by looking at the contemporary and present-day responses to this speech.