BOOKS

LEWIS NKOSI

Who is Africa?

IT had seemed, until very recently, that the

granting of political freedom and independence to Africans would solve most of the problems facing these countries. Today nobody who makes it his business to follow, even desultorily, the trend of events in Africa is likely to make so grave a mistake.

Political independence has merely raised and served to isolate issues of far greater importande, solemnity and depth; and the tone of despera- tion with which the Africans are raising some of these questions seems to confirm my view that What we are witnessing on that continent is nothing less than the beginning of an intense, if somewhat anguished, quest by the Africans for themselves. Who are they? What was African society like in the pre-colonial days? Is there a unifying concept underlying these societies? What was there before the white man came and What has remained behind? The last question IS asked with a great deal of agony and rage because unless the African can show that he did possess a reservoir of a unique cultural experi- ence, or even a cosmology which differs radi- cally from that of the West, he seems to feel "worthy, empty-handed, before the other Peoples of the world. That the African intellectuals are going to be a trifle quarrelsome while engaged in this quest for identity and selfhood is to state the obvious; none the less, this should not conceal the impor- tance of such an undertaking, for it has become Only too clear that Africans will not be indepen- dent until they have achieved cultural indepen- dence.

'Africa.' Tom Mboya once remarked sulkily to his listeners, `no longer desires to be spoken for by self-appointed 'spokesmen. Africa desires to Speak for herself.' One such spokesman for Africa is a ferociously literate young Ghanaian, Dr. Willie Abraham, a one-time Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, now professor of philosophy at the University of Ghana. In his new book, The Mind of Africa,* a very quarrelsome title for any book to bear and one that immediately invites dispute, Dr. Abraham .Poses serious problems for the European psycho- logist studying Africa, and does this by con- structing transcendentalist snares all over the Place. He not only claims for Africa a cosmology Which differs radically from that of the West, but sefems to conclude from this that it is a result o a different psychic organisation which is u.n_lquelY African. Might not the psyche of the '‘trieans turn out to be quite distinct, he asks, (WeidenfeldMIND OF AFRICA. By W. E. Abraham- and Nicolson, 21s.)

and not really support the findings of European psychologists who have studied Europe?

Dr. Abraham takes the Akan society as his paradigm of the African society. 'The Akan,' he tells us, 'did not conceive the world in terms of the supposition of an unbridgeable distance between two worlds, the temporal and the non- temporal.' In the Akan view man is an encap- sulated spirit partaking of the same divine nature as the Supreme God, and in contrast to the Christian view of animated clay, the Akan man is a spiritual entity, a lesser deity in a hierarchy of spiritual beings. and in that sense uncreated. Between the Supreme God and man lie the intermediary deities through which man. while on earth, is in touch with the Supreme One. Since man is also spiritual, essentially of the same nature as God, his sense of awe and reverence in the Divine Presence is not as acute' as if he beheld an object which he aspired to become. Therefore the Akan are not worshipful in the Christian sense. In this society what dis- tinguishes one man from another is the set of- duties he is required to perform to achieve his destiny on earth.

Dr. Abraham then goes on to show how the Akan have resolved their psyche into various aspects. A man's okra is the spiritual element that is antecedent to his existence on earth and bears his destiny, ill or good; the smistint which is educable by precept and punishment is respon- sible for character and establishes the basis for moral and personal responsibility; and the basis for the kinship of clan is mOgya, passed to the child through the mother; and so it goes on.

It is true, as Dr. Abraham seems to argue here, that the way a people has resolved its psyche explains a lot about their behaviour, about the moral sanctions imposed upon human. action in that society, and he is right to urge African leaders to study the effects such theories may have on modern political structures they seek to construct; but to conclude that the existence of such .theories automatically argues for the presence of a racially different psychic organisation which is typically African seems to me to be inviting all sorts of troubles. Dr. Abraham has nowhere convinced us of the existence of an African mind. Even if one were to admit, which is very difficult to do, that the Akan society serves as a paradigm for all Afri- can societies, it is difficult to see what purpose is served by describing these societies as though they were static. This becomes obvious when one is confronted with African traditional art.

Elsewhere Dr. Abraham urges African writers and artists to employ traditional forms in order to enrich their modern works. Of the African novelists writing in English and French, be re- marks impatiently: Unless there is something African. which the normal run of English and French literature does not provide, and which the African public, even when cosmopolitan, needs, one cannot understand why the African novelists should feel it their proper mission to address themselves to the African public.

This important question, which needed to be asked, is answered in a paper by Dr. J. Newton Hill, contained in a volume titled Pan-Africanisni Reconsidered,f which, ideally, ought to be read as a companion to Dr. Abraham's speculative work, because it contains papers and comments

by scholars groping for answers to the same questions Dr. Abraham raises. Dr. Hill answers the question of whether the modern African or American Negro can still be true to the African idiom in art, by saying he cannot. 'An African poem, mask, or fetish carved today,' he argues.

'because of the impact of our modern industrial and scientific economy, would be necessarily "dc-consecrated."' And that really is the crux of the matter. The African sculptor achieved the art of his invisible world, of his abstract world, with ease, since he believed in that world, Dr. Hill tells us. It does seem to me, therefore, that the modern African's scepticism has rendered him just as alien as the European to tbe 'sacred forms' of his art. He writes or sculpts as an out- sider.

Despite the talk of the African Personality, of the 'African Mind,' or the psychic traits that are supposed to make up the African, the en- counter with Europe has produced a new man altogether in Africa. I believe Mr. Mphahlele put his finger upon it when he chose to call our African personality this very conflict, the per- petual quest for self, for synthesis, out of Africa and Europe. The choice is no longer one of whether to sit on either of the two stools, but one of either risking falling between the two or not sitting at all.

Pan-Africanisin Reconsidered contains valu- able documents and records of exchange between Africans and Affierican Negroes who participated in a conference convened by the American Society of African Culture at the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1960. The result is a rich variety of speculative thought and ideas on diverse problems which are agitat- ing Africans at the moment. At the conference, for instance, there were discussions on what might be the basis for Pun-African unity. Would it be the existence of an 'African Mind,' or simi- lar traditional institutions, or sheer political necessities? There were attempts to see how tradi- tional institutions could be adapted to speed up economic growth or to form a base for modern political structures in such a way as to minimise the amount of psychic damage to a traditional people who might find themselves catapulted into the technological twentieth-century societies without conforming to Marx's timetable.

Whatever the results of these speculations might be, it is obvious that the turmoil in Africa is nowhere near the end.

t PAN-A FRICANiSkt RECONSIDERED. Edited by the American Society of African Culture. (California University Press and CUP.. 56s.)