The Demise of the Inhuman by Monteiro-Ferreira Ana

Author:Monteiro-Ferreira, Ana
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2014-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Toward an Afrocentric Critique

We must not forget that postmodernism is Eurocentric in both its logic and foundations. Although deconstruction is a permanent, ceaseless activity, it does not annul the binary oppositions that sustain the very process of deconstruction. In fact, postmodernism legitimizes the other as the one without whom the I does not exist in the same way that it legitimizes différance. The distinctive trace that engenders meaning requires difference, and difference requires two contiguous opposite elements to compare: affirmation that exists only by virtue of negation, the physical as opposed to the metaphysical, like body and mind, material and immaterial, as well as all that functions within a web of differentiations. The center, therefore, is not lost: its inhabitants have just moved, temporarily though, historically exchanging places with the periphery, which only means that the inhabitants of the center may change but the mansion will not move.

In the sense that they problematize the totalizing and hegemonic perspective of Eurocentric knowledge, postmodern theories and methodologies must be regarded as companions to Afrocentricity but not privileged in pursuing the liberation of the colonized mind.

Indeed Afrocentric and postmodern paradigms depart from some common premises. They both are (1) a critique of any hegemonic perspective and dogmatic commitment; (2) a critique of any methodology that objects to searching for knowledge from different perspectives; (3) a critique of any normative truth as universal paradigm; (4) the sense that any manifestation of art must be seen as a product of social, historical, linguistic, as well as all nonindividual determinants that we call expressions of culture; (5) the nonhierarchical recognition of every cultural subject; (6) a critique of any oppressive paradigm: be it race, ethnicity, gender, or class.

However, while Afrocentricity subverts the entire Western structure, postmodernism merely challenges the place and the hierarchical order of the relationships of the interveners in the European project of modernity. Afrocentricity is in fact a holistic theory of knowledge, an epistemological relocation in African cosmological and ontological dimensions, in a cosmogony situated in the pre-European philosophical thought of the most ancient civilization known to this day: the classical African thought heir to the teachings of Kemetic philosophers. Asante’s Afrocentricity is a paradigmatic demise of the Eurocentric monolithic perspective of the world grounded and structured around a system of philosophical and functional parameters that recuperate the humanistic and pluralistic values of humanity; it represents a challenge and a rejection of the Western modern thought structure in search for a contemporary humanism.

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