Genuine intercultural dialogue requires abandoning the colonial superiority complex

Evidence

1 Confession and mea culpa: Tempels understands that a genuine dialogue between Africa and Europe is not possible without acknowledging the major obstacle of the colonial superiority complex and the dogma that the “civilized” have nothing to learn from the “savage.” For Tempels, “coming out” of the Eurocentric mindset is a primary condition to dialogue. In other words, a radical paradigm shift involving a transformation of consciousness and a change of mindset is required to enter in dialogue. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 720

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Connects to decolonial theory and the wider analysis of Tempels’ dialogical method the reader is building.
• DEFINE: Names the first of Tempels’ four features of genuine dialogue: confession as prerequisite.

Related

• Tempels held that true dialogue requires Europeans to first abandon their superiority mindset. (similarity 0.92)
• Tempels’s openness enabled genuine African-Western philosophical dialogue (similarity 0.83)
• The dialogue problem Tempels faced persists in the post-colonial era. (similarity 0.83)
• Openly discussing colonial tensions strengthens rather than weakens intercultural dialogue. (similarity 0.83)
• Tempels embraced dialogue as a categorical imperative for evangelization. (similarity 0.82)
• Senghor embraced Tempels as enabling genuine dialogue between Europe and Africa (similarity 0.82)
• Monologue has dominated colonial encounters since the Hellenistic empire. (similarity 0.82)
• Dialogue between unequal powers can serve domination as easily as liberation (similarity 0.81)
• Tempels’s sincere dialogue effort still assumed Christian superiority over African religions. (similarity 0.81)
• Dialogue between Africa and the West is fraught when power is unequal (similarity 0.80)
• Tempels’s dialogue with Africans arose from failed missionary conversion efforts (similarity 0.80)
• Tempels grounded his interculturally respectful method in direct interpersonal encounter rather than doctrine (similarity 0.80)
• Tempels transcended colonial dichotomies yet still framed Christianity as the standard of humanity. (similarity 0.80)
• Tempels generalized Luba religious conclusions to all Africans, overwriting local voices (similarity 0.80)
• Tempels confessed arriving as a colonial master who silenced Africans. (similarity 0.80)