Hegelian thought framed Africa as outside history to justify colonial supremacy.
Evidence
Central in the invention of distance and its role in the framing of the identities of both colonizer and colonized were the ideas of Hegel (2004) who has it that: … From the earliest historical times, Africa has remained cut off from all contacts with the rest of the world; it is the land of gold, forever pressing in upon itself, and the land of childhood, removed from the light of self-conscious history and wrapped in the dark mantle of night. — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists, 37
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s grievance-circuit work: here is the philosophical founding of the supremacist self-image of the settler dominant group in question. — connects to: Hegel’s philosophy constructed Africa as historyless to justify European conquest — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists:…, 39; The African interior was experienced by Europeans as a realm outside history and purpose. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 496; Hegel’s Philosophy of History denied Africans any harmonious humanity — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 674 (+13 more)
- QUESTION: How literally must the settler-dominant self-image have internalized Hegel’s ahistorical Africa to matter for post-displacement grievance persistence?
Broader Connections
- Hegel’s philosophy constructed Africa as historyless to justify European conquest
#corroborates(0.98) — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists, 39 - Western scholarship’s Hegelian grid cast Africa as manufactured barbarism
#expands(0.88) - Hegel declared Africans incapable of universalist consciousness and therefore naturally enslaved
#expands(0.86) - The idea of Africa as Europe’s Other precedes and justifies colonialism
#corroborates(0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3387 - Hegel’s Philosophy of History denied Africans any harmonious humanity
#expands(0.84) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 674 - Hegel denied Africans the universal category of reason and knowledge of God
#expands(0.84) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 126 - Hegel’s African racial theorizing was echoed by later generations of scholars
#expands(0.83) - Western Africanist scholarship inherited a Hegelian grid of interpretation that denied African rationality
#expands(0.82) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 647 - European colonization of Africa preceded and required the racist ideas justifying it
#complicates(0.82) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 394 - The idea of Africa was invented by Europe as its unknown Other.
#corroborates(0.80) - The African interior was experienced by Europeans as a realm outside history and purpose.
#corroborates(0.78) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 496 - European colonial visions shaped Africa’s conception as much as actual rule
#corroborates(0.76) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3112 - African thought has no concept of history ending or reaching a climax
#complicates(0.76) - Globalism as a framework entrenches rather than disrupts inherited colonial notions of Africa.
#expands(0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3411 - Treating African and Western as historical rather than geographical categories reveals shared philosophical ground.
#complicates(0.74) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 1033