The colonial project has become so well established that it continues to structure the thinking of most humans. Colonial continuity and the cognitive process that accompanies it pervade global power structures, all sectors of activity and social relations. It is in this that colonial thinking, based on imbalance, is a source of permanent tension.
After having demonstrated this process well, the postcolonial theory proposes a form of alternative thought of knowledge on modernity. We invest ourselves in this reflection which is presented as a thought-action with the ambition to contribute to forge a decolonized epistemology.
But the practical meaning of decolonization for Africa must involve all sectors of our social life. In parallel to the decolonization of the mind, we must decolonize :
- Politics, understood as the way we understand living together, in order to get out of the hierarchical relationships inherited from colonization;
- Public governance, which must act in the interest of the common good;
- Education, which is not yet sufficiently appropriate;
- The economy, characterized by extractivism in the South and comparative advantages that keep the countries of the South dependent;
- as well as imported and not sufficiently internalized political systems.
Following Achille Mbembé, our reflection is not based on a perspective as suggested by the crises and precariousness on the continent, but on an optimistic approach. We keep in mind and are inspired by the budding of a new Africa born from the ruins of plural contradictions, and whose fragments are assembled daily by hard-working yet deprived populations.
Literature recommendations:
- Achille Mbembe (2021), Out of the Dark Night: Essays on Decolonization. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1986). Decolonising the mind, East Africain Editional Publisher.