The Power of Words
In “African Modes of Self-Writing” (Public Culture 14 [winter 2002]: 239–73), Achille Mbembe questions the two currents of thought that have dominated studies on Africa. He proposes a reformulation of the project of modes of selfwriting. As usual, his essay promises to open up a fecund and productive debate. My comments and suggestions will be brief.
On the Critiques of Afro-Radicalism and Nativism
Mbembe offers some answers regarding the attraction exercised by these discourses: the benefits of victimization (political and psychological); the benefits of projection onto the Other (the West) of what is wrong with Africa (we, Africans, are not responsible for the ills that befall us); the fiction of authenticity. They are pertinent, and it will be difficult, from now on, to ignore them. However, it seems to me that they do not exhaust the field of explanations. It would be interesting to go further and pursue a genealogy of these modes of writing “Africa.” When did they start to capture the African intellectual imagination?
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